Cloth Doll Patterns

I received an email today asking for help with a certain cloth doll pattern. The instructions were so badly written that it was nearly impossible to understand what you were supposed to do. That's one of my pet peeves, patterns that are hard to figure out, or have steps missing. What's funny though is that some popular designers can write doll patterns this way and people still buy them. They complain about it to their friends but still patronize the designer. I'm guilty of this myself! Another thing that drives me nuts are patterns (either cloth doll or quilts) that don't fit on the paper so the designer tells you to add 1/4 inch (or whatever) to each side. I invariably forget and then I've wasted material.

I have one pattern that completely forgets to tell you how to attach the hands, which actually had to be sewn inside the sleeves and then turned inside out. I had to really think through what the best way to do this would be. But I shouldn't have had to - I mean, if I was making a doll of my own design it would be one thing, but I wasn't. I was using a cloth doll pattern that I bought, it should have been complete.

Being an internet junkie, I belong to a lot of doll lists. On them I have seen a lot of designers, usually new designers, ask for pattern testers to make their doll before they take their pattern to market. That makes sense to me, if you have people with different skill levels making the same design you can cover all the bases as you fine tune your pattern. Sure would like to see everyone do this!

Ah well. Maybe I'm asking too much.