The April issue of Antique Doll Collector magazine is out, which means my final installment of James’ story and the accompanying patterns are now available for you to use. ❤

Emma Blue and Sarah Jane were quite excited when this envelope arrived in yesterday’s mail from the subscription department of Antique Doll Collector magazine! The pretty quilt block stamps made it feel like the magazine had been giftwrapped!

You’ll find my article on pages 38-44 of the April issue. The patterns themselves are on pages 43 and 44. To use the patterns the first thing you will need to do is to enlarge the pattern back to 100%. The short answer to “How much do I enlarge them?” is 14.3%, which is a pretty awkward percentage that you may not be able to program into your printer. If you enlarge the patterns by 15% they will be fairly close to my original size. “Why do I have to go to the trouble of enlarging them?” Good question! I provided the patterns to ADC at full size, but due to the space considerations, and the physical size of the magazine, the graphic designer needed to shrink the patterns down to fit into the allotted space.

When you enlarge the pattern to 100% of it’s original size it should fit perfectly on an 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper. It’s very important to remember that I made these patterns to specifically fit a 17 inch Izannah Walker boy. If you would like to use the patterns to dress a different size Izannah Walker doll, or another type of mid-nineteenth century doll, such as a papier-mache, china, parian, or rag doll you will need to completely alter the size and fit of the patterns. Always, always, always make a muslin to check the fit of any pattern you are making from antique fabric!

Now that I have given you the short answer “how much do I enlarge the pattern?” let me walk you through how to get that answer:

1. Measure the 1 inch key that is shown on pages 43 and 44 along with the pattern. The key measures 7/8th of an inch.
2. 7/8 x 8/7 = 1
3. 8/7 = 1.1428571429 so the pattern needs to be 114.3% (rounded up to the nearest tenth of a percent) of the size it was printed in the magazine, another way to say that is enlarge the pattern by 14.3%
4. To double check your work 0.875 x 1.1428571429 = 1

I’ll be posting some more tips for using these patterns in the near future. ❤

A fun tidbit. Looking through the open doorway of the main floor “Bedroom”* can you spy the stenciled walls that inspired the stenciling in the second floor chamber, that the doll’s use as their bedroom, in their own very tall house? I painted both the full size walls, and the miniature versions, using historic stencil patterns.

*(The only chamber actually called a “bedroom” in the 18th century because these tiny rooms adjoining kitchens, next to the cooking hearths, were just large enough to hold a bed and little else.)