Today I will tell you about one of the possible ways to build a complex pattern for the body of a rag doll (or any other toy, the principle is the same).
I'm talking about the draping method — that is, building a pattern on a mannequin instead of drawing it on a sheet of paper. This method is widely used by designers in design of new clothes, and we will use it to create a toy!

So, here is what we will need:

• a blank mannequin (I cut it out of foam);
• draping fabric for preparation of the pattern;
• scissors;
• pins;
• thread;
• a needle;
• a pencil;
• paper.

Optional, but convenient — a toothed wheel to transfer lines from fabric to paper or copy paper.

It is better to keep the head, the arms and the legs of the doll close at hand to check the proportions.
I used my Sophie blank head with a height of the bust of 7.5 cm I wanted to make a doll exactly like this — with a narrow waist and a round booty, and as you can see, to calculate and draw such a complex cut on a piece of paper is a difficult task! And why bother with calculations when you can make it easier? So I prepared a model of the future body of foam.
I use exclusively for preparing patterns the white cloth that you see in the photo, I won't use it for sewing the body. In general, real fabric of the future product or a fabric with similar properties is often used to design clothes to understand how it will behave in the finished product. You can use any suitable flexible fabric as the draping fabric for the toy, as long as it doesn't stretch, doesn't fray and doesn't deform too much.
It is much easier to drape fabric on a small toy than on a human mannequin, and we will skip some operations, including layout of the mannequin.
Wrap our blank with fabric, not very tight, and fix it with pins. It is important to secure the fabric along the front and back center line, the fabric mustn't slip in the process.

And then gently pin and sew the fabric directly on the workpiece until the material firmly fits the body. The main thing — do not stretch and do not deform the fabric in the process!

I didn't sew "thee bottom" to the blank: it has a simple shape and you can just put the blank on a sheet of paper and outline it with a pencil.
I tried it again with the head. I like it!

Next, we draw out all of the seams with a pencil on both sides.

And then cut and tear these seams.

The result is these fabric "patterns".

They don't look very neat and they are not quite symmetrical (the latter is possibly due to the asymmetry of the layout). But that's okay, we will fix it now! Run the outline of the pattern with a pencil on paper, determine the center line and choose the side you like the most :) If you have a wheel for lines transfer or even a sheet of copy paper, you can facilitate your work and do without cutting our pattern strictly along the contour. Just transfer it on paper through the fabric. (I was too lazy to look for these useful tools around the house and, as always, used what I had at hand) The "star" dart that is at the back waist of the doll would be difficult to sew, so I divided the pattern of the back in the lower and the upper halves.
And here it is — our pattern!

And the final work:

As you can see, in the end, I replaced the biscuit porcelain parts — the head, the arms and the feet — with glazed parts. I like them more.

A scan of a ready pattern with a ruler for scale is attached to the article :)

I say goodbye to the readers, but I do not disappear!

Stay tuned, we have more to tell you!

Tatiana.