When Grandpa Babysits: A New Source for Mini Fabric

Over the last few months, Mom has been talking about this idea for a doll. We decided that the baby must have gone home before Grandpa dozed off (no child endangerment here!) Despite having a very clear idea of what the grandfather doll should look like, Mom took a while to start working on him. As it turned out, Mom's delay meant that the perfect fabric fell into her lap!

The dolly in blue was an undressed porcelain piece we bought at Philadelphia and costumed ourselves. The teddy bear is the one from my flocked bear tutorial. The book (cover) came from Jean Day, and the rest of the miniatures were in our stash.

The fabric for the grandfather's trousers was a lucky thrift store find. A cotton shirt in the mens' section was the perfect weight and scale for miniatures! We always check out the tie section for tiny silk prints, but hadn't thought to look anywhere else.

Here's a close up of the shirt fabric turned miniature trousers. I love that the stripes are made up of even smaller dots! Finding any in-scale patterned fabric can be difficult, but it's particularly hard to find patterned fabric suitable for men. We'll definitely be scoping out the shirt sections of thrift shops more carefully from now on!