Ten things I've learned about doll pattern-making

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am designing a more three dimensional jointed doll. In the process I have learned a thing or two:

1. Trying to learn Adobe Illustrator to trace my patterns and give them clean magical lines without a teacher was a big waste of my time. 
2. Don't convince yourself that pinning a bunch of Adobe Illustrator tutorials on Pinterest is a good use of time. It is just procrastinating and pinning.
3. However, Pinterest is extremely useful for studying other people's dolls and how they are constructed. That is not procrastinating, that is studying.
4. Tracing paper, quilting rulers, a flexible curve, a pencil, a medium tipped black marker, a circle template and a copying machine are the best tools.
5. Know when to use tracing paper and when to use a copy from the printer. Tracing paper is good for flipping and creating symmetry or making a major change to an existing shape. Drawing on a xerox is good for tweaks, because the existing shape stays accurately the same.
6. If you get a piece of fabric that after a bunch of tweaking might be just the right shape, copy the piece of fabric with the copier and then trace for your pattern piece.
7. Clean up often, otherwise you can't tell what is the current arm or a rejected arm.
8. Doll pattern making requires more patience and accuracy than doll clothes pattern making, but when you are done you have something that will be fun and useful to make dolls for quite a while. I am hoping that happens by the end of today or this weekend.
9. A pattern for one dress does not give the same sense of satisfaction. 
10. Try not to think about the cost of the materials you are using. If you enjoy work in the material you will be using, you get a better sense of the issues, ie fraying, or stretching, or bulk, or final look and appeal.

I should have something more fun than the wastebasket later today or tomorrow.