Batgirl Doll joins the house

We have a family of homemade/kid-made dolls at our house and the family added a member a few weeks ago.

This is Batgirl doll.

As you can imagine from our Batgirl Halloween costume, someone in our house is really into Batman/Batgirl/DC Comic superheroes right now.  Grace designed this doll, meaning she told me what features she wanted our basic doll pattern to have:  black clothes, bat symbol, mask, and red hair.  She did all of the drawing and fabric cutting on this project, had the foresight to make the back of the head from red felt 'so that it would look like more real hair under there', and supervised all my sewing from about two inches away from the needle.  

I'm not sure where I got this pattern from - its just drawn on white paper so its possible I drew it.
I can't really remember.    

We've used it for kid-gifts along the way and we add to our family whenever the Imaginary Play of the Month needs a doll.   Sometimes I make them, sometimes the kids do, they only take an hour or two from start to finish so they're great for a rainy Saturday project.  Sometimes we sew with cotton, turn, and stuff.  Other times (like Batgirl) we use felt and just stitch it together around the outside (skipping the turn-right-side-out step before stuffing).  Either way works.  

Other members of the family include:

Rapunzel...

... Elsa...

... the two original members of the family who are named
Nettie and Jewel-ee ( not to be confused with the more common 'Julie')...

... and their two princes.

I know... sooooo handsome, right?  :)

Here's the whole family so far.  Pretty eclectic, but what family isn't?!

I post this not because the design or sewing is stellar but because in a few years when the girls are into clothes and hair and makeup and boys (ack!), I can look back and remember when we used to whip up doll family members to fit their imaginary play.  Leah and Grace don't see funny shaped, somewhat lumpy dolls with odd hair and marker drawn clothes - they see dolls they made with Mom so they could be creative and play pretend. 

If I was placing bets, the next additions to the family might go by the names of Luke, Leia, Han and Chewy.  That could get interesting...