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I usually use wool blend felt for the hair on my Dress Up Bunch dolls. It’s durable, easy to work with, and relatively inexpensive and it has a nice, classic look – even when I use non-traditional hair colors.

But you don’t have to use felt.

If you scroll through some of the photos in the Shiny Happy People group on Facebook you’ll find adorable dolls made with printed cotton fabric hair and cuddly fleece hair – but you can also use fun faux fur!

If you use a regular “hair-colored” fur you can make a doll with pretty realistic hair. If you use a more wild and funky fur (like the one I used) you can make a fun pixie. 🙂

Here are some tips to help you out. . .

Cut out the fur just like you would cut out the felt. Make sure the nap of the fur is running in the correct direction. To minimize flying fur bits, cut just through the fabric backing, as shown in this video – Intraux to Working with Faux Fur.

I stuck the fur piece for the bangs down to the top of the head using a glue stick, then appliqued the bangs edge with a wide and fairly open zigzag stitch.

You can see how to do that applique in this video – How to Applique Faux Fur.

After you get the bangs sewn in place, sew up the doll just like normal. You just need to make sure to smooth the fur into the seams. Here’s what the back of the head looks like – the fur is smoothed down between the back of the head piece and the back of the body piece.

You can see how to do this in the Intraux to Working with Faux Fur video.

Here’s how it looks when you clip the doll front to the doll back.

The fur on both pieces is smoothed between the layers.

Fur can be fat and difficult to pin. Sewing clips work really well with it.

And here’s my finished wild-haired pixie. 🙂

A couple more things. . .

I used Poppy’s bangs with this doll and they come down pretty close to her eyes. If you’re using a very long fur you might want to choose a doll with a higher hairline.

I skip the pigtails or the buns when I work with fur. They just don’t work very well with that fabric.

You can read about my favorite source for faux fur here.

If you like these dolls and want to make your own, you can find all the patterns for the Dress Up Bunch dolls and clothes here.

Happy sewing!

Best,
Wendi