Repairing my ABBA Dolls

I've had my ABBA dolls for 8 years now. In those 8 years, the poor guys have become quite old, floppy, raggedy, and tattered. I've never liked how broken they've gotten over the years, but it's never stopped me from continuing to make them new outfits and costumes.
Considering how banged up my dolls have gotten, I decided it was time to do something about it. While there's nothing that I can really do to fix up their faces besides patching up the holes with glue like I've been doing all these years, I can give them new bodies. I've never been happy with their bodies because 1. the proportions are weird, like they have weirdly shaped shoulders and necks, as well as strange hands, 2. I sewed them weirdly, and several of them while being the same pattern, turned out taller than others, while others turned out super short, and 3. they have painted on undies. I have no idea what 8-years-ago version of me was thinking at the time, but they've become one of the most annoying things to deal with when making costumes. Having new bodies with fresh, new fabric, and decent proportions would be amazing.

I think I've mentioned on the blog before, but I'm not entirely sure, that Walmart had stopped selling the particular fabric I used for the dolls years ago. I have no idea why they stopped, but I couldn't get skin-colored fabric for a long time, which is why I started getting my skin-tone fabric at Hobby Lobby. Just a few weeks ago, I happened to be at Walmart where they were selling 1 yard bundles of these particular fabrics. So I snatched them up, and that's pretty much why I decided it was time to remake their bodies.
This was quite an emotional project for me. As I'm a very sentimental person, I found it quite hard to rip their heads off and plant them on new bodies. But I got through it, and I couldn't be happier. :)

It feels so good seeing them all the same height and size instead of whatever happened with their original bodies. When making the pattern for their new bodies, I made sure to keep the measurements pretty close to the original bodies so all the costumes that I've spent years recreating will still fit, but I figure I'll have to do some adjustments with all the costumes to get them to fit properly.

My dolls now have thumbs!! 

Their feet are still the same shape and size as the previous bodies.  I mainly did this because 1. it  is so hard to try and make proper looking feet and 2. I didn't want to have to make all their shoes again!

I actually ran out of Poly-Fil stuffing while in the middle of this project. I wanted to get more at Walmart, but for two weeks straight they haven't had any in stock. I had just enough leftover to finish Bjorn's body, but for Benny I didn't really have anything. Technically I could have reused the stuffing from the old bodies, but that would be too heartbreaking! So I resorted to quilt batting. I had to tear it up and make it feel like stuffing, only it's so different. The texture is super rough and almost sticky, and it also gets super hard when it's packed together. I broke two stuffing sticks trying to stuff Benny's arms. It ended up looking and feeling just like regular stuffing when I fully stuffed Benny's body, but man, it was hard getting it to work! I'm definitely not doing that again, haha.
Also coincidentally, when I first finished Bjorn in October of 2011, it was during a week long or so power outage, and when I finished his new body, we also had a power failure...

Anyways, I am super happy with how the new doll bodies came out, it's so nice seeing them in better condition and I'm glad I was able to take on this project.
I also filmed the process and put out a video on my YouTube channel, so you can watch that if you'd like.

I hope you enjoyed this post, and I'll see you all in the next one. :3