Restringing

 A few of my dolls have needed restringing for a long time. With my first doll that I bought in 2010 in a thrift shop, I could see that she needed to be restrung but I knew nothing about it so I put it off. Later I got more dolls, and although most of them have tight stringing, some were loose. I read people's posts about it and watched videos about Sasha doll restringing, but was scared to do it myself. Yesterday I finally got the courage! As I mentioned before, my inspiration works in mysterious ways.

I started with a baby doll that I bought recently and even did not show here yet. The baby boy doll looked okay when it arrived, but after a few days I realized that his left hand was moving strangely. When I checked the arm, it fell off because the arm string was old and broke. 

I bought string and other tools that I would need a long time ago, so I began fixing him.

The first attempt to restring the baby wasn't successful. It was too loose and I wasn't sure what was wrong, so I put the doll aside. 
I drank some tea, watched the video, and read the notes from this post again. I was thinking through the process and what went wrong, so I decided to try one of my older dolls instead.

I chose Yasmina because she could barely stand on her feet. I bought her in 2017, and she was a little loose from the beginning but it got worse with time. It was extremely difficult to to pose her for pictures, and she spent most of her time sitting on the shelf, instead of standing up.
My next attempt, with Yasmina, worked better. With my son's help I was able to replace the loose old string and put a new one in. It was difficult, but we managed. I learned how to do the knot. We also did it twice, since the first time the tension was too loose again. We changed it, and the second time it was great!

Then I restrung my first doll, Velvet/Sophia. Everything went smoothly this time. There was a funny moment too. From the beginning with my first Sasha I was wondering why there was an string end coming from the leg holes. The leg was attached to it anyway and I didn't know back then how Sashas are connected inside, so I did not bother anyone with questions. When I detached her arms and legs, I saw that the old string was actually broken off from her neck. Here is a picture. The poor girl stayed with a broken string for so many years. :(

I figured out through trial and error that these string sizes worked for my dolls' arms and legs the best.

For the 16'' Sasha dolls, I made the loop for the legs approximately 34 cm long, and the loop for the arms approximately 7 cm long. 

For 12'' baby dolls, approximately 15 cm for the legs, and 3 cm for the arms.

The numbers are the circumference of each loop after it's been connected.

Below are pictures of my three dolls feeling much better and posing well! I am very satisfied and even proud. Also, it is better to have someone to assist with stringing. I am very thankful for my son's help.
At some point it was unbelievably hard to try to do it with only two hands.