Maplelea Doll hips again

 

This is 'Elise'. She has arrived in a wheel chair!

Why is she in a wheel chair?

Both of her hip sockets are almost fully torn out of her body.

This happens to these dolls when the thread stitching the plastic hip socket to the fabric body gets worn down by movements at the hip.

To re-stitch the hips you need to remove the legs from the plastic hip sockets.

You will need to remove the head and unstuff the body to complete this repair.

There are a few stitches at the top of the neck that need to be picked out.

This doll's head is attached with string. Some are attached with cable ties.

Undo the knots or cut the cable tie to get the head off.

Stitch the hip socket back on to the body.

Here one hip is done.

This is a tension cup or stringing cup. You will have to fish this out of the leg. Warming the vinyl up with a hair dryer and using needle nosed plies to pull it out usually works nicely.

New elastic is secured with a big knot and then you push the whole thing back in the leg.

The leg should look like this.

Now you thread the new elastic through your nicely stitched hip socket, pull it and knot it.

Restuff the body, attach the head and....