Category: Art Dolls

I selected a red plaid, a black-on-black print, a gold-on-gold print, and an off-white cotton sateen for my doll dress. I knew I’d be adding some decorative stitching, and so I stayed modest in my print selection, choosing nothing too busy-looking. I didn’t have a piece of red plaid wide enough for my skirt, and so I had to piece it. I divided my pattern in half for the front panel, and in quarters for the two back panels, adding 1/4 inch seam allowances.

Matching a plaid is a bit tricky. I find the easiest way to do it is to center my front panel on the plaid, cut it out, and then fold under my side seam allowances. Then I place the front panel on another section of plaid, right sides up, and move it around until the pattern is aligned. Being careful to note where the seam line is, I gently flip the fabric over, right sides together, and pin along the seam line. I then hand baste along the seam line, open it up to double check I have it in the right place, and then I sew it by machine. I also find it is easiest to choose a line in the plaid design to use as a guide for each seam line and cutting line, whenever possible.

Instead of trying to machine stitch a decorative stitch directly on these tiny dress pieces, I cut my fabric out in a larger-than-necessary size first, a square or a rectangle, and did my decorative work on those. I did this for my decorative stitches and for the two pin tucks I made in the front of my bodice. I made see-through plastic templates from a plastic quilter’s template sheet for the pattern pieces that needed decorative work, and marked my seam lines with a permanent marker on the plastic. Then, after I did my decorative stitching and my pin tucks, I positioned my templates over my work, until I liked their placement, and then drew around them with a marking pencil. Then I cut out my fabric in the final dress pattern shape.

I got to try out my mirror stitch function on my new sewing machine too. On the vest, I flipped my leaf design so the two sides of the vest would mirror each other. Pretty cool. I used tear-away stabilizer under my fabric and Fusi-Knit interfacing, where necessary, for the decorative stitching to avoid puckering. I used rayon thread on top for the decorative stitching, with regular cotton sewing thread in my bobbin.

Now that I’ve got my doll dress muslin done, I can use the pieces from my own, custom dress and add elements from other patterns, adjusting them to fit, according to my dress muslin. You can see in the photo above, that I’ve taken the pieces from my dress muslin, and traced them to make pattern pieces on paper. Once I have my own basic pattern pieces in the right sizes and shapes, I can take pattern pieces for additional elements, like sleeves, vests, and aprons, such as those from commercial patterns, and adapt them to fit my own pattern pieces. This is something you can do with clothing patterns for people as well.

In this case, I’m using my own bodice and skirt pattern pieces, and I am adding sleeves, a vest, and an apron from an adorable Brown House Doll pattern. Be sure to check out Bev Brown’s designs if you like to sew clothing for dolls. They are super. I adapted my bodice and skirt from doll dresses Max came up with before.

Here, I’ve redrafted the BHD pieces to fit my dress. I do this by tracing the elements I want to adapt, and laying the tracings over my pattern pieces. Then I can redraw the lines to fit my pattern pieces. The top of the sleeve needed to be redrawn to fit the armhole of my pattern. The vest had to be completely redrawn according to the lines I marked on my bodice for my neckline, armholes, and waistline. The apron should work as it is, but I will be adding a row of machine-embroidered fabric on the lower edge, which means I may need to widen the sides of the apron to compensate for the amount I will need to turn under on the raw edges.

Making another muslin at this point is not a bad idea, but, instead I will leave my seam allowances a little wide, in case I need to adjust them. I made some changes to my bodice that I haven’t retested. Next comes fabric selection.