Doll Clothes Factory

Last week was Doll Clothes Factory at our house.  The girls were asking for new dresses for their dolls so I said we'd turn the sewing room into a doll clothes factory for one week and see what we could accomplish.

I started with this book, which I've had for some time.

Its very well done - flat construction techniques so you don't have to sew around itty bitty circles for armholes and such.  The only glitch was that they are all designed for 18'' dolls and our dolls are smaller than that.  'Dolly' is a softie that is only maybe 10'' and the homemade cloth dolls are more like 6''.  So I could apply the theory of the book but not really the patterns themselves.  It worked out well, though, because it gave me a chance to practice my drafting skills on a smaller scale.  I was able to practice drawing patterns and trying them on, tweaking them, trying them on again, etc and it was all on  little doll sizes rather than kid or adult sized pieces of fabric.

We'll start with a 'Dolly' Fashion Show.  

She received a: 

playdress...

a wedding dress...

and another playdress that is talked about at the bottom of this post.   

Then our Fashion Show will move on to the cloth homemade dolls, named "Julie" and "Nettie".  

Here is what they look like naked....

and dressed in their rags from before.  Ugly tunics with no finished edges, seams coming undone due to  slipshod quickie construction, etc.  These dresses were a ten minute job when we first made the dolls and they needed something to wear.  Who would have known it would take a year to make them 'real' clothes?!  Ironically, as soon as the better dresses were done these were not thrown away but became 'the rags that Cinderella wears when she's cleaning.'  Little imaginations are so great, aren't they?  :) 

So, now onto their custom-drafted 'real' dresses...

with one 'nightgown' of snuggly fleece.

They all close in the back with velcro - easy for kiddy fingers to put on by themselves.  

Then, we have 'Ann', a doll that Leah chose from GoodWill with a few Christmas gift dollars.  She just got this one 'nightgown' and will need more clothes in the future (she came in a good princess-y dress that is in good shape) but I didn't get around to drafting a pattern for her before time ran out and the Doll Clothes Factory had to close for the week.  The neckline is terrible on this one.  She's more like a Barbie shape than the other ones so it'll be a bit tricker.  Clothes for her can be my next quickie in-between project.  

Last, but certainly not least, Dolly and Nettie got matching dresses.  Dolly and Nettie are both Leah's dolls and for her birthday she got a playdress to match.  So they can be triplets.  :)  Leah loved it!  Leah's dress can be another post, but since these are dolls I'll put them here.  

Whew!  Thats not too bad for one week's work!  The sewing room was a total mess of scraps flying everywhere.  Paper scraps from drafting patterns and fabric scraps being turned into dresses.  It was fun to experiment with drafting, fun to make dresses (they sew up very quickly once you've got a pattern that works well), and they have already gotten lots of playtime use.   

As a bonus, I have paper patterns for future use.  

The next time the Doll Clothes Factory opens up we can get right to work!