I
have been sewing doll clothes off and on for the last couple of
months when I have the time. I thought I would do a blog post and
show off what I have made and tell you all a bit about each outfit.
Some
of these (maybe most of them) were items from the Sew- Alongs on a
Yahoo doll sewing group I belong to. The sew alongs are a lot of fun,
the group is given either a topic (one month we made underwear for
the dolls) or a couple of specific patterns that we are to make up.
We have all of that month to work on them and post pictures to the
group. It is always so much fun to see how different everyone's
outfits turn out. You can get so creative with the patterns and since
you are using such a small amount of fabric and trim it is so easy to
really go all out and let your individual style shine. If we are
given specific patterns to use there is always at least one of the
options that we can get for free online. Also since Pixie Faire
(Liberty Jane) has been so generous to give away patterns on Fridays
for a while now a lot of us have collected a lot of those to use. If
you don't know about Pixie Faire here is a link to their Facebook page. If you watch on there they usually let you know about the
voting that takes place on Wednesday of each week on their blog and
then the free pattern on Friday. Lots of fun, and if you haven't
taken a look at their patterns I do recommend you check them out.
Really cool, up to date styles for the 18” doll
Some
of the other free patterns we have used for the Sew Alongs came as
free gifts for signing up for newsletters from doll pattern
designers.
Anyway
here are some of the new outfits I have made for my dolls. I will do
my best to remember to let you know what patterns I used as we look
at the pictures.
In
the month of August I decided I really needed to take a break from
everything else and do some serious sewing.
I
made this dress from the Pixie Faire pattern Aspen's Party Dress, I
love how it turned out in this green fabric that had been sitting in
my stash for several years. I had purchased it just because I loved
the look of it and had never found any place to use it until this
dress. I still have a bunch of it in my stash so I will probably be
using more in future projects. This was one of the options for the
Sew Along in August.
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Another
option for the sew along for August was this dress made from another
Pixie Faire pattern the Maxie Dress. This one surprised me since I
had looked at this pattern so many times over the years and it just
never appealed to me. When it showed up on the list for the Sew Along
I decided to go ahead and make it. I was so happy I did because I
love how it turned out. This is another piece of fabric from my stash
that had been hanging around since my daughter (now 21) was a
toddler. I had purchased this at the old Daisy Kingdom store when
they had a location in Portland. It must have come from one of their
big sales because I had a huge piece of it left and I know I had made
my daughter a dress or something out of it back when she was little.
Again there is still a huge piece left to use in the future.
My
next sewing project was to make up the Peplum Top and Mini Skirt from
Pixie Faire. The fabric for the top I had bought a couple of months
ago and it didn't work for what I got it for so it ended up here. The
skirt fabric I had just bought a week or two before I used on a sale.
I thought the two looked so good together.
Also
in August I made this skating club jacket for Allison. If you follow
my Allison's Journal posts you will see this one in the future. I am
working on a story line where this jacket will be important. (it
might be a while I have a lot of little accessories to make for this
one) The pattern I used for the jacket was McCalls 6904 I did make a
couple of adjustments to make it look the way I wanted. The skate
design is one of the first machine embroidery designs I downloaded
when I got my machine. This is the first time I have actually made
anything that I have embroidered on and I am really happy with it.
For
the September sew along we got to make Halloween costumes for the
dolls. I had already made a
witch's costume for Molly back in July when I reviewed Joan Hinds'
new book for this blog. During September the only sewing I got done
was this Fairy Costume for Allison.
I
was inspired by the Lilac Fairy costume in the Joan Hinds book but I
didn't want to make that style of leotard. I wanted to make one that
would work later as a sparkly tank top with other outfits. I ended up
using the leotard from a Lee & Pearl pattern because it was
exactly the look I was after.
I
didn't want to go to town to get the netting that Joan used but I
remembered some trim I had picked up last summer at the tent sale a
the large fabric store in Portland. When I got it I had no idea what
I would use it for but I had to get it. All I did was finish the cut
ends, add some elastic and snaps.. The trim already looked like a
petal skirt.
I
used my favorite legging pattern (Simplicity 1711) to make up a quick
pair of white leggings to go with the outfit. The shoes are some I
picked up at the craft store a while back. I love these little shoes!
For
the wings I did use Joan's pattern- sort of. I printed it out and
used it to shape my wire then I sewed the wire to two layers of some
iridescent organza(??????) that was left over from a project years
ago. They didn't turn out as glizty as I had hoped so I added some
swirls of glitter glue from my card making supplies. Well, to be
totally honest I first added a layer of silver glitter glue over
where I had sewn the wire onto the wings fabric because it showed a
bit too much (and I may or may not have singed the fabric with the
flame I was using to seal the edge..... After that dried I decided to
add the swirls.
Next
I wanted to add the wings in such a way that they wouldn't harm the
leotard so I have a safety pin under there holding it all together.
I
also made these Star Fleet (Star Trek) uniforms for the boys but I
didn't get them done until the first weekend of October. For the
shirts I used my favorite t-shirt pattern that I have been re-drawing
for the last couple of years. For the pants I just pulled out a pants
pattern out of my stash I don't remember which one I grabbed though.
All the fabric for these two outfits came from those cheap t-shirts
that I had picked up. I use those for almost all my knit fabric
anymore.
For
the month of October we had three choices for the Sew Along and I
made up two of the outfits. The third on required an embroidery
machine with a larger hoop than mine can use.
Anyway
first off we have the Autumn Shrug which is a free pattern from the
site Many Small Friends. This came together really easy and the best
part is you make it out of a recycled sweater! There are also
instructions to make it out of fabric but working with a sweater
makes it a lot of fun. This portion of the Sew Along also featured
the Pixie Faire pattern Simply a Skirt I think they make a really
cute outfit when used together. To complete the outfit I made a shirt
from one of my collection of Joan Hinds books.
My
second outfit for the October Sew Along was the Pixie Faire pattern
Woomera Dress. I actually ended up going to the fabric store and
buying fabric just for this because I wanted to find a fabric that
would hang just right.
So
I think that brings you up to date on my sewing projects for the last
couple of months. I hope you enjoyed looking and hearing about them.
Be sure to support the sites I mentioned and if you buy let them know
I sent you!
