Fall 2014 Sewing Update

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.

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!