I’ve admired this pattern from Hankie Chic for a while, and finally bought a copy. I also made it for the girls almost immediately, which is pretty amazing. Usually patterns have to wait their turn in the queue. Not only that, but I made a second one right away, in a fabric that had just joined my stash, so I’m making personal ‘firsts’ all over the place this month. 🙂

Here’s the pattern – it’s available from the designer’s website right here. There’s just the one view, although you can see that the designer did some fussy-cutting to have borders and bands in different places. I found this to be a very easy and quick make.

Here’s the first one, made of quilting cotton and lined with cotton voile. This is one of the new Barbie Basics dolls with a MTM Original body, and the dress fits her. It’s a bit looser on her than on the original Silkstone, but I positioned the snaps for the Silkie girls. I did some top-stitching on this one as the quilting cotton seemed more bulky than crisp.

One of the results of using quilting cotton for a pattern like this with a very full skirt is that the gathers at the waist add a tremendous amount of bulk. The fabric is gathered as much as it can be or close to it, and that adds a lot of fabric in the seam allowance. You can probably see a huge difference in the waist in the second version.

This one is made from a piece of silk taffeta that I got at our sewing guild’s fabric swap – yes, it was here for less than a week before some of it was sewn up. (I know. The world is wobbling on its axis.) It’s also lined with cotton voile. This one is so very crisp. 🙂

The skirt on this one is a little bit longer than the pattern specifies. Silkie has a new pair of shoes that coordinate perfectly. It pleased me that the gold vertical stripe lined up on the skirt and waistband, because I hadn’t planned that. Sometimes there are good surprises!

Part of the difference in the slimmer waist is the doll, of course – the Silkies are smaller in the waist than the new MTM dolls (and bigger in the bust), but still. There’s a lot less bulk in the seam allowance because the silk taffeta is much thinner than the quilting cotton. Using a thinner fabric – like the silk or a cotton voile, perhaps a Liberty Tana Lawn – diminishes the bulk of the seam allowances at the waist. I don’t think you can trim it much and am not sure it would matter as you’d still have some gathered skirt seam allowance. Another way to address this would be to cut a circle instead of a rectangle for the skirt, as there would be less gathering – there could even be no gathering at all, depending on the size of the inner (waist) circle. I think I may play with that a bit.

The only pattern modification I made for the second one was to move the gathers out a smidgen on the bodice. I thought the first bodice was a little ruffly at the centre front – that could be a bit of an illusion because the doll is flat there. It does make sense to have the gathers immediately under the bust. For the second, I left the first centimeter from the front edge on each front bodice piece flat, and gathered from there to the side seam. Again, the fabric was gathered about as much as it could be in that small space. Another solution would be to pleat or dart the front pieces to get the fit. There’s something else to play with.

One last observation – I’d forgotten how much silk taffeta wants to fray. I ended up sewing one centre back edge a second time – the seam allowance frayed away after I trimmed the seam, so I sewed it again, then zigzagged the seam allowance just to be sure. I dislike how products like FrayCheck make fabric feel, so the next time I cut this silk taffeta, I’ll finish all the edges before I start assembling the garment.

I’m really pleased with both. 🙂