When things go awry in making for myself, I often make for my girls instead. This is a pattern available on Etsy from Elenpriv, who also makes and sells finished garments for fashion dolls. It’s a pdf download without instructions – which means I made a mistake or two. 🙂 I’m pleased with how it came out even so.
At right is the garment picture on the pattern download.
You can see more pictures in the Etsy listing, right here.
This is a double-breasted tailored and lined jacket, with matching slim pants. In the little video in the Etsy listing, you can see that she uses narrow Velcro closures on the jacket and pants. I don’t like getting velcro close to my girls, so I used plain old snaps.
Here’s one of my Silkstone girls, modelling her new suit. This is Best in Black Silkstone Barbie, but she has a new do – all the girls have ponytails for the summer. The colour is a bit dingy because we’re having rain like it’s time to build an ark.
I cut the suit out of a yarn-dyed stripe silk, and lined it with Bemberg rayon. I used rhinestone buttons on this one. As you can see, I ended up with a notch collar instead of a shawl collar. Evidently, I should have seamed those edges together. Maybe next time.
I also added pleats to the front of the pants and darts to the back as they had no waist shaping. I’m not sure how the pants would have fit into the waistband otherwise.
Next, I made a lined sheath dress of the same fabric – ha! I drew my own pattern for this! – so B has some options. It even has a little ribbon belt and yes, it’s lined with the Bemberg rayon.
Here’s the suit flat. It’s much more of a pale mauve-pink than it appears here.
Best in Black is an articulated Silkstone, which means she has a thinner body sculpt. This suit fits the regular Silkstone girls, as well. The pants run a little short for Jade, who is a Fashion Royalty doll and has a different body sculpt. The main difference is that Jade is taller, so when I make her pants, I’ll cut them a little longer. Sleeves are perfect for Jade just as they are, probably because they’re a teensy bit long for B.
All in all, a good pattern and one I’ll make again.
Vogue Craft 7010 is another sewing pattern for dolls that is out-of-print but available as a downloadable PDF from vendors on Etsy. I’m not sure which vendor I bought this one from, but it’s one of the better downloads I’ve ever bought – there’s a measuring tape on each page of pattern pieces. It’s also kind of nice to have a pattern with cutting layouts, line drawings, grainlines and dots to match on the individual pieces. Yup, call me old-skool.
Although I bought it for view E, the first dress I made was view C. That’s the little teeny one in pink. It has a great yoke – but then a lot of the designs in this particular collection have some great seaming details.
It’s just so cute. Here are the girls in their new dresses and sunhats.
The pink one is a quilting cotton, lined with cotton voile. I made the hat with two layers (the pattern specifies one) because I wanted to finish the inner circle rather than just gluing it (as specified.) The inside layer is the same quilting fabric as the dress, while the other is a plain white linen. I put the two fabrics right side together, sewed the inside circle using the pattern piece as a template, trimmed the middle so there was a 1/8″ seam allowance, clipped the curves and turned it. I pressed it, then topstitched around the inner circle. The outer binding on the edge is a bias-cut strip of coordinating cotton voile in hot pink. I sewed it to the linen side, then turned and pressed it, hand-stitching it on the pink flamingo side.
I wasn’t crazy about the order of the seaming on the dress, so I cut another one of green quilting cotton with green cotton voile for lining. On the pink one, I followed the directions, sewing the dress and the lining fronts and backs, then the shoulder seams. I sewed them together at the neck, sleeve holes and hems, then sewed the side seams and the back seam. I ended up doing a lot of handstitching on the lining because it was very tight to manage on the machine.
For the green one, I sewed the side seams first. Fronts and backs, seamed at the shoulders, in both the lining and the dress, then sewed them together at neck and sleeve. Then I sewed the side seams, and the back. I sewed the hems, turned it through the open center-back skirt seam, then hand-stitched that closed. I’ll use this method in future.
Here are the backs and you can see the linen side of the sunhats, too.
This dress also has a placket at the back for the overlap, a very nice detail. I cut it of the lining for the green one to reduce the bulk, which worked out well for bulk – though it was tough to sew the snap to it.
The girls also have had their earrings removed. I knew the regular dolls could get green ear from the earrings – and had noticed a teensy mark on my repro ponytail girl – but saw a horrible pic of a Silkstone, never removed from box, with a bad case of green ear. It’s possible the vendor had never even opened the box. What a nasty surprise! So, all the girls had their earrings removed this past weekend. Only one pair was actually finished well enough to save – the others were already corroding and/or broke into bits while being removed. Why doesn’t Mattel include earrings in a little bag for the dolls, stapled to the inside of the box, like other vendors? Why don’t they stop making earrings of cheap metal that corrodes? These are the questions. In the meantime, take out your girls’ earrings.
Next up, the shirtdress from this pattern, while I hunt down something suitable for that leopard print evening coat. 🙂
There are two new-to-me Tylers who have moved in lately.
The first one actually is Sydney Chase, and the outfit is Mosaic Modern from 2004. The collar on that coat is something, very Mad Hatter, but I like her colouring and haircut. Red boots, too.
The second is Tyler Wentworth, It’s My Party from 2005. Serious Audrey Hepburn vibes with that dress. 🙂
Sydney Chase Mosaic Modern 2004
Tyler Wentworth It’s My Party 2005
And there’s a new Silkstone Barbie on pre-order this week. The Sapphire Anniversary BFMC, which has an articulated Silkstone body. Not my fave sculpt and I tried to resist temptation – but lost. 🙂
I kind of like that she has blue hair.
She’s still available to members at Mattel Creations right here. (If you’re not a member already, you can just add $10 to the cost of the doll to become one.)
I’ve seen a rumor that the next Silkstone is that blonde in pink and black in the background of this image.
She’s also front and center on the Uno card deck – you can see Ms. Sapphire on the box at the right, too.
That deck of cards is also available from Mattel Creations, right here.
(Have you ever played Uno? I’m pretty sure I haven’t…)
And finally, Grace Fitzpatrick has left the premises. I just didn’t love that RTB-101 body and having one doll with such different proportions from the other 16″ girls was making me a bit nuts. I did keep her shoes, though, just in case another RTB-101 girl catches my eye one day.
I have some sewing projects for the girls finishing up and will show you them soon.
Plus I bought another miniature kit, which is proving to be kind of an addictive little build. Even though it’s my most recent acquisition, it might be the first of these kits that I actually finish.
Finally, I’m knitting the collar band of my Quintessential Cardigan. After that, there’s just the seaming and blocking, so that lime sweater should be done soon, too. I’m proud of myself for sticking to it with this one and getting it finished at a reasonable speed. After that, I’ll pick up an abandoned project, probably my Tegna pullover in Koigu. It would be good to get that one done while I can still wear it this summer – since I missed finishing it last summer. LOL
I’ve been sewing for the B girls again and trying some different pattern companies. The vintage patterns are great for vintage B, but the Silkstone girls are skinnier – and the articulated Silkstone girls are even skinnier. (I’m starting to think of them as social media girls – they photograph really well and look great in clothes but in real life, they’re really thin.) But I wanted to try some patterns drafted specifically for the thinner dolls.
First up was Trench Setting from Hankie Chic patterns on Etsy. (This designer is not the same person who wrote the Hankie Couture books that I blogged about before.) This pattern for a coat and dress is designed for 11.5″ dolls. As has become my habit, I shop based on the doll used to model the garment – that’s an original Silkstone B, so I know it will fit that body. It’ll probably be a little loose on the articulated Silkstone and will be too small around (esp the dress) for vintage B. The sleeves of the coat might be too long for her, too.
For some reason, I cut two coats of an orange shot linen. I gave them different linings and buttons – plus an inside pocket—as a social media girl, Silkstone B needs somewhere to put her phone.
The one on the left is lined with Liberty Tana Lawn, and the one on the right with a cotton check that’s been in the stash forever. It was a strange little remnant but I liked it with the orange linen, even though I had to piece the back. (See that little seam across the shoulders?)
The Tana Lawn one has bronze dome buttons while the orange plaid version has shiny gold buttons.
The straps seemed a little out of proportion to me, so I halved the width of them for the sleeves and for the half belt at the back. The coat appears to be designed to be worn open, although I put snaps on one with the check lining to close the fronts. (The problem then is that when it’s open, you can see the metal snaps. Always a conundrum for the girls!)
Here’s B in both. (The pic is a little fuzzy so it’s small here. I really need to get my lighting sorted for doll pictures. The issue here is that there’s not enough of it.)
I sewed the coats almost entirely by machine and added some top-stitching, because that’s just how I roll.
I think the orange linen is a bit too thick of a fabric choice, so it looks more bulky than would be ideal. The linen also gives her a bit of a rumpled Columbo look – but Silkstone B prefers to look polished and sleek. I might make her another one. We’ll see. (I have another coat pattern to try first, a more fitted one that she might prefer.)
The doll modeling the combo here is Silkstone Barbie Dusk to Dawn.
The dress is a complete gem. Here’s my first one, made in Liberty Tana Lawn to match the lining on one of the coats. (I wish I had more of that yellow check, but I had to piece it to get the coat lining.) It’s lined with white cotton voile.
I love this one!
Again, I sewed it almost completely by machine – I hand-stitched the center back seam in the skirt lining and that was it. I also buried the back ends of the shoulder straps. The pattern instructs you to sew them inside the finished bodice back, but I wasn’t so fussed on that plan. I remembered this trick from a vintage pattern – I left a gap in the seam of each upper back, where the fabric is sewn to the lining. I put the dress on the doll to fit, slid the strap ends into the gap and pinned them in place. Then I caught them in the seam when I top-stitched the edges.
You can see that the left one could have been tucked in a teensy bit more on the edge closest to the center back.
The belt is a piece of 1/8″ gross-grain ribbon – in the most absolutely perfect colour! – with a teeny tiny buckle included as a gift in one of my orders from I Sew for Doll. She always tucks in a teeny ziplock with a sample of something. This one had four of these buckles. It’s a brilliant marketing strategy because I now know what size of buckle is perfect for this kind of belt for B and will order more in more colours. (Mr. Math likes the teensy ziplocks the buttons come in and has suggested I pack lunches for the girls, with teeny sandwiches in the teeny ziplocks. Maybe some teeny carrot and celery sticks. The problem with jokes like this is that they make me go “hmmmm” and think about modelling clay…)
I’ve cut out two more of the dress, one in a teal crepe-backed satin, and one in a navy cotton with a teeny tiny leaf print. Quilting cotton would be too heavy for this dress design, so I’m rummaging through my various cotton lawns and silks, too. I’ll be on the hunt for more Liberty Tana Lawn prints, too.
Then – because I am that person – I decided that B needed a little clothing rack. While the girls have their cases with clothing racks, B’s are getting full. I made this rack from foamboard with a dowel for the clothing bar.
It worked out pretty well, so I plan to make another in basa wood, maybe even with wheels…
I told you about my new addition to the collection of dolls, Amazing Grace #3. (That link takes you to the Dreamcastle Dolls site detail page for her. All of the Grace dolls are on this page of the reference site. They are 16.5″ Tonner dolls with the RTB-101 body.)
Since Grace is half an inch taller than the Tyler and Sydney dolls, she needs her own clothes. Her proportions are different, too – her feet are a lot bigger! – so the other girls will be able to wear some of Grace’s clothes but not the other way around. I finished a raincoat, for example, in black pleather and it just looks too short on Grace. (Sydney loves it, though!)
Around the same time that Grace arrived, I noticed a new doll being released by Integrity Toys. This is a 12″ Fashion Royalty doll, which I don’t want, but I love her outfit. I decided to use it as inspiration for Grace’s first clothes of her own.
This is Evelyn Weaverton Traveling in Style:
How great is this 1950’s ensemble?
I started with the jacket and used the riding jacket from Designs by Jude’s Equestrian pattern, which is sized for Grace.
I cut this of an olive green crepe, with the pocket flaps and collar cut of black velveteen. Mine is lined in rayon Bemberg. I fiddled around with the construction to sew more of it on the machine, and also sewed down the pocket flaps invisibly to keep them in place. It’s a nice little jacket and fits Tyler, too.
I wanted a straight skirt on my first variation, so used the dress from Designs by Jude’s Noteworthy Style, again, sized for Grace.
I split the dress into two pieces at the waist, adding a seam allowance on each half. I cut the top of a silk print and the bottom of the dark green so it looked like a blouse and skirt. I also added long sleeves with a cuff, but ending up taking them off as they didn’t fit well under the jacket. Lots of ripping and handstitching on this one! The dress is lined and it has an invisible zipper at the center back.
Here’s Grace in her new suit:
I’m not so fussed about dress, so no detail pix of it. It’s fine, but I did a lot of ripping (thanks to those sleeves) and that adversely influenced my joy in both the process and the result.
Another variable is the zipper down the center back of the dress. I couldn’t find a doll zipper long enough – the high collar makes that seam longer – so I used a 7″ invisible skirt zipper. The tab feels huge and out of scale, plus there’s a lot of bulk at the back of the neck with the zipper tab and the turndown velvet collar of the jacket. I also wish the skirt was maybe 1/4″ longer to hide her knee joints. (Sadly, I have no stockings for Grace as yet. She didn’t come with any, and I haven’t found a place to order them. They need to be longer than Tyler’s.)
The buttons are lovely little gold roses which I ordered from I Sew For Doll.
Instead of the turban in the inspiration photo, I made her a little hat.
You might remember that I bought the pattern for sunhats from DBDolls last year to go with their sundresses. For this one, I played around with making the hat from felt – the pattern uses linen. This is just polyester felt but I could do it again in wool felt. I played with the depth of the crown and of the brim, as well as cutting the top as an oval instead of a circle. My big new trick is adding that pleat at the top – I turned down 3/8″ on the top edge of the piece that goes around the doll head, then hand-stitched the oval crown to it, slightly below the stitching line. That gives a nicer definition to the top of the hat, IMO. The embroidery stitch on the outer edge of the brim was an experiment and a technique I’ll use again. The feather is from a pack of zillions of different coloured craft feathers that I got for a couple of bucks at Michaels – and there’s another rose button on the band.
The hat might be my favorite part of the outfit. 🙂
She reminds me of the ladies in Munich heading out in their loden suits. I probably shouldn’t have used that shade of green. I do have a black belt I need to finish and am still scheming for the swing coat. I’m going to tray another jacket in a small wool check, probably with a pleated skirt. I’ll show you that when it’s done, maybe with a coat, too.
This is an older sewing pattern for dolls that I found on Etsy as a digital download. Once upon a time, my grandmother made pantsuits with palazzo pants for my dolls and I wondered whether this might have been the pattern she used.
After downloading it, though, I realized there was a very neat feature about the designs – the suit and the coat are made of felt, so there are no edges to finish. In scale, it’s as if they’re made of boiled wool. Hmm.
One thing that is good about this download is that there’s a tape measure on each page of the PDF. This should make it easier to ensure that the pattern pieces are printed to scale. More about that in a minute.
Here’s my first attempt at the suit. The jacket is great as is (and very clever, too) but the skirt is meh, IMO. It’s just a tube with a paperbag waist and the same kind of belt-and-slits finish as the jacket. The result is quite bulky around her waist. I’m not showing you the paperbag waist because, well, meh. We can do better. 🙂
I’m a little concerned about how well the felt belt will wear. (There’s another one on the skirt.) With a lot of play, I could see it just shredding apart. I may make a fake leather belt next time.
The hat was enormous, probably to go over those early 60’s bubble cuts, so I cut it way down for the version on the right.
It’s still a bucket hat, so not the most flattering option possible. I like the felt, though, and it’s got me thinking about tweaking it to a more vintage style.
The dress had a lined skirt but an unlined bodice. I chose to do it the other way around since lining the bodice makes it easier to finish the neck and sleeve edges in this scale. I also modified the back to have an overlap in my usual way. I like it in this Kaffe Fasset cotton print.
There’s a triangular kerchief to match the dress that irked me a bit. I made two and hemmed hemmed them in two different ways – one with the edges turned under twice, as per the pattern, and one with fusible interfacing on the edges, then turned under once and zigzagged – but I don’t like either particularly. Maybe it needs a snap – there’s not much fabric to tie it in place. Hmm.
The knit top that is supposed to be sewn into the skirt came out so big that it fit Tyler instead of Barbie. Again, the construction is interesting so I’ll modify it a bit to make a t-shirt pattern for both Tyler and Barbie. I printed the pattern page so that the included tape measure is exactly right, but this makes me wonder whether the tape measure image was added later than the scan of the pattern piece – and is actually wrong. Hmm.
I still have to sew up the pantsuit, which I cut of a woven rayon jungle print, just for fun.
This pattern also made me aware of a lack in my doll accessories – I don’t have any white go-go boots for B. I have tall white boots for her, but am now on the hunt for those mid-calf ones. They’d look great with that dress.
Like most doll patterns, this one needs a few tweaks to bring me joy, but there are details I like about it as it is. I really like the felt for a jacket that resembles boiled wool, so I cut out another one. Inspired by a Simplicity pattern for women, I all add darts to the waist of the jacket to give it some shaping. I’m also going to modify the paperbag waist on the skirt – there’s too much bulk with it under the jacket as is. I’ll show you that and the pantsuit when they’re done. I’ll probably make the coat, too, and another hat. It really is an instant wardrobe!
I’ve also been sewing Paris couture fashion for the girls. Today, we’ll talk about the first dress.
This is the downloadable pattern I bought on Etsy a few years ago. That vendor is gone, but this vendor has it. It might be the same scan. (?) Mine was the best pdf I’ve bought for the girls – the pattern is clear, and when I printed View A at 100% and sewed a muslin, it fit the girls well.
What’s really fun is that the instructions attribute the designs. View A, which is that turquoise one at the bottom left, is a “Balenciaga lace sheath. Original – cream colored lace over gold mousseline evening gown with fuschia silk sash, train and bow.” I had a look and found these two contenders for inspiration from Balenciaga’s collection in 1950:
The left one has the big bow but not the wrapped bodice, while the right one has the wrapped bodice but not the big bow. Neither appear to be cream lace over gold, so there must be a closer match out there. Aren’t they lovely, though?
Another interesting detail is that the evening gown on McCalls 3845 for Tyler Wentworth dolls appears to be inspired by the same Balenciaga dress. it’s hard to see but it has a wrapped bodice, as well as the bow and train.
This is the pattern, though, that is challenging to print at the right size though. (Remember the suit?) I’ll take on this one next, now that I’ve got the 11.5″ size right. (This also explains why the bodice on the Tyler dress was so low. The shorter dress is made without the chiffon wrap across the bust, and in the dress for Barbie, the fabric is cut low but the chiffon adds some modesty.)
I decided to try the lace overlay technique on the first one I made after the muslin test. The instructions specify that you should stitch down rows of narrow lace to create the lace layer. I had this piece of black that was about 2″ wide with a pattern that seemed to be in scale. I trimmed off the top edge to avoid having a heavy dark line and sewed down the scalloped edge onto a heavy pink satin. Black and pink is the classic Barbie palette. 🙂
The finished dress has a wow factor, for sure. The netting is a black one with sparkles (yes, I have sparkles everywhere now) and I narrow hemmed it with a scallop stitch. The bow is a very shiny pink and black metallic fabric. The dress is lined in black Bemberg.
The difficulty I had with this one came from the weight of that satin, which was really thick. It also shed, but overall, I’m pleased with the resulting dress.
I have two more versions of this cut out for B, then will try the variation for Tyler.
I apologize for the silence here on the blog. My last post was at the end of January. I had my busiest month ever in February and barely had time to turn around.
We’re having what has to be a false spring here. The chipmunks are awake, the grackles have returned and the snow is gone. The hellebores are lifting their buds from the soil and the daffodils are a few inches high. Even knowing that the snow will probably be back one last time, the sunshine and milder weather is wonderful.
In the midst of all my writing and publishing jobs, I did acquire a new doll. 🙂 Of course, she has a different body sculpt from all the other girls, so I’m doing some sewing for her now.
She is Amazing Grace #3, a Robert Tonner doll sold through the Virtual Doll Convention, and the first Tonner doll I’ve bought new. She’s 16.5″ tall with the RTB-101 body sculpt. (They still have Amazing Grace #1, the blonde, in stock. The redhead and brunette are sold out.)
2024 Amazing Grace #3
This doll has a lot more articulation and flexibility than the Tyler Wentworth dolls, even the BW body sculpt (my fave). I have mixed feelings about her proportions. I wanted to adore her as soon as I saw her in real life. I like her, but I don’t love her yet. Maybe that will come in time. (Maybe I should have ordered the redhead….) Her hands and feet seem big to me, but there you go. At any rate, she has clothes in the works, though I’m not sure she’ll have sisters.
I have a few projects to share with you, but need to take some pictures first. We’ll start again tomorrow, with a shawl that’s in progress. I’m also finishing up a sweater for myself, which is reminding me of a sweater I knit years ago. And of course, there are new things for the girls.
I’ll be back tomorrow with knitting pix. I hope February treated you well!
Last summer, I showed you a top-down cardigan I’d designed and knit for the girls in many sizes, from Monster High to Barbie and finally to Tyler.
I’ve also showed you this Tyler-size version. It’s knit of Koigu KPPPM in colourway 513P – KPPPM is 175m for 50g. I knit this one a little longer and also did some back neck shaping to make the front of the collar sit better. It’s modelled by RTW Rouge Sydney Chase, with a matching dress.
For the dress, I used the free pattern T-Shirt Dress for Tonner Dolls by Samira Jessica (that’s a Ravelry link) but divided the color. It’s a top-down knit with cap sleeves that are created when you cast off for the arms. I started with Sugar Bush Drizzle, held double, in Pink Puddle. At the waist, I changed to the Koigu KPPPM. I didn’t rib the skirt (as the pattern instructs) but just knit it in stockinette, then purled one row and cast off purlwise. I thought that might keep it from curling at the hem, but the hem still wants to roll up, even after blocking. I also added a little kickpleat at the center back. 🙂
I quite like this little dress, so I made a variation of it for Tyler in a different colourway. Here are the two of them together – Sydney is still wearing the first one – the light isn’t as good in my office this time of year as it was on the steps in the summer, but you can see the little kick-pleat on Sydney’s dress. Tyler has one, too. (Don’t you love Tyler’s shoes? They’re sling=backs, too. I want a pair myself.)
The top of Tyler’s dress is Sugar Bush Drizzle held double – the colourway is Monsoon Mauve – and the skirt is a fingering weight yarn leftover from a sweater knit for me, The Loving Path Fibre Arts High Twist Sock. It came with a dyed-to-match Kidsilk Haze type yarn, The Loving Path Fibre Arts Aura Lace. I held the two together to knit a Felix for myself. (Those are Ravelry links., the last one going to my project page.) The colourway is Bewitched, a glorious mix of greys and blacks with flicks of purple and green. No photograph can do it justice.
I wasn’t so fussed about the way the top-down cardigan looked on Sydney. It makes her shoulders look quite broad, which wasn’t the feminine look I was after. So, for this one, I knit a side-to-side cardigan in the Aura Lace to coordinate with Tyler’s new dress.
Here’s the sweater laid flat.
It has been blocked but those fronts want to roll. This was a bit of a surprise as I’d thought they might drape – sweaters knit like this in human size have cascading fronts. But on these needles, the fabric ends up too stiff to cascade, thus it rolls.
I knit the sweater from front to front – casting on at the front edge, knitting to the side seam, putting the sleeve stitches on a holder, knitting across the back, putting the other sleeve stitches on a holder, knitting to the front edge and casting off. I then sewed the shoulder seams, picked up the stitches for one sleeve in the round and knit down to the cuff, then repeated for the other sleeve. The only seams were the teeny ones at the shoulder.
Here’s the sweater on Tyler – I had to cover her hands to get it on, btw:
I put a pin in it because I’m still thinking about the fastening, since it won’t cascade. It wants to be a double-breasted sweater jacket. With a pin at the waist, the fronts curl back like lapels. I put a clear snap at one side and three little black beads on the outside. The other side will stay tucked under when it’s closed. It’s a little more formal look than I expected, but this Tyler seems to like it.
I’m going to knit another version, but from cuff to cuff and without the extended fronts. I may pick up a collar afterward, and am thinking of adding a cable, too.
I have a sweater for myself to show you next week. 🙂
Happy new year! I’ve been really busy so far this year and have fallen behind on my weekly posting. There were also a lot of projects not-quite-done, but I’ll try to get back on track now.
First up, some sewing for Tyler.
I stumbled across these in my search for sewing patterns for Tyler Wentworth. They were published in 1999, so they would have originally been printed patterns. They’re pretty tough to find in that format now.
This is a picture from the archive at Dreamcastle Dolls, a fantastic resource for identifying and dating Tonner Dolls, accessories etc. These patterns are shown as available accessories from 1999 and these are the three that you can find as digital downloads on Etsy.
From the listing at Dreamcastle, it looks as if there were two more patterns at least in the planning. I’ve never seen these elsewhere, so it’s possible they were never actually published. (??) Too bad – that blazer and raincoat at the far right look just about perfect to me!
Today, we’ll talk about TW 3522, the Weekend Wardrobe. This pattern includes a peacoat, pants, a turtleneck, skirt, tights, socks and a tote bag. In that way, it reminds me of those Vogue Wardrobe patterns, which I like a lot, the ones that give you enough pieces to make a little capsule wardrobe.
As usual, I printed it out at 100% and sewed a muslin of the coat and the trousers. They fit, so I was off to the races.
I made a few changes right away. This pattern has a 3/8″ seam allowance – usually doll patterns have 1/4″ seam allowances, so that left a lot of extra fabric, especially around the curves. Also, the cutting line is drawn thick, so if you cut on the outside of it, the seam allowance gets close to 1/2″. After a battle royale to get the sleeves inserted in the coat without tucks on the muslin, I decided to trim all seam allowances to 1/4″ on my pattern pieces.
There are a lot of nice touches in these patterns. The trousers have a faux slash pocket at the front. The jacket has welts for faux pockets (the doll can’t put her hand in the pocket like the drawn model…although that could be changed. Hmm.) and there are bands on the sleeve cuffs. (I think they’re drawn backward in the illustration and did mine the other way, so the tab goes over the sleeve.)
Here’s Tyler in the whole ensemble.
I cut the good version of the pants from a very thin pleather in mauve. This came from I Sew For Doll and is the thinnest fake leather I’ve ever found – there are thickness variations between colours and the black is the thinnest of all. Each piece is 30 x 45cm – I used just over half to cut these pants for Tyler. There’s enough left to make pants for Silkstone B and maybe a bit after that. This is #12 purple.
Pleather doesn’t fray since it’s a woven base with the leather surface fused to it, so there’s no need to finish the seam allowances. I used a slightly longer stitch length than I would have otherwise, as the pleather surface tends to drag on both the presser foot and the feed dog plate of the machine – if it drags too much, the fused surface separates from the woven base. (Ask me how I know.) I tried a lighter embroidery foot but it made no difference.
I top-stitched the outside leg seam to keep the seam allowances to one side and to give the pants the look of jeans. The pants have a back opening, which looks fine when the doll is standing, but gapes open when she sits—as I so often do, I added a tab to one trouser back for a little extra discretion. These went together really well and I’m pleased with them. The waistband looks loose, but the pleather doesn’t stretch so the doll can be posed better this way.
The turtleneck is sewn of knit fabric and the entire back opens, closing with snaps. While I understand the practicality of this, it’s not my favorite solution. The one shown here is the third attempt – the other two are in the trash. My concern was finishing the seam allowances as jersey will fray and run. I tried to serge the first version, which is what I would do for a human-sized top like this, but the curves were too tight. I’m just not that accurate on the serger, so that was a fail. I did, though, learn that having the back entirely open meant that the top gaped open below the waist – it’s a knit fabric, after all, so it pulled open over the hips. On subsequent versions, I sewed a partial back seam, from the hem almost to the waist.
Here’s Tyler doing some push-ups so you can see the back modification to the top.
For my second attempt, I used the overlock stitch on my machine, but wasn’t any happier with that result. It was just too bulky. Number three was the winner – I remembered that I fuse knit interfacing to the hems on my t-shirts to stabilize the seam allowance, so I cut fusible knit interfacing into 1/4″ wide strips. I fused it to the seam allowances all around the pieces of the top – not the sleeve cap or armscye, since they need to be stretched to fit – then assembled the top using straight stitches. I stitched a second row 1/8″ inside the sleeve seam, then trimmed it. All the other seam allowances could be trimmed down to 1/8″ because they were fused. This worked brilliantly, and I used clear snaps to close the back of the top.
I extended the top for a dress cut of a different knit fabric, which Sydney is wearing here. I made Sydney a little belt, too. The center back seam on the dress is sewn from hem to the widest point of the hips, but I’m thinking it could have been sewn almost to the waist. Because the fabric stretches, that would still have worked.
The one detail I don’t love is the thickness of the turtleneck, especially where it overlaps to fasten in the back, but I don’t see a way around that. There’s a lot of layered fabric in a small area with the seam allowances. I trimmed them right down, but it’s still bulky.
I cut the peacoat of a fabric that looks like chalk-stripe wool in scale. (It’s probably polyester.) The collar is cut on the bias, so I seamed it at the center back to make it symmetrical at the front, as one would do with a human-size coat. That gave the collar a bit more bulk at the center-back, so I cut the undercollar of lining instead of the main fabric. This coat is lined with Bemberg rayon, which I think is perfect for the girls.
I also added a half-belt at the back to draw in the coat a bit. This makes an interesting problem since doll buttons are usually sold in packs of ten – I had to use only six on the front of the coat instead of the eight specified, because there are two on the cuff and I added two to the belt.
The buttons are adorable, IMO. They’re 6mm buttons with little anchors ordered from I Sew for Doll.
The tote bag is like a big LL Bean tote. I cut this one of grey pleather and lined it with a coordinating cotton print. (The pattern doesn’t include a lining, but it’s simple to add.) I even thought about adding a zipper since I dislike open totes when travelling, but gave up that idea (for the moment). The handles are satin ribbon, which snags a bit, and there are four beads on the bottom for feet. I added a charm, just for fun.
Finally, I knit a coordinating scarf in Kidsilk Haze Stripe, and Tyler’s ready for her weekend away. I still need to make the skirt.
I really like this pattern and am sewing some different colour combinations for the other girls. Weekend trips are more fun with friends!
Alive & Knitting 