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.