Doll clothes | Tanit-Isis Sews

I didn’t do a lot of sewing this past winter, but something that is becoming a recurring theme has been sewing for dolls.

Now, my sewing practice began, technically, with sewing Barbie clothes when I was about 10. But when Tyo and Syo were little I didn’t feel much of an urge to sew for any of their dolls. While they did play with Barbies (and Bratz, at that time), the clothes the dolls came with were pretty awesome, and it didn’t seem necessary to mess around with tiny seam allowances when I didn’t have anything like the range of materials and teeny notions the doll companies had access to.

But, well, in the intervening fifteen or so years, things have changed. I won’t go so far as to say there aren’t ANY good doll clothes being made any more, but the proportion has definitely dropped relative to what I would have called dollar store crap in the past. And the nice ones certainly haven’t been on the dolls anyone has bought for the twins recently.

This little pink-haired doll came from the dollar store. Her dress… barely qualifies as clothes.

So, for better or worse, the urge to create some small (to very small) clothes has been building.

A dress for baby Moana. I actually forgot about this one.

It started slow and not terribly impressively, a few years ago I guess. Quick things, mostly rectangles. A dress for baby Moana.

Not screen-accurate, but I feel like it’s in the general style of the character.

A better outfit for Mirabel than the travesty she came in.

Nothing too hard, not really any worse than the odd bit of baby sewing I have attempted in the past. 1/4” seam allowances work well, and the dolls’ child-shaped bodies make for pretty easy drafting of basic pattern shapes.

This dress came from an old rag-doll pattern.

Some quick petticoats and house dresses for the twins’ much-abused porcelain dolls. These never really captured anyone’s imagination, mine or the twins.

We mustn’t forget about the baby-doll clothes. These are from an early 1970s pattern, and have gotten a lot of use despite their simplicity. The twins were pretty disappointed I couldn’t supply the exact doll from the pattern cover, however.

Then a natural progression into the 18” dolls. I modified the ragdoll pattern to make the raglan sleeve blouse… and the coat (which is even lined)

The skirt, obviously, more rectangles. I originally made all the tiers the same height, but the result was a bit long and I liked the proportions better when I added some pintucks to the upper tiers.

I love how the lightweight cotton, narrow stripe and tiny lace work out at this scale. The trickiest part of the doll sewing has been allowing myself to dive into the details, setting aside time to make a nicely-finished garment.

This outfit has been popular because the twins have a nightie out of the same fabric.

I free-handed this apron pattern from an embroidered pillowcase from my childhood. I wish I had checked the scale more carefully as the bib part is a bit large, but it’s still really cute.

I made a bunch of the 18” doll clothes last fall, but then last Christmas, I located a haul of store bought ones in a lot at the second-hand store, so the urgency faded. (I will say, the 18” doll clothes are doing slightly better than the Barbie-sized ones in terms of quality. Slightly.)

I did tackle this teeny tiny dress for this Chelsea-sized doll (Barbie’s littlest sister, if you aren’t a connoisseur of such things), since her original garment barely deserved that name. Though, I will say sewing at this scale is a whole other level of challenging, and other than the hems I constructed this one entirely by hand. I am disproportionately pleased with how it turned out, however, in particular with how I found the use for the tiny scrap of tiny lace at the hem, and the tiny flower motif for the front of the sash. It’s basically a pinafore, without even side-seams, anchored to the ribbon that forms the sash and holds the whole thing in place.

And I thought that that was the tiniest sewing I would ever try, until the twins came home from a birthday party recently with some Fashion Polly Pockets. Most of their clothes are made of rubber, but apparently they needed shirts. These are nothing to write home about, as I was definitely pushing the limits of miniaturization, but they made the twins extremely happy.

And then, the twins and I were watching a recent Dollightful video on YouTube and she mentioned that all her patterns have been revamped with multiple sizes to fit the various generations of Monster High doll bodies. Her patterns, like all her doll customizations, are adorable, and far more complex than the pieces I’ve been showing off from last fall.

And the twins just happen to have a couple of second-hand Monster High and Ever After High (which have the same bodies, at least originally) dolls from the thrift store, who don’t particularly fit the regular Barbie clothes.

But, this post is already getting REALLY long… so I think this next bit is going to get its own post as I try to up my doll-sewing game without totally succumbing to the madness.

Wish me luck!

Not for the bedroom, but in it.

I probably haven’t mentioned here that my sewing room underwent a huge reorganization back at the end of summer. We desperately needed another bedroom for the twins, which meant moving both Tyo and Syo around; Syo wound up moving into the basement bedroom (which had been the sewing room), and the basement living room became the new, somewhat more cramped sewing space.

While the bulk of this reduction was accomplished via a major fabric purge, a few pieces of furniture needed to leave as well. One of these was my Rocketeer, my grandma’s machine, which got relocated to my bedroom. Its little cabinet tucks nicely under a window now that the space isn’t occupied by the twins’ mattress. I also cleared a little cubby in the closet to hold sewing supplies while not in use.

Now, sewing in the bedroom is a bit of a fraught issue for my husband and I. He is a tidy (I might even say, neat freak) kind of person. I am a tornado. Sewing is not exactly the tidiest of crafts, either. And yet we both feel a little sad that I’m always running off to the basement instead of spending time together.

So really, this bedroom sewing setup is an experiment. Can I keep my mess contained, and tidy up at the end of a session? Can I keep the dresser top clear enough to throw the ironing pad on it? Can I sew without every single notion I own within arm’s reach?

We tested it out last night, sewing up a little doll’s dress. (If the twins had their way, this is the kind of thing I would sew exclusively)

It was really nice, actually, with the twins playing around underfoot (and “helping” lots) and my husband playing his video game on the bed. The downside is that 9:00 rolled around WAY too quickly. And then I had to pack it all away, even though I still want to add a ruffle to the bottom of the doll’s dress. I should maybe do the thing where you time your setup/teardown time so it feels a little less daunting.

And the rocketeer really is a pleasant machine to sew on. It’s perfect to have up here since, as my only slant shank machine, it doesn’t share its accessories.

Oh and as for the doll’s dress… the main pattern piece is from a rag doll pattern that wasn’t put away properly. I didn’t have the sheet with the sleeve so I drafted a sleeve to fit the opening. That part went well enough, but this particular doll seems to have extra-chunky arms because the sleeve (and whole armscye actually) is a bit too tight. But also—this doll dress is designed to gather in to the neck; there’s no normal shoulder shaping. Given that, why wouldn’t you just make it a raglan style sleeve, and save yourself the annoyance of setting a tiny capped sleeve? The final look is basically identical. Doll clothes could be a whole other thing, I suspect.