Sewing 18" Doll Clothes - the Liberty Jane Harajuku Skirt

Here's a couple of doll skirts I made for my daughter. This skirt is so cute, especially the jean one with the little bow I found in my sewing bin. Not totally sure where it came from, I was just saving it for a someday project. The second layer in the skirt is tulle. No problem right? Hah! That's a trick to sew with. It took a lot and the tulle for the jean skirt ended up a fair bit shorter than it was meant to be but at least I got it in the end. The pink skirt went together easier but that tulle is tricky.

The pattern is, you guessed it - yet another Liberty Jane one. I love those patterns. They are easy to follow and always fit well. The Liberty Jane Harajuku Skirt from Pixie Faire is a fairly strait forward pattern, but if you haven't sewn much with tulle, take it from me and buy extra. At least it's cheap!

My daughter has a Newberry Doll (blonde) and a Journey Girl and when I made these clothes originally it was for the Journey Girl. I find that if I'm using a pattern for American Girls I can check off 'shrink to fit' when I print the pattern and add a little length and it's just about perfect. The clothes fit the Newberry doll as well, but some are a bit tight because she is closer in size to the American Girls.

The t-shirt below is inspired by the Peek-a-boo lace tutorial on Pixie Faire, but I didn't cut out the t-shirt fabric underneath. My daughter has a similar shirt so she is really happy with this one. I used my absolute favourite 18" doll t-shirt pattern that I posted about here.

Liberty Jane Harajuku Skirt from Pixie Faire

Did you know? Pixie Faire gives a pattern away for FREE every Friday. Awesome, right? They also have free tutorials and patterns, so go take a look!

http://www.pixiefaire.com/blogs/freebies-and-giveaways

Sewing 18" Doll Clothes - the Liberty Jane Flounce Skirt and Peplum Top

another version of the skirt...

My daughter has had Kelsey, a Journey Girl doll from Toys R Us for a couple years now and absolutely loves her, but she didn't have many clothes to choose from. I had whipped up a few when she first got the doll, but they were all made from free tutorials or my own ideas and they weren't great. Not that tutorials don't work, but they were all for American Girl dolls which are a slightly different shape and I didn't have much fabric to work with then. I decided to make her a new wardrobe for Christmas, and this time I had quite a bit of small pieces of this and that, most too small to work for anything child sized but perfect for doll clothes.

I discovered Pixie Faire patterns. They are fairly inexpensive and the clothes they turn out are impressive! My favourite are the Liberty Jane patterns. The Pixie Faire website has just added Journey Girls to the dolls they sell patterns for, but they weren't there yet when I made these before Christmas. I found, though, if I hit the 'shrink to fit' option when printing the pattern pieces and then lengthened them a tiny bit the patterns for the AG (American Girl) dolls fit Kelsey just fine. I didn't shrink the Peplum Top in the picture above, so it's a bit big. By the time I made it we had decided to get her another doll for this Christmas, a Newberry Doll from Sears, Allie. She's closer to the size of the AG dolls. We find all the clothes work can be worn on either doll and that's a real bonus.

Kelsey has a plastic upper chest as opposed to Allie's cloth body up to the neck so tops like this peplum one look better on Kelsey.

The skirt Allie is wearing came with her and the leggings are from the free pattern and tutorial by Sew Adollable. They are so easy I made a few pairs in different lengths. I checked off 'shrink to fit' for this pattern as well.

Peplum Top 18" Doll Clothes Pattern by Liberty Jane from Pixie Faire

Picture Day Outfit Flounce Skirt and Top for 18" Dolls by Libery Jane from Pixie Faire

Did you know? Pixie Faire gives a pattern away for FREE every Friday. Awesome, right? They also have free tutorials and patterns, so go take a look!

http://www.pixiefaire.com/blogs/freebies-and-giveaways

Summer Sewing Series #1 - Summery Sisters!

I really wanted to sew something for my girls so that they matched, but not exactly because there's such a gap in their ages (8 years). I had this Amy Butler home decor weight fabric from a project that I never made, but only 1 metre. In the end I'm happy with how they turned out. I had planned on Petunia's skirt being a little longer, but it's alright as long as she wears leggings and she doesn't mind. Sweet Pea's top is on the small side but it will fit for the remainder of this summer. They are both simple summer evening projects. If I hadn't been so tired when I made the skirt it would have been much quicker!

The skirt is the Harmony Drawstring Skirt I found on SewMamaSew. The tutorial was very easy to follow but the drawstring part didn't work out for me because my fabric was so thick. That's ok, there's elastic there anyways, and I have to say if I made it again even with thinner fabric I wouldn't bother with the drawstring. What a pain to thread it in when there's already elastic in that channel! I really like this skirt with the heavier fabric. It's more like a cargo skirt.

The little tunic top is the Snappy Toddler Top by Prudent Baby. It can also be a dress. Snappy because you're supposed to use snaps but I only had buttons on hand. I love it but it definitely fits a little small. Good thing little miss Sweet Pea isn't very big. Oh, and the bows in her hair? The ones here. They really are non slip! I love them.

For more sewing projects for girls, check out my Sewing - Little Girls Pinterest Board.

Summer Sewing Series #2 - Sew A Pillowcase: The Roll Up Method

Summer Sewing Series #3 - Wild Flower Pincushions

Christmas Gifts For My Little Nieces

For Christmas I made my 3 yr old nieces a few things. It's Christmas/Birthday gift not because their birthdays are anytime soon, but I generally sew for them and I won't be sewing much with a new baby. The dress above turned out the best but gave me the most problems. I was nearly ready to give up. Drove me right crazy. I used the In The Garden dress tutorial by From An Igloo. 

This is the dress for the other little niece. Kelly has a dress the same style and this 3 yr old lives in town so they can wear them together in the summer. Both of them will like that. This is another From An Igloo tutorial - the One Hour Sundress.

I also made matching skirts for Kelly and the two little girls. 

I looked at the Ruffle Bustle Skirt on Punkin Patterns that she made from this pattern by Lil Blue Boo but I didn't have any knit fabric. I found another pattern (that I can't find now) that I looked at the picture on the front and with some help from these I came up with these skirts. Flat in the front and all ruffly in the back. For now I don't have any good pictures but I'll post some when I can.

I may do a tutorial on how to make them one day.

And last, I made them patchwork aprons and oven mitts.

I made the apron using this pattern from Living with Punks, and the oven mitts as well, but I can't find picture of them!! Oops. 

 was totally guessing as to whether they would fit and poor Zack was my model a couple times (he wasn't too thrilled to try on the first dress) but he's five and so I just made it too short for him but not too much and the aprons were about a size too small so I figured they would be ok. They were fun projects and since a lot of it was scraps (and thanks to mom for all the lace!) I spent $8 on 2 m of the butterfly fabric. That's it. And more white thread but I needed that anyways.  :D 

Twirly Skirt Tutorial With Adult Size Adaptation

How to make a Twirly Skirt

After posting this skirt, I decided to make another one to show you what I did. My favourite thing about making the skirt this way is that there are only two exposed seams inside (side seams), and they are the bias of the material so they are nice and tidy - even if you don't use a serger.

The first thing you need to do is make some simple calculations:

1. Measure child's waist. ___ + 5 = width of drop waist panel. This gives some breathing room and seam allowance, but keeps it from being too bulky. 

  

     cut 1 drop waist panel  width above x 8" (this will make a 3.5" drop)

     cut .75" elastic to the width of child's waist waist plus 1".

2. Total length of skirt - 3.5" (drop waist) + 1" (seam allowance) = length of second panel.

     cut 2 panels 44" (width of fabric) x length above

     cut 2 strips for hem 1.5" x 44" (width of fabric)

Grown up version: 

For drop waist panel, measure hips (or widest part) and add only about 3". Divide measurement in half and cut two pieces. 

For second panel and hem width, take drop waist width and add 12". Divide measurement in half and cut two pieces.

Now to sew . . .

Fold your drop waist panel piece in half lengthwise, wrong sides together, and iron, then open up and press the long edges under .5". I find it much easier to iron a long flat piece than a tube so I iron first, then sew the edges.

Then unfold the edges and sew the short ends, right sides together to form a tube. Finish your seam and topstitch. 

Fold in half again with long edges inside. I didn't take a picture of this, but it should look like below without the elastic yet.

Next, sew the two large panels together at the side seams to form another tube and topstitch finished seams.

Take your 1.5" strips and iron them in half, wrong sides together, and open again. Fold in the long sides to meet in the middle on the line you just made and iron flat. Fold in half again and iron.

Tuck bottom of large tube inside the hem binding and sew. You probably should pin. I don't.

Take your drop waist panel and sew 1" below top fold, leaving a two inch gap for threading your elastic. Insert elastic and sew gap closed. Now your drop waist panel should look like this:

Sew around the top of your large tube and gather to the same width as drop waist panel. If you need help with gathering, see here. When gathering this much fabric, I set my tension to the highest possible setting and it does most of the work for me, gathering as I sew as long as I don't pull at all on the fabric as I go. 

Place your gathered edge inside the edges of your drop waist panel, about .5" in and pin well. The more pins, the better the outcome I find (although I'm often rather lazy on this). Topstitch around the bottom of the drop waist panel to secure it all.

Hooray! You're done! Go twirl.

Twirly Skirt with Ribbon Flower

I made this twirly skirt for the girl match a skirt I made for myself - that is not so full and twirly, just the same fabric. I haven't posted mine yet because I've been waiting to get my picture taken in it but it hasn't happened yet. I know there's a plethora (now there's a fun word) of twirly skirt tutorials out there but when I finished this I wished I'd taken photos of the steps to show you. Everyone's got their own twist on it I guess. I'll just have to make another one. What a hardship. ;o)

This is my first attempt at a ribbon flower. I followed this tutorial, loosely, and attached it to a safety pin so it is removable. I had this ribbon left over from another project.

Craft Gossip is a good place to find all kinds of twirly skirt tutorials.

Update: Here is a tutorial for making twirly skirts that I have now posted.

An Easter skirt for me

This is the first item of clothing I've attempted for myself in a lot of years. Like, since high school I think. The second picture is my attempt at a self portrait in the skirt - and that was the best one!  Sorry, all you get is the hanger. I'm pretty happy with it now, but you should've seen the first version. I don't know who I was making it for but my calculations were a wee bit off and oh my was it big! And to top it off I cut the elastic and threaded in the wrong cut piece so it was the biggest skirt I've ever seen. I cut out a large panel, fixed the elastic and we're in business. I bought some white fabric, but I got the overskirt cut out and went to cut the underskirt and, especially because of my crazy measurements, realized I didn't have nearly enough white - I'm now down another sheet. I made a white skirt while I was at it, since I had a whole new source of material. I'll post it soon.

It's kind of a grown up version of this twirly skirt, and I was going to tell you what I did differently, but I messed up so badly I can't really. Think you're making it less full, really mess up on measuring, hack off a large chunk and wear. Clear enough?

A Double Layer Twirl Skirt

I wanted to make the little girl an easter dress, but in the end I made a skirt. I love how it turned out. She loves it too. It twirls really well. She just didn't feel like getting her picture taken. We compromised and she left her purple pants on. Interesting, but whatever. I had more princess fabric left after this dress, so I used it for the underskirt. 

This skirt was harder to sew (or maybe just more time consuming) than I originally thought because of all the gathering but I'm getting better at it. I'm figuring out that if I use a high tension on my sewing machine it gathers it for me, but it's not usually the right amount - too tight or too loose. It's a good way to start, though, instead of just pulling a thread and trying to get it even in the end. 

Another summer outfit - swing top and skirt

The girl loves this one. I broke down and bought a pattern from Walmart of dresses that I liked the bodice of, does that make sense? The bottom of the shirt is basically the same as the split twirl skirt, but the underskirt(shirt?) is pleated and so is the skirt. It's all a bit too big on little miss miniature, but that's so much better than too small!

Split Twirl Skirt

This skirt was for a little friend. She loved it and I was thrilled. The tutorial is from Crap I've Made. I'm loving my sewing machine again. I started with the sundress, and oh my, I can't stop. Paper? What's that? Can you sew it?

Anyways, if you want to make one too, you can find the tutorial here.