This week I’m going to show you how to make a pair of elastic-waist jeans for a 17-inch doll with a very slender waist, like the 17.5-inch Monster High® dolls from the “Freak du Chic” collection.

When I first saw the Monster High® dolls, I was concerned. “Is this doll generating a negative body image for girls?” I wondered.

And then I stumbled across a video made by doll reviewer “Kyla” from “KylaDolls&Toys” on YouTube. Kyla–the aforementioned doll reviewer–is a Little Person. In her review of a Skelita Caliveras doll, one of the things Kyla seemed to like about her doll was that she found her “super unique” (her own words). After watching this review, I could see how these dolls, perhaps, made Kyla feel positive about her own uniqueness as a person, and that’s exactly what a doll should do.

It’s almost like these Monster High® dolls send the message that “It’s okay to be different,” yet somehow I had (at first) missed their message. After watching a few of Kyla’s videos, my perspective about the Monster High® dolls made a 180-degree turn.

Did you know there’s a male MH doll called Finnegan Wake™ who uses a wheelchair because he has a tail instead of legs? This doll’s unique situation makes him amazing and wonderful, because when he’s in the water, he can swim like a pro! His description on the official Monster High® website says, “The real Mansters™ of Monster High™ embrace their freaky flaws with pride, including scaredevil Finnegan Wake™. This son of a Mermaid may use a wheelchair, but he is always ‘ready, wheeling and able’ for anything — except staying still!” (See links for direct reference to this site.)

Therefore I’ve begun to add a few outfits to my doll clothes gallery that will fit the MH dolls. You’ll notice the pants pattern is too long to fit on a regular-sized piece of printer paper, so I’ve created a sort of “puzzle piece” to show where the top and bottom parts of the pant leg pattern fit together at about the knee.

In the video tutorial, which I’ll post tomorrow, it even shows you how to tape these together before using the pattern to cut out the pants.

I do hope you will enjoy using my free patterns! If so, remember to share them on social media!

Additional Information:

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My Gallery Page is the easiest way to search through all of my patterns to find what you want. Each image on the Gallery Page takes you to links for patterns and tutorials.

Need help printing my patterns? This link offers a tutorial showing you how to download and print my FREE patterns using Google Docs. (For the older print-a-pattern tutorial, which uses Microsoft Word, click here.) To review my difficulty scale (demonstrating how hard or easy a pattern is by the number of flowers displayed), take a look back at this blog post.

Please note: you must enlarge my patterns to fit a full-sized piece of American computer paper (8.5 x 11 inches or 216 x 279 mm) without margins, before printing. These designs use a scant 1/4 inch seam (4 mm to be exact).

If you’re wondering why I make patterns and videos without charging a fee, please visit the “Chelly’s Books” page, and that should explain my general motivations. My patterns are now available through “Creative Commons Attribution.” This means that I created my patterns (and therefore I own rights to them), but I’m willing to share them with everyone who will tell people about my website.

Here are some helpful ways to tell the world about my patterns:

• You can pin them on Pinterest.
• You can like them on Facebook.
• You can tweet about them.
• Use any other form of social media that appeals to you!

Are you new to sewing? I’ve got a playlist of tutorials for the beginning sewists on my YouTube channel. It includes video tutorials showing you how to do a basic straight stitch when sewing by hand, how to use the whipstitch to hem a garment, how to sew on snaps, and even how to design your own doll clothes patterns, for those who are new to design and alterations.

In case you haven’t heard, I have actually designed some commercial patterns for Lammily LLC. They have some new dolls in their line, including a new male doll, so you might want to visit the Lammily website to see what they’ve got going on.

If your question wasn’t answered here, feel free to submit a question. I’m always happy to help my followers find what they need, so they, too, can make amazing doll clothes and crafts!