Here’s a preview of the outfit we’ll be making this week. Yes, as the heading says, it’s super-dooper easy to make! And as with my other patterns, the printable patterns will be free.
The bodice is made of felt and ribbon with no hems, and the skirt is just a simple rectangle with a little ric rac embellishment to create a scalloped look along the hem. This week I’ll also be re-posting my tutorial that shows how to design your own rectangular skirt pattern (for the absolute beginner).
Now the pattern used to make the skirt above was just a quickly-drawn rectangle, a lot like the one in my “Design Your Own Skirt Pattern” tutorial, but in my tutorial I used a yarn drawstring whereas in this batik-style skirt, I used elastic instead. You can use elastic or a drawstring for a simple skirt like this; either one works.
I’m also putting together a “How to Embellish with Ric Rac” tutorial, to show you how I added the ric rac to the bottom of the skirt for a scalloped look. Hopefully I’ll get that video done and posted by the end of the week.
So come back later this week to gather up all this juicy info for the absolute beginner!
Additional Information:
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Some of my followers have wondered what motivates me to give my patterns away for free.
First of all, I’m a librarian by trade. Librarians love free stuff! We believe that the more a person knows, the more enriched their life will be. So it may sound kind of crazy, but I want ChellyWood.com to become a sort of library of free patterns that help people learn to sew doll clothes.
If you’d like to learn more about my motives, feel free to visit my Chelly’s Books page.
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).
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. 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!