Here’s the first of two patterns for a gym bag (sometimes called a duffel bag, kit bag, or for an alternate spelling, a duffle bag). This pattern works great for American Girl dolls, Madame Alexander dolls, and other 18″ dolls (46 cm dolls):
I can’t post this without saying a big thank-you to Brian Garcia for the prototype for this sewing project. He and his family made a number of these bags with a zipper closure, in different sizes and fabrics. I’ve adapted the pattern a little, making it slightly more complicated than his original pattern was, but that’s largely because my sister’s two-year-old doesn’t work well with zippers and I intend to give my miniature gym bag to my niece. So I wanted the pattern to use Velcro for her little two-year-old fingers to open and close the gym bag.
Tomorrow I’ll post the second part of this pattern, which will include pattern pieces for a lining, pockets, and straps for the gym bag. Then later this week, look for the tutorial video that shows you how to make Brian’s gym bag with my adaptations and additions. You’ll see that there’s a sandal sole pattern on this part of the gym bag pattern. Watch for that… it’s coming later too!
Again, a very special THANK YOU to Brian for his generosity in sharing this pattern with myself and my followers!
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.