Here’s a preview of this week’s super-easy-to-sew project for 18-inch dolls. It’s a sleeveless shirt made of felt.
Later this week I’ll be posting the free printable sewing pattern and tutorial to help you make this easy-to-sew felt shirt that will fit most 18-inch dolls like American Girl dolls and Madame Alexander dolls.
You may recall, that on September 12th, I gave you the free patterns and tutorials for making the “nautical shorts” that are shown in the image below:
This week we’ll be making the shirt to go with the nautical shorts.
I’ve given this free printable pattern for an 18″ doll’s shirt a single flower on my difficulty scale because I want people who are learning to sew to feel confident that they can make this shirt. Due to the fact that this pattern and tutorial have been designed at the easiest level possible, my video tutorial suggests that you can either sew snaps down the back of the shirt or apply safety pins for a closure.
With felt, Velcro isn’t a viable option because it so easily sticks to the felt fabric. You need other ways to close up the back of the doll’s shirt.
The safety-pin option may seem silly to people who are skilled at sewing, but think about this: a lot of people have told me they use my videos and patterns to teach their grandchildren how to sew.
For a little child learning to sew, a long row of snaps looks a bit intimidating… Sometimes it’s better to call the project “good enough” after sewing a few straight stitches. That’s what I had in mind when I made the “safety pin” option on my tutorial video.
However for adults who are learning to sew, I highly recommend watching my video for sewing snaps, which I have recently re-designed. I’ll be posting that video tutorial toward the end of the week.
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.
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 post or 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. You can also write to Chelly Wood at this address. I’m always happy to help my followers find what they need, so they, too, can make amazing doll clothes and crafts.