
If you’re not familiar with Kwanzaa, there are a number of resources available to you on the web. I recommend that you google the term and learn a little about this very special holiday celebrated by many Americans of African heritage.
To honor this holiday, I’ve designed a poncho pattern for fashion dolls. It fits many fashion dolls, including Mattel’s Barbie®, Mattel’s Ken®, Spin Master Liv™ Dolls, Lammily®, Momoko™, and more.
This year, the first day of Kwanzaa will be on Wednesday, December 26th, and the last day of the holiday will be on Tuesday, January 1st. So if you’re planning to celebrate Kwanzaa, or if you know anyone who will be celebrating Kwanzaa this year, here are some great doll clothes and doll craft projects to make for/ with them:
The Easy-Sew Felt Shirt for Female Fashion Dolls
- Here’s the free pattern for making the shirt (worn under the poncho)*
- Here’s the tutorial video showing how to make the shirt
The Holiday Skirt
- Here’s Pattern 1 for making the holiday skirt
- Here’s Pattern 2 for making the holiday skirt
- Here’s the tutorial showing how to make the holiday skirt
The Kwanzaa Poncho for Male or Female Fashion Dolls
- Here’s the pattern for making the poncho
- Here’s the tutorial showing how to make the poncho
Here are the patterns and tutorials you’ll find helpful for making the male fashion doll’s clothes (but be aware that I had to alter the hat pattern a little; your hat pattern* will need some adjusting before it fits a Ken doll properly):
Ken‘s Hat
- Here’s the free pattern for making the hat*
- Here’s the free tutorial video showing you how to make the hat
Ken‘s Shirt
- Here’s Pattern 1 for a Ken-doll-sized shirt (I altered the sleeve length for shorter sleeves)
- Here’s Pattern 2 (use the Jake Doll jeans pocket pattern for your shirt’s pockets, but make it a bit smaller)
- Here’s a tutorial showing you how to make a shirt with a collar
Ken‘s pants
- Here’s the free, printable sewing pattern for elastic-waist, pull-on pants for male fashion dolls (you won’t use the inlay)
- Here’s a tutorial showing you how to make the pants
If you’re making clothes for Mattel’s new “Broad” Ken dolls, the elastic-waist pull-on pants pattern won’t fit, but I have good news! I’m working on a pants pattern that does fit the new Broad Ken dolls. I’m hoping to post that in December or possibly in January.
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.
Please be advised: when I get some time off from my job as a school librarian, I’m planning to develop a new layout for ChellyWood.com, and whenever you redesign something, it’s possible for stuff to get lost! So if there’s a specific pattern you’ve bookmarked because you want to make that outfit, I advise printing the pattern soon. Links may not work quite as well after I redesign my website.
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.