This past week, I made the adorable sweater pictured on my 28″ barbie in the image above. So for #PDFpattern Wednesday this week, I’m going to give you the free, printable sewing pattern for making this adorable sweater.

This 28″ doll’s sweater uses “sweater fabric” that I purchased on the sale tables at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts.

As the dead of winter comes to a close, you’ll find sweater fabric becomes more frequently available on the sale table, so the time to buy it is drawing near. Then you can create your sweater fabric doll clothes for next Christmas or next winter.

In this week’s tutorial video, I’ll show you a couple of examples of sweater fabric that I have used in the past, including the sweater fabric I chose for this week’s sewing project.

Sweater fabric is generally stretchy like T-shirt material, but it has the softness of a knitted or crocheted garment. So this week’s pattern is not a crocheted or knitted sweater for 28-inch Barbies; rather, it’s a sewn garment which uses “sweater fabric” with a cotton or flannel lining.

The lining will make it easier to sew the stretchy fabric on your sewing machine, especially if you always sew with the cotton or flannel against your machine’s feed dogs. (The sweater fabric will be up against the presser foot; the flannel or cotton will be down against the feed dogs.)

Also, you should be aware that sweater fabric doesn’t always do well under the heat of an iron, so it’s a good idea to iron a piece of your sweater fabric as a “test run” before ironing the garment itself. If you find that your iron damages or discolors the sweater fabric, it’s a good idea to place a piece of cotton between your garment and your iron before pressing.

(We saw this technique in the tutorial for sewing a velvet shirt for 18-inch dolls.)

As you can tell by these little nuggets of information, this week’s doll sweater project will not be for the beginners out there. In fact, I give it three flowers on my “Difficulty Scale“.

Hang in there, beginners… I have an easy-sew dress project for one of the Disney gals coming up soon. It’s still on the drawing table, but it will be posted in time. 🙂

A couple of my followers have requested a pattern for the 6-inch American Girl dolls, too. That one’s still in the back of my mind and hasn’t made it to the drawing board just yet.

But if you leave a comment for what, exactly, you’d like me to design for the 6-inch American Girl dolls, I’d love to hear your ideas… An Easter dress maybe? A pair of pants and a raglan-sleeved T-shirt? Or something super easy like a skirt and summer top?

Feel free to leave requests in the comments!