Most doll collectors have friends in the doll collecting community. It’s certainly true of me… Hello Dodi! (She’s a local friend of mine who collects and sells dolls, doll accessories, and retro toys. Here’s a link to her Ebay store.)

What kind of Christmas gift do you get that friend who has every doll ever made? Why not buy him/her some old patterns?

The pattern at the top of this blog post is a real treasure, for example! People are always looking for Ken clothes patterns, and these old patterns will most likely fit the new “Slim Ken,” since they were made to fit the original Ken doll, who is quite a bit skinnier than more modern Kens.

Even if your doll-collecting friend doesn’t sew, just looking at these old patterns can be a lot of fun. I love how this pattern says, “Ken — he’s a doll!” LOL! 😀

And check out his retro jammies!

Looking through the patterns themselves and the instructions is a lot of fun too. If you buy patterns that were “lovingly used,” you may find that over the years, people substituted one sleeve pattern for another, or they may come with incorrect instruction sheets that actually belonged to another pattern.

I’ve found little treasures inside patterns I’ve purchased online, too, like hand-drawn pictures made by a child, an old Christmas card, and even–once–a really old Barbie zipper (like someone had seam-ripped one out of a garment and placed it in the pattern package).

Of course, if the gift recipient will want to try sewing with the patterns, you’ll want to take precautions to make sure you purchase a pattern that isn’t missing any pieces. For tips on how to do this, please revisit my blog post entitled, “Tips for Buying Used Doll Clothes Patterns on Ebay.”

This year for Christmas, I’m going to ask my family to buy me some of those product booklets that used to come with Barbie dolls and accessories. Do you remember those?

When I was a kid, I remember getting new Barbies for Christmas and birthdays and having fun looking through the product booklets when all the play time was over and we were settled in for bed time at the end of the day.

For someone my age (53), a used pattern or product booklet from my childhood is just as good as –if not better than– getting a new doll for Christmas. And used items are better for the environment because they don’t add any plastics to our landfills.

So think about asking your family for something like this before it gets too close to the holidays!