What should you do when the doll clothes you’ve sewn do not fit? #DollClothes #sewing

Here we see the back of a vintage Sunshine Family mother doll. She wears a white crop top and underpants that are sort of sliding down her bum! Clearly these panties do not fit her little behind.

Yes, as you can see in the image above, even I have epic fails in the world of sewing! Those undies definitely do not fit that doll!

I made those underpants to go with an ensemble I’m planning to sell in my eBay store, starting tomorrow. It’s a collection of vintage and handmade doll clothes for the old Sunshine Family dolls from the 1970’s.

However my makeshift underpants will not be sold with the ensemble.

Why not? Well, clearly they don’t fit the Sunshine Family dolls! 😳

So what do I do when the doll clothes I’ve made don’t fit? I search for another doll to wear them instead! I tried my yellow underpants on a Spin Master La Dee Dah doll after I realized they weren’t going to fit the Sunshine Family doll I’d made them for…

In this image, a purple-haired tiny-bodied La Dee Dah doll models a shirt and underpants that are very large on her. In fact, the panties wrinkle a bit because they are so oversized.

But alas, they were too big for the La Dee Dah doll!

A happy medium was found in my Mattel Stacie doll:

You are viewing a Mattel Stacie doll wearing a white handmade crop top and yellow handmade underpants. The doll appears to be doing jumping jacks with arms up in the air and legs spread wide.

She looks so happy to have a new pair of undies, doesn’t she?!

From every sewing fail, I also try to learn a valuable lesson. The fabric I’d used for these underpants was an old T-shirt made of fairly thick cotton, and I’ve decided that this particular material needs to be reserved for much bigger dolls next time.

Just have a look at the panties on their own (see below). The material is quite thick, which made the panties less flexible on a tiny doll.

The image shows a close-up of doll underpants in yellow jersey fabric.

So I’ll reserve this yellow cotton jersey fabric for bigger dolls like the Wellie Wishers and 18″ dolls from now on.

I like to think of sewing like learning to ride a bike. When things go wrong, assess what the problem is and make changes. So if you’re struggling to get the bike up a hill, maybe you’re running on a low or flat tire. A little air in the tire will make all the difference!

Along the same lines, a little thinner fabric will make a better pair of panties for small dolls! Lesson learned.