From time to time, a visitor to this website will use my contact form to ask “Which sewing pattern is best for beginners?”

When my niece, Zoë, started to sew, I bought her the Simplicity 11 and a half inch fashion doll clothes sewing pattern 7073 (“Sewing for Dummies”) that you see in the images above and below this text.

I own a copy of this pattern as well, and it truly has some very easy doll clothes projects in this set.

Of course my website also offers a lot of patterns that are almost identical to the ones in the Simplicity 7073 pattern for fashion dolls.

For example, their shirt in view H is a lot like my basic felt shirt for fashion dolls shown here:

And I have to say that felt is much easier for beginners to work with, and it’s available nearly everywhere!

It also has more elasticity than most people realize, so if you cut it a little too small, it will stretch.

But the instructions on the back of Simplicity 7073 are super simple, written for absolute beginners, as are the written instructions that come inside the package. Here are the fabric-and-notion buying instructions from the back of the package for example:

So if you’re looking for a set of patterns to buy on eBay or if it’s still available in stores, I highly recommend Simplicity 7073 for all the beginners out there. When buying used patterns, though, you’ll want to watch for red flags like I talked about in my blog post on that topic. (Click there to look back at it.)

And I should mention that today is the first day of February, which is the month when we celebrate African American History in the United States, where I live. Please note that this pattern shows dolls of different ethnicities, which was something I pointed out is often missing from doll clothes patterns, back when I did a blog post for Martin Luther King Day.