People use my Contact Form to ask me all kinds of questions about sewing doll clothes. One question I’ve seen a few times in the past couple of years is…

What pattern would you recommend for sewing a Barbie-sized poodle skirt?

A classic poodle skirt is usually made using a circular pattern with a waistband. Traditionally, the skirt will be embellished with a felt image of a poodle appliqued onto the fabric of the skirt. The final product will look something like this:

But which pattern is ideal for sewing a poodle skirt for your Barbie? My answer to this question varies, depending upon which Barbie you’re sewing for.

Vintage Barbie dolls are shaped very different from modern ones. To get the exact measurements of a vintage Barbie and compare it to a modern Barbie, please look back at this blog post. (Warning: in that blog post, both dolls are nude.)

So I will first address the question of sewing a poodle skirt for a vintage Barbie. If you scroll back to the image at the top of this page, you’ll see the Chelly Wood doll holding up (and standing next to) an old pattern for vintage Barbie dolls.

This is a Mattel Toy Makers’ “Sew-Easy” doll clothes pattern #2896. On this particular pattern, if you use pink for the skirt fabric and attach a pre-made poodle iron-on patch, you can easily create a poodle skirt for the project displayed as #3 on the front of this pattern (see image at right).

Here on ChellyWood.com, I do not yet have a poodle skirt pattern designed and posted. Over the summer, I did work on one, but it turned out to be too small.

Alas, this happens to pattern makers — even those of us who make doll clothes patterns all the time — so it’s “back to the drawing board” for this project.

However, for those of you who requested a poodle skirt pattern for Barbie dolls, your item will remain on my request list until I get the kinks figured out for that particular pattern.

Meanwhile, click here to find the Mattel Toy Makers’ “Sew-Easy” doll clothes pattern #2896 on eBay. But before buying patterns on eBay, you might want to look over last week’s tips for buying patterns online.

UPDATE:

If this blog post looks familiar, that’s because I first posted it last summer. However, I wanted to revisit this post because I have an update to share…

This past weekend I worked on creating a Barbie-sized circle skirt, using the Stacie doll / vintage Skipper doll poodle skirt pattern that I posted last week as a guide. Click here to see that Stacie/Skipper poodle skirt post.

So the Barbie-sized poodle skirt re-design is underway. YAY! I’m not sure how long it will be until I get the whole thing finished and posted here on ChellyWood.com, but here’s a preview of what I’ve gotten done so far: