18-inch doll clothes patterns, American Girl Doll Patterns, Madame Alexander Doll Clothes Patterns, Tutorials: Sewing for Dolls, Whole Costumes for Dolls

Summer dress with straps and tee shirt patterns for AG dolls #HandMade #DollClothes

This is a studio photograph of the American Girl Kaya doll in a dress with straps that close with buttons over a pinafore style bodice. The skirt is quite long -- almost floor length -- and under her AG dress with straps, she wears a simple white tee shirt. The dress itself is made of blue dotted Swiss cotton fabric, and the buttons are 5/8 inch white plastic buttons that close the long straps over the front of the dress. The AG doll is Kaya, a Native American girl with braids in her long hair. The shoes poking out from under this pinafore or sundress style dress appear to be comfortable sneakers.

Scroll down to the second set of bullets for the free PDF sewing patterns.

I posted the dress tutorial just yesterday, and the tee shirt tutorial back in July. Today I’m giving you patterns and links to the tutorials, so you can make both the tee shirt and the AG doll dress with straps.

But like most of my free patterns, it will fit more than just the American Girl dolls. See the list below for some ideas about which dolls can wear this outfit.

For the tee shirt, you’ll want to use some jersey fabrics. I actually used one of my old tee shirts that didn’t fit me anymore and recycled jersey fabric that I bought on Etsy to make my doll’s tee shirt especially earth friendly.

To make this dress, you’ll need to have cotton fabric, two 5/8 inch (16 mm) buttons, and Dritz size 3/0 snaps. (See this blog post for reasons why I recommend Dritz snaps.)

Truthfully, various 18 inch dolls will each fit this pattern slightly differently, and if you wait until the end of your project to measure the straps and mark them for buttons and button holes, I think you’ll be a lot happier with the end product.

If need be, you can always cut the straps to fit your doll the way you want them to, in the final stages. Just remember that you’ll need a half inch seam allowance at the end of each strap, to allow room for making a finished edge to the straps.

If your sewing machine doesn’t have a buttonhole maker, you may want to purchase a button hole attachment for your sewing machine. To cut your button holes, you can use a Clover button hole cutter, but I simply use my seam ripper (AKA unpicker) to get that job done the old-fashioned way.

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Today’s free printable PDF doll clothes sewing patterns will fit the following dolls:

And here are the patterns and tutorial videos you’re looking for:

Remember that you can show your appreciation for my free sewing patterns and tutorials by sharing them on Pinterest, Twitter, and other social media platforms. As it says at the end of my tutorial videos, it actually helps me out a lot if you share them!

Here we see the American Girl Kaya doll wearing a handmade pinafore style sundress, and the photo is embedded in a partial pattern for the pinafore itself. To access the free printable PDF sewing pattern version of this dress, please go to ChellyWood.com
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making clothes to fit dolls and action figures of many shapes and all different sizes.

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*ChellyWood.com earns money by linking to Amazon, eBay, Michaels, Etsy, and other online affiliate programs. Links provided above may be affiliate links. For a full list of my affiliate programs, and to understand how cookies are used to help this website earn money, please see my “Privacy Policy” page.

To honor the trademark rights of the doll companies mentioned in this blog post, I am including links to their websites here. Please feel free to visit their website and consider purchasing one or more of the dolls mentioned.

American Girl dolls are products offered by American Girl LLC, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit their website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

Adora Amazing Girls are products offered by Charisma Brands, LLC, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit their website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

Our Generation Journey Girls are products offered by Geoffrey, LLC (affiliated with Tru Kids Brands and Toys R Us), which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit their website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

“My Life As” dolls are products offered by Walmart, which (although I couldn’t find it specifically listed in US trademarks) probably holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit their website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

City Girls are products offered by The New York Doll Collection, Inc, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit their website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

Madame Alexander 45 to 46 cm dolls were products that were once offered by the Madame Alexander Doll Company, LLC, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Be advised that at the time of this blog post, they no longer (to my knowledge) offer dolls in that size range; however you can visit their website to learn more about their company and the trademarked toys they are currently offering.

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