For your free patterns and tutorial videos, please scroll down to the second set of bullets.
Today’s free pattern is probably the very first pattern I ever posted on this website, so as it says in the disclaimer box under the pattern’s title, it lacks all the bells and whistles of the patterns I create these days.
Back when I first started this blog, my daughters were rapidly outgrowing their dolls, so I designed patterns for them to try sewing.
I can’t remember the occasion for this pattern’s creation, but it could have been that one of my girls wanted to sew a quinceañera dress to give my niece when she turned 15. And I can’t remember whether or not my daughter’s project was ever completed.
But as my niece is now in her mid-20’s, I can’t trust my memory that far back anyway! Both of my daughters are in college too, so I guess I need to think about what I’m going to do when it’s time to celebrate my website’s 10 year anniversary. I’m up for ideas. Feel free to leave them in the comments.
Meanwhile, if you want to make this pretty quinceañera dress, you will need some cotton fabric, tulle, and tiny seed beads (although the beads are optional).
Today’s patterns will fit these dolls:
- Queens of Africa Dolls
- vintage Barbie dolls
- Disney Princess 11 inch dolls (the older ones)
Here are your free, printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making the outfit shown at the top of this page:
- Free printable PDF sewing pattern for an 11 inch fashion doll quinceañera dress
- Tutorial video showing how to make this dress
Feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials. Here’s an image for easy pinning:
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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.
Queens of Africa dolls are products offered by the Slice by Cake company, which holds the trademark for them (™). They were designed by Taofick Okoya. Please visit the Queens of Africa website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys, books, and fashions.
Barbie dolls are products offered by Mattel, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit the Mattel Toys website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.
Liv dolls were products designed and distributed by the Spin Master company, which still makes dolls and toys today (although the Liv dolls are no longer in production at the time of this blog post). The Spin Master company held the trademark for the Liv Dolls (™). Please visit the Spin Master Toys and Games website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys and games. Please be aware that the Chelly Wood animated doll is a Spin Master Liv doll that has been re-painted and had its wig colored to appear to look like the real doll clothing designer, Chelly Wood. This was done as a creative project by Chelly’s daughters, and the Spin Master Toys and Games company was not involved in the doll’s makeover in any way.
Disney Princess dolls are products offered by the Disney corporation, which holds the trademark for them (™). Please visit the Disney Toys website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.
This Quinceañera dress is just beautiful! I cant find the instructions on HOW to gather the tulle in the beautiful lattice pattern.
I’ve been studying this and from what I can tell:
it looks like it’s just the top layer of the tulle that is gathered. I cannot tell how big the bites of fabric are taken up and I cannot tell if this is one (matching) thread that is running through the whole skirt or do you knot it each time you add a bead? I have searched all over the internet trying to figure out how you did this, but I am coming up with nothing. I would so appreciate you directing me to the tutorial on this.
Thank you.
Hi Laura. I appreciate your comprehensive question.
Here’s a link to the tutorial video which shows the basics for making this dress. First, give yourself a LOT of tulle — more than you think you’ll need — because you will measure the overlay tulle against the cotton or cotton-poly-blend skirt and cut away excess tulle after ruching.
Next, mark the areas on the tulle where you want to do each bead and its ruched gathers. If I remember right, I used a straight pin to mark, measuring an inch and a half between each spot, diagonally, across the tulle. I think I just laid my tape measure down — or maybe a yardstick/meter stick — to form a big X right down the length of a yard or more of tulle. It has been a long time ago, so I can’t remember what I used for the big X. Then I continued marking through the first X with other diagonals that were 1.5 inches from the first, second, third ones, etc…
Using a needle and matching thread, I removed the straight pin markers one at a time and gathered about a centimeter of tulle fabric in a ruched style, tightened the gathers, and tied a knot. Normally, with human-sized ruching, you’re going to use two threads to do the ruching, but for Barbie, I only used one thread. I did all this on my kitchen table. (You really need a solid surface behind your tulle.)
As it shows in the video, once I’d finished all the ruching, I laid the tulle against the cotton or cotton-blend fabric to make sure they were going to match in length. Don’t expect it to be matching at first. You might have to re-mark and continue ruching two or three times before you’ve created enough ruched tulle to match the length of the skirting behind it. Then you cut away the excess tulle.
In my video, I hemmed the very bottom of the tulle, but you don’t really have to do that. I think my cut turned out sort of shaggy because I was filming while cutting, so that’s why I hemmed the tulle.
Then, when I was satisfied with all the ruching and I had cut away all the excess tulle, I applied the beads and tied another knot, hiding the knot behind the beads.
Plan on spending a whole weekend or two or three on this project. I remember that the process was very time consuming, but the final project was lovelier than the video really shows.
The video is ten years old, so back then, I was still pretty new to the idea of running a YouTube channel and teaching people how to sew. Going back to view this video with you has brought back old memories of those early days, when I was still learning videography and how to make a clear explanation for my viewers. Thank you for the trip down memory lane!