A sewing tip: something to think about when you add a pocket! #SewingTips for #DollClothesPatterns

A long string of doll clothes includes (front to back) bermuda shorts with a pocket, a white long-sleeved shirt with a lace collar, lace sleeves, and a front placket that's edged in lace, a floral print short skirt, a pink jumper (American sense of the word), a burgundy tank top, a pink raglan-sleeved short-sleeved shirt made of cotton, and a long burgundy floral print skirt with an elastic waist. The entire wardrobe hangs from handmade (and one store bought) plastic hangers -- some of which also have a cloth shoulder area), and they are hanging from a black string of yarn. The ChellyWood.com logo is in the lower right corner.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Yesterday I did a blog post showing you how I made a pair of Bermuda shorts from my Simplicity 7928 doll clothes pattern, along with my own reversible tank top pattern, which is, of course, free on this website.

As I said yesterday, I’ve found that I can learn a lot by sewing other people’s patterns, and I especially love to take other people’s patterns to the next level, creating something brand new and altogether different with them.

Take a close look at the Bermuda shorts that the doll on the left is wearing. What’s different about her shorts?

Twin Barbies face one another. They are both Made to Move Barbies with Asian features and straight black hair in a pony tail. The Barbie on the left wears a pair of elastic-waist Bermuda shorts with a pocket in front. The shorts are made of burgundy colored cotton fabric. She also wears a burgundy colored cotton tank top with cotton straps. Her shoes are flats made of white plastic. The Barbie wears an almost identical outfit, with the same white flats, but... Her shorts don't have a pocket in the front and her tank top is made of a floral cotton burgundy-and-white fabric. The ChellyWood.com logo sits in the lower right hand corner of the photo. It should also be mentioned that there's a slight seam running down the turquoise background, as if this photo has been Photoshopped to place the doll on the left beside the doll on the right; in other words, they may be the exact same doll, with a photo of her appearing on both the left and right of the seam that runs just to the left of the middle of the photo.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Yep, they have a little front pocket! It can be a back pocket too, if I want to flip the shorts around the other direction. See what I mean:

Here we see a Made to move Barbie from the back, modeling a tank top and Bermuda shorts. Because she's a MTM Barbie, she can put her own hand in her back pocket. There's an arrow pointing at the back pocket, as it to make someone notice the presence of the back pocket. Barbie's clothing is made of burgundy-colored cotton fabric. There's a ChellyWood.com logo in the upper left corner.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

One of the great things about a Made-to-Move Barbie doll, is the fact that she can actually bend her arm in such a way that she can put her hand into her own back pocket! How cool is that?!

But how did I take my vintage Simplicity 7928 Bermuda shorts pattern and give it a pocket that it didn’t actually come with?

The image shows Simplicity Barbie and Ken doll clothes pattern number 7928, which includes the following patterns: a Barbie bikini top with Hawaiian shirt and shorts; a Ken Hawaiian shirt and shorts; a Barbie short sleeved shirt with collar and crop tie and jeans; a Ken tee shirt (T-shirt) with jeans; a Barbie strapless short evening gown; a Barbie muumuu dress; a Barbie jacket.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

To start with, I had to recognize that the original pants pattern had a casing. This will make alterations necessary because if you don’t alter the casing, then you run the risk of sewing the pocket over the top of the casing (and possibly over the top of the elastic) when you attach the pocket.

It’s always a good idea to read the directions that come with your patterns to see whether or not your pants come with a casing, but on my Simplicity 7928 Bermuda shorts pattern, you can actually see where it says “fold line” for the casing at the waist area of the shorts:

On a piece of burgundy fabric, we see a Simplicity doll shorts pattern. It's pinned to the fabric, and it says "fold line" where the casing should be folded and stitched. It also says "cut 2" in English, French, and Spanish. The ChellyWood.com logo appears in the upper left corner of the photo.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

In brief, if your pants or shorts come with an elastic waistband, it’s a good idea to extend the waistband before attempting to put a pocket on your pants or shorts. But if your pants or shorts are fitted, it’s probably going to be less of a problem.

The image shows a Tall Barbie wearing the salmon-colored side of the reversible tank top with polka dot high-waist, fly front shorts. An arrow connects her to the image of a vintage Barbie wearing the polka dot side of the reversible tank top with the same high-waist, fly-front polka dot shorts. The watermark reminds us that these images come from ChellyWood.com, a website best known for offering free printable PDF sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes. If you'd like the free doll clothes patterns for making this reversible tank top with high-waist fly front shorts to fit your 11 inch fashion dolls, please click on the link in the caption.
Click here for the free printable PDF sewing patterns for making the reversible tank top with high-waist fly-front shorts, which will fit vintage Barbie, tall Barbie, modern Barbie, and many others: https://wp.me/p1LmCj-I3I

Of course if the pattern itself came with a pocket option, it won’t be necessary to make any alterations to the waist. The designer would have made corrections to accommodate the pocket.

In the image below, you can see how I’ve measured my doll, measured for the alteration, and used a fabric pencil to bring up the casing. That way I can easily put a pocket under the casing without sewing over or through the casing.

In this photo of a shorts pattern (which is pinned to burgundy cotton fabric), someone has used a white pencil to draw a longer casing that goes above the pattern. The ChellyWood.com logo is in the upper right hand corner.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

That’s exactly the type of technique I teach in my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course on Creative Spark. The purpose of this class is to help you be more creative with the patterns you already own, lengthening shirts, skirts, sleeves, and pants, or making them shorter — or making your skirts more full, to create a wardrobe that suits your personal style.

In my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” class, we also learn how to take a small doll’s clothing pattern and use a simple formula to re-size that pattern so it will fit a bigger doll, as I talked about in a previous blog post about vintage Velvet dolls:

On a turquoise blue linen background, we read the words "a project for my students" and beneath these words, an arrow points from a Skipper doll wearing a bikini to a vintage Velvet (15 inch doll) wearing a bikini.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

And also, people have submitted questions about whether my course is a subscription or a one-time fee…

For any class on Creative Spark, you pay a one-time fee, and you can continue to access the coursework indefinitely. So you can keep going back to review the videos without ever paying a penny more.

There’s no specific time limit to access your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you. It’s definitely not a subscription. It’s just a super fun class that will teach you how to alter the doll clothes patterns you already own (or my free patterns from right here), to create a wardrobe, to fit dolls of any shape or size.

If you like my sewing tips, feel free to visit the “Helpful Tips” page. There’s a lot of great stuff on that page too!

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*ChellyWood.com earns money by linking to JoAnn Fabrics, Amazon, eBay, 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.

Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with the pattern company or companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly finds inspiration in the doll clothes designed by these pattern companies. To purchase patterns from Simplicity, McCall’s, Butterick, Vogue, or other pattern companies shown and discussed in this blog post, please click on the links provided here. These links below the “Disclaimer” section do not help raise money for this free pattern website; they are only offered to give credit to the company that made these patterns.

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