For your free patterns and tutorial videos, please scroll down to the second set of bullets.

Isn’t my Petite Barbie adorable in this little shorts outfit with a high waist? I just love this look on her! And did you see the heading? The tank top is reversible!

I have a word of warning though… If I was going to make this tank top for her again, I would definitely shorten the straps a bit. Here’s what I’m talking about:

See how the straps aren’t laying on the doll’s shoulders exactly squarely? I’m just not really happy with that, so I suggest shortening the straps just a little bit.

I realize that’s an alteration, and… well… some of you are not particularly good at altering doll clothes. (Your words, not mine!) But if you do need help with alterations, don’t forget to check out my Creative Spark class, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns.”

I also recommend using Velcro rather than snaps for this tank top closure (because it fits her a little long-ish).

So if you’re buying goodies to make this little outfit, you’ll need some solid cotton fabric, some print cotton fabric, size 4/0 snaps for the fly on the shorts, and a bit of sew-on 3/4 inch Velcro for the back of the tank top.

Today’s patterns will fit these dolls*:

• Petite Barbie dolls
• Queens of Africa Dolls
• modern Barbie dolls
• vintage Francie dolls
• Liv dolls

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 summer shorts and tank top outfit
• Tutorial video showing how to make the shorts
• Tutorial video showing how to make a reversible tank top (video shows a Tammy doll, but the instructions are identical for today’s tank top pattern)
• How to do a whipstitch
• How to sew snaps on fabric
• How to do a backstitch

Feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials.

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Links:

*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, but the links below do not necessarily help support this website (whereas the links in the bulleted list at the top DO support this website, as the top links are affiliate marketing links).

According to Wikipedia, “Ideal Toy Company was an American toy company founded by Morris Michtom and his wife, Rose. During the post–World War II baby boom era, Ideal became the largest doll-making company in the United States.” They produced the Tammy family line of dolls, including Ideal Pepper dolls, but eventually the Tammy line of dolls went out of production (with the exception of the Sindy doll — the UK version — which has had a recent revival). There have been a complicated series of sales of rights for Ideal toys since then, and you can read about it on Wikipedia, if you’re interested. But at the time of this blog post, the trademark name “Tammy” for these dolls was abandoned and has remained “dead” (according to the US Trademark database) since 2004.

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, MTM Barbie, Francie, and Vintage 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.