What to do when you don’t have quite enough scrap fabric… #SewingTips #DollClothesPatterns

Here we see a close-up of the wine-colored dress with braided trim, as it appeared on the Simpicity 8466 sewing pattern envelope. This drawn doll appears to have the beau font hairstyle that's more akin to Francie, and her chest seems less busty than the vintage Barbie from the related photographs. However the dress itself is surprisingly identical in nearly every way to the handmade wine-colored dress with gold braided trim. The trim at the bottom of the doll's dress on the envelope, however, seems to be more of a gold rickrack, in that it zig-zags just a bit around the very base of the dress. This is "view 4" on the envelope. Beside this doll is a dress in a yellow mini-skirt dress (left) and a doll in a bell-bottom pair of blue floral pants with an oddly square, open-backed long tunic (also made of pale blue floral fabric). — 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.

After my youngest daughter moved away to college, I boxed up a lot of the things she left behind in what used to be her bedroom, and I found a lovely satin pajama top that dated back to her middle school or early high school days, when she was pretty small.

She has more of a woman’s figure now, so I assumed this little pajama top needed to either go to a second-hand store or become scrap fabric.

As I’ve said in previous blog posts, I hate to waste perfectly good fabric, so I cut the little pajama top into scrap fabric to use with my doll clothes sewing projects. I mean, you can’t pass up perfectly good satin! It makes such gorgeous doll dresses!

As I stared at the fabric, I suddenly remembered that I had this wonderful vintage Simplicity 8466 Barbie doll clothes pattern with a red satin dress on the cover:

Here we see the Simplicity doll clothes sewing pattern number 8466 published in 1969. Its envelope leans against a wall of purple speckled fabric. In the foreground is the wine-colored fabric that's used to make a rendition of the dress shown in view 4 on the envelope for Simplicity doll clothes pattern 8466. The outfits shown on this envelope include (left to right and top to bottom): a long-sleeved cream-colored negligee; a sleeveless dress with fringe that reminds us of Pocahontas from the Disney animated film (which was made much later than 1969); a nurse-like blue cape with red trim over a white turtleneck and a red mini-skirt; the same short-sleeved turtleneck and red mini-skirt with a blue-white-and-red plaid vest; (bottom row) a yellow high-collar sleeveless mini-skirt dress; the red satin dress with gold trim; a blue pants suit with a pair of pants and an open-back tunic top. The original price listed on this pattern was seventy five cents, but there's a more modern sticker from the Goodwill suggesting that the price is actually $2.99 today. — 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.

But when I laid out the skirt pattern on the satin, it didn’t quite fit. The skirt pattern was longer than the pajama top’s remaining fabric (post-seam-ripping).

We're looking at the wine-colored skirt and bodice pieces, as they rest, pinned to the Simplicity 8466 doll clothes patterns for the skirt and bodice. You can easily see the hemline of the skirt, as it follows the line of the original garment from which this wine-colored satin was cut, because the pattern sticks out below the skirt (which has been cut on the fold). We're also able to see the pins from the fabric side of these garment pieces (so the pin heads and pin points aren't visible at all -- only the middle part of each pin is visible). — 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.

Nevertheless, I decided to give it a shot. I mean, so what if the final dress comes out a little shorter than the original pattern maker intended?

But once cut out, and laying on my cutting mat, I was a bit worried. The shape of the skirt was strange indeed.

Here we see the Simplicity 8466 fashion doll pattern in the background, and in the foreground, there's a cutting mat with the following items laying on it: the spool of gold braided trim, two wine-colored bodice pieces (cut out but not sewn at all), a string of wine-colored 1/8 inch ribbon, a spool of wine-colored thread, and a skirt that is almost trapezoidal in its shape, having been cut from a garment that was pre-hemmed. The pre-hemmed line runs along the base of the trapezoid. — 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.

I further altered the original pattern by doubling up on the bodice portion.

If you’ve been following my YouTube channel or this website for very long, you’re probably aware that I like to make my doll bodices with a lining. It offers better durability and longevity for kids who like to play hard with their dolls’ clothes.

So that’s why I cut out two bodices instead of just one, further altering the original pattern design.

This is the corner of the trapezoidal edge of the wine-colored dress's skirt, where the sewist has hemmed it, using a double-fold hem. It seems to turn a corner at the base of the skirt, where we then see more of a machine edge stitch, instead of a hand-stitched whipstitch. — 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.

I also incorporated the pajama top’s original hem into my doll’s dress, adding my own hem to the sides of this. Unfortunately, this created a strange, squared-off hemline.

As I often show in my video tutorials, I then placed the dress on my vintage Barbie (she’s really a modern version of a vintage Barbie) inside out, so I could position the straps correctly on the bodice.

This is a close-up image of the red satin or wine-colored dress worn inside-out. We're looking at it from the doll's back, where a single straight pin with a small bead-like pin head is holding the dress in place. Only one strap is visible, and it too is inside-out, with the gold braid pressed to the doll's "skin." We can barely see that another straight pin holds this strap in place. — 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.

You may have noticed that I used a gold braided trim for the straps, and this braided trim was sewn to wine-colored 1/8 inch ribbon. I stitched the gold braid to these ribbons entirely by hand, and if you look closely in this next image, you can see my stitches:

In this close-up, we can see the tiny stitches that hold the gold braid to the 1/8 inch satin ribbon straps used to make the doll dress worn by vintage Barbie in the Chelly Wood article about Simplicity Barbie doll clothes pattern 8466 from 1969. — 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.

Now if you look again at the View 4 image on the Simplicity 8466 Barbie doll clothes pattern, the dress in View 4 seems to have more of a gold rick rack trim than a gold braid around the bottom of the dress.

That’s okay. I don’t mind making alterations!

So I chose to trim my skirt in the gold braid that I already had in my stash, rather than buying gold rick rack. And I really like how it turned out!

A woman's hand slightly lifts up the edge of a wine-colored skirt, where we see an almost Roman-looking braided trim that's truly tiny -- perhaps only one eighths inch wide or smaller. The trim has been carefully sewn to the bottom of a satin skirt with tiny wine-colored stitches that go in and out of the gold braid's weavings. — 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.

As the dress started to come together, I was liking the overall design of the dress, and I couldn’t wait to see what the final product looked like. I especially liked the way the dress’s skirt seemed to naturally curl, much like the image on the envelope for the Simplicity 8466 doll clothes pattern.

Here the vintage Barbie lifts one hand in the air. On the opposite shoulder, a strap has been pinned to the bodice, with the satin ribbon out and the braid in. The dress appears to be inside-out, making the skirt look more of a crimson red color than a wine color, while the bodice lining (which is satin on the inside and outside) looks more of a wine color. — 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.

The final product was pretty close to perfect! From the back, it did look a little bit odd because of the trapezoidal features of the original cut of the skirt.

The vintage Barbie models her wine-colored dress with her back to us. We see how the skirt comes to a point at the back. The doll's hair is pulled back in a long pony tail with the hair gathered horizontally from her ears across the back of her head, so that a waterfall of long, straight brown hair cascades down her shoulder and one arm, under the top-set ponytail. — 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.

But from the side, the hemline gave a sort of high-low effect to the skirt:

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.

Best of all, from the front, it looked almost IDENTICAL to the dress in View 4 of Simplicity 8466, in spite of the fact that I had made three significant alterations!

In a room with a false concrete floor and a pink wall, we see a Mattel vintage Barbie with long brown hair and bangs (Caucasian) wearing a long, wine-colored, hand-made dress with gold braid trim at the bottom of the nearly-floor-length dress and its sleeveless bodice has wine-colored straps with gold braided trim as well. This is a fitted gown that barely flows out from Barbie's hips. She also wears tiny gold plastic heels (really more of a sunflower yellow shade). She stands next to a vintage Simplicity doll clothes pattern which displays a number of dresses and outfits, including a wine colored dress with straps and gold braid trim. This is Simplicity 8466 from 1969 (a Barbie doll clothes pattern published by Simplicity pattern company in 1969). — 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.

Today’s blog post, is all about altering patterns when you don’t have quite enough fabric (or the right notions). This is something I’ve been doing for many years — pattern alterations.

So that’s why I’m offering a paid course called, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” on the Creative Spark platform.

My next course on Creative Spark, will teach you how to design your own doll pants patterns, so if you haven’t already, you might want to sign up for the Creative Spark newsletter. That way you’ll hear about my next course, as soon as it’s available.

If you’re short on funds, maybe ask a family member to buy you a Creative Spark class for Christmas this year, or your next birthday. If you’re concerned that you won’t have time to finish the class, don’t worry! Because the Creative Spark online learning platform allows you an unlimited amount of time to complete your courses.

You pay a single fee for unlimited access to all of the course’s material. No subscriptions, just a one-time fee. (Although it is possible to pay in two installments if that works better for you.)

Most of the commercial patterns I display and talk about here on ChellyWood.com are also available for sale on eBay. However, if you’ve never purchased a pattern on eBay before, it’s a good idea to read the article I wrote called, “Tips for Buying Used Doll Clothes Patterns on eBay.” It will save you time, money, and will likely prevent buyer’s remorse.

And by the way, if you use the links I’ve provided to make your eBay purchase, this website will receive a small commission, which helps fund the ChellyWood.com website, so I can continue to provide you with all the free patterns and tutorial videos offered here.

To read more about my free sewing patterns and tutorials, please visit the “Helpful Tips” page.

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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.