Barbie Patterns, Old Patterns from Chelly's Collection, Tips for Beginners, Vintage Barbie

Vintage McCall’s “Teen Fashion Doll” swimsuit pattern Part Deux #Vintage #DollClothesPatterns

The image is of a McCall's 3429 teen fashion doll sewing pattern from 1972. The sketches of dolls on the cover of this pattern are (top row left to right): a wedding dress, a yellow mini skirt dress with long sleeves, a red blouse with red and blue plaid trousers, a red-riding-hood cape, and (bottom row left to right) a blue body suit with purple wrap-around pants, a blue swimsuit (identical to the bodysuit), a red muumuu-like long dress, a green teddy style nightgown with bloomers, a red floral short sleeved blousy dress with a gathered waist, and a blue checkered pinafore (shown over the previously mentioned short-sleeved long dress with gathered waist). The pattern's package is yellowed with time and in very shabby condition, having torn edges and dogeared corners.
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 you may recall from last week’s swimsuit pattern discussion, the Southern Hemisphere of our lovely planet Earth is currently enjoying summer, so in honor of my southern-hemisphere followers and fans, I’m doing some blog posts about the swimsuit/bodysuit pattern shown as View B, on the vintage McCall’s Teen Doll Fashion pattern number 3429, which appears above.

Two weeks ago, I showed you my sewing fail, with regard to this swimsuit / bodysuit pattern. Once I’d tossed my salmon-colored first attempt aside, I decided to give it another shot with the purple swimsuit fabric I got from FabScrap, which turned out much better, as you can see below.

This segmented image shows three shots of Mattel's modern Tall Barbie, modeling a handmade fashion doll swimsuit or bodysuit made of purple stretchy fabric. On the left, she is seen from the side. There's a dart under her arm. the swimsuit or body suit fits her torso quite well, but there's a slight lip of fabric around the back of her leg. In the center image, the back of the swimsuit has no wrinkled or irregular areas, but the neckline drops nicely down her back. In the far right image, she wears the swimsuit with a near-perfect fit. If you zoom in, you can see that the swimsuit or bodysuit's purple fabric has a slight wavy line running across it horizontally, and the seam brings these lines together in a way that lets the waves meet in the middle, where the seam runs from the doll's bust to the doll's crotch.
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 I have a tough time letting go of an in-progress project, so I decided to retrieve the salmon colored swimsuit out of my sewing room’s trash can and give it another go.

In the image below, you can see that, although the pattern calls for a single-layer swimsuit, in typical Chelly Wood style, I wanted to give my salmon swimsuit “fail” a coral-colored lining in the re-boot of this project. (See Figure 1.)

The photos pictured here show a swimsuit in four early stages. Figure one shows four garment pieces, two of which are made of coral jersey fabric and two of which are made of a very similar salmon colored fabric. Figure 2 shows where two garment pieces are aligned, but the coral colored pieces has not been hemmed and is therefore longer than the salmon colored piece. Figure 3 shows a close-up of the stitching on the salmon colored piece. Figure 4 shows a woman's fingers reaching inside, in-between two garment pieces which have been sewn together along the bottom opening and top rounded areas.
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 as you can see in Figure 2, I had already clipped and hemmed some of the edges of the original swimsuit, so I had to stitch very close to the edges of these original clipped stitches, in order to create my lining (see figures 3 and 4). That was tricky!

I’m a little embarrassed to admit that the same mistake I made with the first salmon-colored rendition of the swimsuit from vintage McCall’s Teen Doll Fashion pattern number 3429 happened all over again… I sewed the right strap to the left strap instead of sewing right-to-right and left-to-left, leaving me with leg holes that didn’t go where leg holes belong! (See figure 5.)

Here we see, side-by-side, two different images of the same swimsuit. The swimsuit on the right, also shown as Figure 5, has a neckline and arm holes that look normal, but the leg hole of the swimsuit extends out the front of the swimsuit. Figure 6 beside it has been sewn correctly, so the leg holes for this swimsuit come out the sides of the swimsuit.
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 might think I could just seam rip the crotch, but no. That didn’t work. I had to seam rip (unpick) the straps too and start all over again from there. (See Figure 7, below.)

But by this time, the fabric of the straps was really scruffy looking, so I turned the rough edges of the straps inside themselves and sewed them to the correct sides with a whipstitch. (See Figure 8.)

In this photo, we see a doll's swimsuit in various stages of being made. Figure 7 shows that the swimsuit has a very wide area at the bottom, and it is in two pieces, each of which has been sewn and turned right-side-out. figure eight shows a woman's hands sewing together a swimsuit strap. Figure 9 shows one piece of the swimsuit garment after trimming away bits of fabric from the sides. Figure 10 shows a finished swimsuit on the left that's clearly the same swimsuit as the one in the previous photos, as it's a coral pink color. But it also shows a purple swimsuit. Both swimsuits are inside-out.
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.

At this point, I began to realize that there was a lot of extra fabric where the right half and the left half of the swimsuit were supposed to come together. So I trimmed off some of this excess fabric, keeping my fingers crossed that this wouldn’t make the whole swimsuit too slender for Barbie. (See Figure 9.)

I was surprised to discover that it wasn’t a problem of the swimsuit being to skinny; rather, the swimsuit was a whole lot shorter because of the change I’d made to the straps. (See Figure 10.)

I hypothesized that it wouldn’t fit the vintage Barbie it was originally designed for, but I was really hoping it would fit a modern Barbie. To my surprise, I could get it on a vintage Barbie, as you will see below, but remember all that trimming I did back in Figure 9? Well that affected how wide the crotch ended up, as did my lining. Here’s a picture comparing the crotches of the swimsuit made with the original pattern and my alteration:

On the top of this image, there's a photo of the crotches of two swimsuits (one purple and one pink) lined up next to each other, over the top of a ruler, showing how many centimeters wide each swimsuit's crotch is. This is labeled as Figure 11. The salmon colored swimsuit's crotch is only about a centimeter wide at its narrowest point, where as the purple swimsuit's crotch is nearly twice that wide at its narrowest points. Below it, in Figure 12, we see Tall Barbie modeling the purple swimsuit with a wide crotch while beside her, a Steffie Faced vintage Barbie models the salmon colored swimsuit with the narrower crotch.
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.

It really looked pretty good on my vintage Barbie, so in all honesty, I kind of think my alterations made for a better-fitting swimsuit than the original McCall’s 3429 pattern! But I was curious…

Would it fit other dolls too? I tried it on my Queens of Africa doll, and found it wasn’t a bad fit at all.

On a purple background, we see a queens of Africa doll modeling a salmon-colored swimsuit made of jersey fabric. The doll is pictured from the back, the side, and the front.
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.

 

So then I thought, heck, if it fits the Queens of Africa dolls, it will probably fit a Made-to-Move Barbie. Right?

Here we see a modern Made-to-move Barbie modeling a salmon pink swimsuit made of jersey fabric. The doll's face looks Asian, and she has long straight black hair pulled back in a pony tail. The swimsuit's shoulder strap is falling down the doll's arm, just below the shoulder on the doll's left side (our right side as viewers).
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.

Wrong. It was a little too loose in the straps for her. I don’t think the original McCall’s Teen Doll Fashion pattern number 3429 (before my alterations) would have fit her either.

But the real surprise was my Curvy Barbie!

The photo shows a Mattel Curvy Barbie modeling a handmade swimsuit made of a salmon pink colored jersey 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.

Wow! She looked great in it! There was just one little glitch. Can you see what it is?

How about from the back…?

Here we see a Curvy Barbie with her long pink hair pulled away from the opening at the back of her swimsuit. She has her back to the photographer, and we can see that her swimsuit has a dip that goes about a third of the way down her back, at the back of her swimsuit.
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 mean, yeah, it fits her curves so nicely! With her pink hair, she looks all mixy-matchy in this swimsuit, I think. But…

In this image, we see a close-up of the salmon pink swimsuit worn by a Curvy Barbie, and we're looking at a closeup of how the swimsuit fits the Curvy doll's behind. There's just a slight bit of the paler pink or paler coral color of the lining, folding down below the panty line of the swimsuit. A white arrow points at this, but without the arrow it would be so small, it would not even be noticeable.
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.

Since it fits her all snug, the lining sort of eeks down below the swimsuit itself a little awkwardly.

But in spite of that little glitch, I feel like the re-boot was a success overall. Now Tall Barbie and her friend Curvy can hit the beaches in retro-style with their swimsuits, both of which were made from the McCall’s 3429  swimsuit/bodysuit pattern from the 1970’s!

A Mattel Curvy Barbie and a Mattel Tall Barbie stand side by side. The Tall Barbie wears a purple swimsuit made of swimsuit fabric that has a sort of wavy line going across it. The Curvy Barbie wears a pinkish or coral colored swimsuit. The Tall Barbie has a Hispanic look to her features, while the Curvy Barbie has an olive complexion with pink hair.
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.

It goes without saying that if you’d like to learn how to alter doll clothes patterns just like I do, my Creative Spark class, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” will give you exactly the skills you need to alter a commercial pattern like McCall’s 3429 so that it will fit dolls like Tall and Curvy Barbies. Click on the link I’ve provided here to learn more.

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.

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