10-inch doll clothes patterns, 9-inch Dolls, Creative Spark Online Learning, Daily Patterns, Doll Makeovers, Skipper Patterns, Vintage Skipper, Whole Costumes for Dolls

Sew a pretty sun dress for vintage 1980’s Skipper dolls w/free sewing patterns @ ChellyWood.com #Easter #DollClothes

A beautiful platinum blonde Skipper from the 1980's models a strappy yellow sundress with a full, short skirt. She stands in a room with a mottled blue wall behind her and a white floor under the plastic white flat shoes that she wears. The logo reminds us to visit Chelly Wood dot com for more free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes for Skipper dolls.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

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

Yesterday I posted about my new-used “lucky find” at the Goodwill: a Judy Littlechap doll. Well another recent Goodwill discovery was this vintage Skipper from the 1980’s.

However, she didn’t arrive in nearly as good of condition as Judy did. In fact, even after cleaning her up and giving her a significant hair makeover, she will never fully recover from the damage that has been done to her in the care of her previous owner. I’m not sure how this happened to her little legs, but my heart went out to her when I saw this:

The photo shows a close-up of a vintage 1980's Skipper doll's right leg. The doll's "skin" looks a lot like the skin of a real person after they've had a bad sunburn and the skin peels away. There's a fresh layer of skin under the peeling section. This doll "sunburn" takes up an area from the top of the foot to the mid-shin of the doll. The doll is wearing white plastic flats with tiny bows embossed into the plastic.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

The poor thing!

That’s not all. Look closely at the dimple on her left cheek…

In this close-up photo of a vintage Skipper doll from the 1980's, we see that the fabric of her little sundress (AKA sun dress) is a bright and sunny yellow cotton fabric, printed with tiny buttons in pastel colors. Around each button is a series of pastel stitch marks that form what looks like flower petals. The skirt is gathered at the waist. The straps are made of the same bright yellow fabric with little stitch marks and buttons printed on it. In this close-up photo, we can see that the doll appears to have a dimple on her right cheek, but if one zooms in on the photo, it's revealed that this "dimple" is actually a smudge mark from a child marking on the doll's face. Even with this smudge, though, her little button nose and bright blue eyes, her subtle pink smile and her lovely long, flowing, feather-soft platinum blond hair, make her positively adorable to look at, and the bright yellow fabric of the dress is so sunny (like springtime sunshine) that she exudes a positive feeling for all who look at her sweet little photo. The ChellyWood.com logo appears in the upper right corner.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Yep. That’s an ink smudge I couldn’t get rid of. Probably permanent marker.

But her hair, which was a virtual rat’s nest when I bought her, is as soft as down now that I’ve given it a wash and a conditioning. (I really should do a how-to video on doll makeovers, but it seems like YouTube has enough of those these days…)

I couldn’t be more pleased with how Skipper‘s lovely hair turned out. It’s perfect for brushing and styling. And she looks absolutely gorgeous in this little springtime yellow sundress that I originally designed for my Disney’s Moana doll.

In this photo, a vintage 1980's Skipper doll poses, turning to the left of the viewer slightly to show off her above-the-knee full skirt on her little yellow cotton sundress. If you would like to make this dress, other dresses, or other doll clothes to fit your vintage Skipper dolls, you'll find the free printable sewing patterns at Chelly Wood dot com.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

I’ve been trying clothes on her, to see what she can fit into, and yes, she can fit into regular modern Skipper clothes for the most part. But as you can see in the image below, she’s a tad bit smaller than today’s Skipper dolls.

In this photo, a 1980's Skipper doll stands back to back with a more modern Skipper doll from the 2020s. Although there's 40 years' difference in age between the two dolls, they are nearly the same size. The modern Skipper's shoulder is slightly higher than the 1980's Skipper doll. Also, the vintage Skipper's hair is much fuller, giving the false impression that they are exactly the same height, when in fact, the top of the head of the older Skipper doll is millimeters shorter than the modern Skipper doll. With careful inspection, we see that because her shoulder is a bit higher, the newer Skipper doll has a little bit longer arm than the older, vintage Skipper. The vintage Skipper wears a yellow sundress, whereas the new Skipper doll wears a striped T-shirt with jeans. Free doll clothes patterns for both doll clothes outfits for Skipper dolls can be found at ChellyWood.com along with sewing instruction in the form of tutorial videos.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Some time in the future, I’d like to post a “Tape Measure Tuesday,” to adequately compare these two dolls, and in the coming weeks, I’d like to post a few more outfits for this little lady.

Clearly she has been through a lot! She needs to be spotlighted! So…

If you’d like to make this flared-skirt sundress for your vintage 1980’s Skipper dolls, you’ll need some cotton fabric and a few Dritz snaps. This dress will look good in both printed fabrics and solid cotton fabrics.

And it would make an absolutely stunning Easter dress, don’t you think?

Today’s patterns will fit these dolls*:

*Note: the dress is very short on the DC Superhero Girls. I would recommend using the longer skirt pattern that also comes with this bodice pattern, rather than the shorter skirt pattern for them.

Here are your free, printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making the dress shown in the video at the top of this page:

If you’ve ever had a dress turn out too tight for your doll after you’ve sewn it, then my Creative Spark class, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” on the Creative Spark platform could help you.

AND I now have a NEW CLASS on the Creative Spark online learning platform: “Design Your Own Doll Pants” which includes OVERALLS, leggings, and fly-front pants! Please take a moment to go check it out!

 

Once you sign up for one of my courses on Creative Spark, the class’s videos will remain open for you to view over and over again. There’s no specific time limit to your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you.

If you enjoy my free patterns and tutorial videos, please help spread the word! Feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials. Here’s an image you’re welcome to share on social media:

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.

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).

Skipper, Petite Barbie dolls, Creatable World, vintage Francie, DC Superhero Girls, vintage Skipper, and vintage Sunshine Family 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.

Rainbow High dolls are products offered by MGA Entertainment, which holds the trademark for them (™). Please visit the Rainbow High website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

Momoko dolls are products offered by Petworks, which holds the trademark for them (™). Please visit the Momoko Dolls website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

Disney Princess, Moana, and Disney fairy 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.

Project MC Squared dolls and Rainbow High dolls are products offered by MGA Entertainment, which holds the trademark for them (™). Please visit the Project MC Squared website or the Rainbow High website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

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.

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