Sew a “fruity” sun dress for vintage Francie dolls with a beach bag or purse! #VintageFrancie #DollClothesPatterns

A vintage Francie doll models a handmade sun dress (AKA sundress) made of white cotton fabric and printed with tiny pastel fruits: pineapples, watermelon slices, cherries, limes, and grapefruits. The doll wears a pair of grapefruit-pink sunglasses. Her dress bodice has straps made of the same white cotton "fruity" fabric as the rest of the dress. This vintage Francie doll has a classic straight haircut with a slight curl at the ends, and she has bangs (fringes). She's a brunette doll. She wears white plastic flats with her above-the-knee-length sun dress. The empty room she stands in is light and airy with a blue wall and white floors. The Chelly Wood dot com logo appears in the corner of the image.
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.

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

On Wednesday this week, we learned how to add a bias tape trim to the top of this dress, to make a business-y look, and I would highly recommend that you go back and read that post, to learn how to apply Velcro to the back of the dress:

A vintage Francie doll shows the back of her purple pinstriped dress. The straps come together in a V-shape above the rim of the bodice. This bodice rim is trimmed in white bias tape. The skirt has tiny gathers, but is more of a mini-skirt/pencil skirt than a typically gathered full 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.

As I said in Wednesday’s blog post, the tutorial for making the dress will only show you how to make this dress with a ribbon strap, so to create the cotton strap we see in the “fruity” sundress version, I recommend that you go to this tutorial for making my longer sun dress, and forward the video to timestamp 1:30 to see how to make your straps.

My Francie doll is shown with a bag in my Wednesday blog post, but not in today’s blog post. That’s okay. Be adventurous and make her a beach bag to go with her fruity sun dress! You can follow the guidelines in this tutorial video to make a beach bag to match your dress.

To make this sunny summer dress, you’ll need some cotton small-print fabric, and 3/4 inch Velcro for the back closure.

A vintage Francie doll with brown hair and bangs appears to be walking along in a room that has a mottled blue background and a white floor. The doll wears a handmade sundress (AKA sun dress) with straps and a skirt that's hemmed just above the knee. The skirt has a very slight gather at the waist, so it's not a flaring full skirt, but more subdued.
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 patterns will fit these dolls:

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

Notice how I said in the first bullet above, “Do not cut the skirt on the fold?” That’s called an alteration.

If you’d like to learn how to make pattern alterations in detail, my Creative Spark class, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” is available on the Creative Spark platform. This class will teach you how to alter a doll’s pants, shirts, skirts, and dresses.

For any class on Creative Spark, there is no subscription. Instead, you pay one price for easy access to all 40+ videos in that class series, which you can keep going back to, for as long as you like.

There’s no specific time limit to your courses. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you.

As always, feel free to pinlike, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials. Here’s an image you’re welcome to share on social media:

Image of sewing pattern for a sun dress with straps. Overlaid with images of Barbie dolls wearing the sun dress in a red plaid print fabric.
Visit ChellyWood.com for more free, printable sewing patterns for dolls of many sizes.

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

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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.

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.

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.

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.

Liv dolls were products designed and distributed by the Spin Master company, which still makes dolls and toys today (although the Liv dolls are no longer in production at the time of this blog post). The Spin Master company held the trademark for the Liv Dolls (™). Please visit the Spin Master Toys and Games website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys and games. Please be aware that the Chelly Wood animated doll is a Spin Master Liv doll that has been re-painted and had its wig colored to appear to look like the real doll clothing designer, Chelly Wood. This was done as a creative project by Chelly’s daughters, and the Spin Master Toys and Games company was not involved in the doll’s makeover in any way.

Disney Princess 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.

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