Interviews With Crafters, Old Patterns from Chelly's Collection, Tips for Beginners, Tutorials: Sewing Basics

How to Tell When a Sewing Pattern Is NOT for Beginners (Part 1) #SewingForDolls #Handmade

Here we see the Chelly Wood doll from the ChellyWood.com website and the ChellyWood1 YouTube channel. She holds up a sewing pattern for 18 inch doll clothes. The pattern's cover image shows Simplicity 18" doll clothes pattern #4654 which includes patterns for making a lined hooded raincoat or coverup, a tank top and skort, a short-sleeved everyday dress, a sunny sleeveless top with capri pants, a T-shirt with cargo pants, and a crop top with skort or shorts. There's also an 18-inch doll pictured on the pattern wearing a denim jumper with overall straps. The doll wears a striped tee shirt under the overall-style jumper. (This is "jumper" in the US sense of the word -- not a "sweater" as we'd say in the US, but more of a dress with the style of overalls). The watermark on this photo reminds us to visit ChellyWood.com for free, printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes. This image also has a header that says, "Today's topic of discussion: what makes a pattern difficult for beginners?" And in fact, if you navigate to the link to the article that accompanies this image, doll clothing designer, YouTuber, and writer Chelly Wood discusses all the features that make this particular pattern difficult for a beginner who is just learning to sew. This article is designed to help anyone who teaches sewing classes, is teaching another person how to sew, or people who are, themselves, just learning to sew, what to avoid when purchasing store-bought patterns.

I started sewing doll clothes when I was very young, back in the early 1970’s, but I didn’t really learn how to read patterns and pattern instructions until I was about 10 or 12.

Reading the instructions on the back of a pattern can seem daunting to a child who is learning to sew, and therefore I don’t advise it for kids under age 10.

Before we go any further, I want to make my disclaimer: some of the links on this page are affiliate marketing links. What does that mean? Find out more on my Privacy Policy Page.

If you’re an adult beginner who is learning to sew, skip the section with bullets below, as it’s all about helping children learn to sew.

There are lots of things you can do to train children — even very young children — in the sewing basics. Here are a few tips for teaching children to sew:

  • Give them projects they can easily make in 30 minutes or less
  • Have them sew with felt at first, and then move on to cotton later
  • Praise them for their accomplishments but never criticize
  • Load a dozen sewing needles for them, and have these at-the-ready
  • Give them embroidery needles to sew with, for easier handling
  • Tie their knots for them until they ask to learn how to do it themselves

But now I’d like to address the topic of what makes a pattern difficult for beginners. This applies not only to children learning to sew, but adults learning to sew as well.

This image is the back of Simplicity doll clothes sewing pattern #4654 with key words underlined. These key words coordinate with an article found on ChellyWood.com which describes what to watch out for when you're shopping for patterns, especially if you're new to sewing and consider yourself something of a beginner in the sewing world.

In the image above, I’ve underlined key words on the back of Simplicity 18″ Doll Clothing Pattern #4654 that could be interpreted as difficult sewing concepts for beginners. There’s a lot here, so I’m going to cover each topic in detail in the coming weeks. Today I’ll be talking about the concept of fabric that has a “nap.”

This Simplicity doll clothes pattern #4654 is designed to fit 18″ dolls like American Girl, Madame Alexander, Journey Girls, etc. It’s a lovely pattern with a lot of variety (which is why I bought it), but I definitely don’t recommend this pattern for beginners, and here’s why:

Most patterns suggest different amounts of fabric will be needed based on whether or not your fabric has a nap, but if the pattern recommends using only those fabrics that DO have a nap, right off the bat, expect beginners to run across problems.

When a fabric has “a nap,” it means that the dye-colored decoration on the fabric can only go one or two directions. By “dye-colored decoration” I mean, for example, a plaid pattern.

Not sure what I’m saying there? Have a look at the GI Joe camp shirt project that I posted here on ChellyWood.com a while back. Consider how the different types of gingham in that shirt seem to go up-and-down and side-to-side.

When working with gingham or plaids, you need to make sure all your lines are going the same direction. You don’t want the shirt front to have lines going up-and-down and side-to-side while the sleeves have lines at an angle.

Here’s an image to show you what I mean:

 

The image shows fabric cut with the nap and against the nap. These are a sleeve and cuff, which have been cut with a deliberate against-the-grain cut for a specific effect. But the article from which this image comes, describes features that make patterns harder to sew. One of those features is using fabric that has a nap. To read the article, please go to ChellyWood.com and search for "Old Patterns from Chelly's Collection" in the categories bar.

Someone with a lot of experience at sewing may choose to deliberately cut a sleeve cuff against the nap while keeping the sleeve with the grain of the plaid, which is what I was doing here. But this is not something I would recommend for beginners for several reasons.

When you cut fabric against the grain of the weave, it tends to “roll” a bit. This can make it hard to match one piece of the garment to another.

So this is why I gave my GI Joe camp shirt project four flowers on my difficulty scale. Just the fact that the garment uses a gingham fabric makes it a little more difficult due to the fabric’s nap.

Fabric with a nap may have an odd weave to it as well, like velvet. This is called a “pile nap.” Have you ever noticed that when you stroke velvet, it changes colors a bit? It’s the fabric’s nap that causes this.

Any pattern that recommends the use of velvet is going to be challenging for beginners, just based on the nature of velvet as a fabric with a hard-to-find nap.

Patterns usually have arrows that show what direction the lines of the nap should go, and if you’d like to learn more about how this is done, I recommend viewing this video by Professor Pincushion which goes into greater detail on how an intermediate or advanced sewist works with fabric that has a nap, when reading and cutting patterns.

If you’d like to learn more about my system of labeling patterns with difficulty levels, please click here.

Now before I go, I want to make sure I give credit where credit is due; Simplicity doll clothes pattern #4654 is a wonderful pattern for anyone who has a lot of sewing experience under their belt! As I said earlier, it has a fantastic variety of dresses and play clothes patterns. In fact, I often get requests via fan mail, for exactly the types of outfits that are offered in this pattern.

However it’s also a good example of a pattern that’s really not for absolute beginners, so we’ll take another look at some of the concepts I’ve got underlined on the back of this pattern later on.

This image of a turquoise blue sewing needle pulling purple thread away from a line of cross-stitching is used as a divider between sections of a blog post.

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.

For more of my free tutorials, be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel, ChellyWood1.

Look, I know you’ve probably already heard about it, but my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course on the Creative Spark online learning platform will teach you how to alter pants, skirts, dresses, and shirts too. If you haven’t looked into it yet, you can click here to learn more.

In this image, we see a woman's hands making an alteration to a pants pattern for a little 8 inch plush doll with jointed arms and legs. She works on a cutting mat with a pen, a pencil, a ruler, and two different paper patterns; one for pants and the other is a shorts pattern. The words say, "how to alter doll clothes patterns" and the URL for the class is also offered as follows: https://creativespark.ctpub.com/courses/alter-doll-clothes
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 have a new course on the Creative Spark Online Learning platform which teaches you how to design your own doll pants patterns from scratch, including leggings, overalls, and fly-front jeans. Click here to check out that new course, which is only $19.99!

The image shows an 18 inch doll next to an 8 inch doll, to demonstrate that Chelly's "How to Design Doll Pants Patterns" course is for dolls of any shape or size. In one photo, both dolls wear a tee shirt with leggings. In the other image, both dolls wear a T-shirt under a pair of green polka dot overalls (green with tiny white polka dots). The text says, "How to Design Your Own Doll Pants Course Only nineteen dollars and ninety-nine cents! There are two bonuses mentioned on the advertisement as well: Chelly's re-sizing formula and a complementary pattern for 18 inch doll overalls.
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 any class on Creative Spark, you don’t have to follow a schedule. Just sign up when you’re ready.

It’s a one-time fee for the course, and there’s no specific time limit to finish your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you. So go check out my paid courses on Creative Spark, using this link.

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

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*ChellyWood.com earns money by linking to JoAnn Fabrics, Amazon, eBay, 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.

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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