Reversible Garment Examples and What Can Go Wrong! #SewingTips #SewingHacks

The image shows a Tall Barbie wearing the salmon-colored side of the reversible tank top with polka dot high-waist, fly front shorts. An arrow connects her to the image of a vintage Barbie wearing the polka dot side of the reversible tank top with the same high-waist, fly-front polka dot shorts. The watermark reminds us that these images come from ChellyWood.com, a website best known for offering free printable PDF sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes. If you'd like the free doll clothes patterns for making this reversible tank top with high-waist fly front shorts to fit your 11 inch fashion dolls, please click on the link in the caption. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Among all the hundreds of free sewing patterns here on ChellyWood.com, I actually do have a couple of examples of reversible garments. I recommend the reversible tank top you see above, for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s a good starter project if you’re new to sewing reversible garments. Second, as a clothing item, it fits a lot of different dolls.

Furthermore, if you’re up for alterations, you could change any similar tank top patterns on my website to reversible tank tops, for any given doll, just by following the instructions in the tutorial video on that Barbie reversible tank top page. For example, I altered the tank top that was designed for Bratz dolls (an 8 inch doll) to be reversible by simply following the same instructions as the Barbie reversible tank top.

Click on the link in the caption to navigate to the page where you can download this free printable PDF sewing pattern. This image shows the same Bratz doll wearing a reversible purple-on-one-side and pink-on-the-other-side tank top with straps. She also wears a pretty pink and purple three tier skirt with a tiny sparkly purple ruffle. The overlay says "reversible top" and offers the URL ChellyWood.com where you can find the free printable PDF sewing patterns for making this cute little outfit, including the reversible tank top. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

If the word “alteration” gives you the willies, never fear! Chelly Wood is here! And I offer a paid course in doll clothes alterations that could definitely help you step up your sewing game. Please scroll down to the area below the cross-stitch symbol to learn more about my “How to Alter Doll Clothes” course on the Creative Spark Online Learning platform.

Before we dive into reversible garments extensively, I need to make my required disclaimer statement: As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how affiliate marketing works on my website, please go to the Privacy Policy page. Thank you!

If you’re a regular follower of my blog, you may remember that I made a wrap skirt from Simplicity 8281 for St. Patrick’s Day one year, and it turned out very nice.

Within the square frame of a quilted image, we see a photo of a Made to Move Barbie wearing a handmade kilt-style wrap around skirt, made of green plaid fabric, side-by-side with the image from the cover of Simplicity pattern 8281 from 1977. The real doll and the drawn image from the pattern are standing in identical poses, with feet spread slightly apart and hands at their sides. Both wear a tee shirt with the wrap skirts. — 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.

Wrap skirts are another good choice for a first reversible garment project. Unfortunately, I don’t have any wrap skirt projects here on ChellyWood.com at this time, but there are a couple of different vintage doll clothes patterns you can buy on eBay to try this type of project out.

The first, as I’ve mentioned is Simplicity 8281.

In this image, we see the Chelly Wood doll (actually a Spin Master Liv doll wearing a grey dyed wig, blue glasses, a long-sleeved white shirt with black printed flowers, and a pair of black pants with white Mary Jane shoes) holding up the Simplicity 8281 fashion doll sewing pattern, which was published in 1977. — 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 can see in Views 2 and 3 of this pattern, it also comes with a tank top, which is pretty easy to make reversible. I accomplished this about a year ago, when I was making doll clothes to give to the families of service men and women for Christmas.

That year I also attempted to make the wrap skirt a little shorter, which is a simple enough alteration.

Two versions of the same skirt pattern appear in the photo. One is the original wrap skirt pattern from Simplicity 8281 Barbie doll clothes sewing patterns. The other is a traced and slightly altered skirt pattern with a shorter length than the original wrap skirt pattern. The traced and altered skirt pattern lies on a very oddly shaped piece of vintage floral red fabric. The skirt pattern fills an area of fabric that's shaped sort of like an upside down anvil, with the flare of the skirt filling what would be the top portion of the anvil, if it were upright. Above this, on the swatch of red floral fabric, we can see that a solid red doll's bodice fabric has been laid out to be cut around, like a pattern. With this layout, there's plenty of spare fabric between the skirt and the bodice, plus a bit more extending beyond the doll's bodice, for making straps. — 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 can always go look back at that blog post by clicking here.

In that altered wrap skirt, I went with a print fabric on one side and a solid on the other. It turned out okay, but I think it would have looked nicer if I had chosen black instead of red solid fabric for the side that didn’t use a print.

A modern standard Barbie models a red floral summer top with a red solid colored wrap skirt and red ankle boots. She stands facing left of the viewer, and from this ankle, we can see the same red floral fabric that the bodice uses, peeking out from under the wrap of her 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.

I mean, it turned out cute enough, I guess. I just think, with the red background on the floral print, plus the red solid skirt, it’s too much red.

Another wrap skirt pattern that actually comes with instructions to make it reversible is the vintage Simplicity 4883 doll clothes pattern‘s View 3 skirt for Ideal Tammy.

This image is a close-up of the cover art for the envelope belonging to Simplicity 4883, a sewing pattern for making doll clothes to fit Ideal Tammy dolls in the United States and Canada. However the blog post that goes with this image answers the question, "Can Pedigree Sindy wear doll clothes patterns that were designed for Ideal Tammy dolls?" This image shows a blond Ideal Tammy (a drawing of her) modeling the denim wrap skirt with big front pockets and buttoned on suspenders along with a short sleeved red check shirt and matching red check neck tie or handkerchief worn western-style around Tammy's neck. Peeking out from under the wrap skirt is a red check lining for the skirt. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

This one is going to be slightly more challenging than the straightforward wrap skirt from Simplicity 8281 wrap skirt because it has both pockets and suspenders.

Yet the pockets and suspenders are part of what makes this skirt super cute!

On the left, Ideal Tammy is pictured wearing the wrap skirt with front pockets and suspenders, along with the short-sleeved red gingham check shirt and red gingham check handkerchief. She wears the handkerchief tied around her neck, like the image from the Simplicity 4883 Ideal Tammy doll clothes wardrobe patterns. Beside this photo of a vintage Tammy doll, it shows a close-up of the suspenders; on one side of the suspenders, little white plastic buttons have been sewn and on the other side of the suspenders, tiny snaps have been sewn. Below the photo of the detached suspenders, we see the skirt pieces cut out with the pattern lying beside them. The skirt pieces consist of one denim-look lightweight cotton A-line garment piece and an identical red gingham check garment piece. The skirt pattern only offers half of the skirt's arc because it instructs the sewist/seamstress to "cut on the fold" to double the size of the garment piece. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Of course you could leave off the pockets and/or the suspenders, just to make it as simple as the Simplicity 8281 version.

That’s not what I did, of course. It shouldn’t surprise you that in my second rendition of the Simplicity 4883 wrap skirt, I made the reversible wrap skirt even more complicated, by giving it a bib!

The image shows two Ideal Tammy dolls modeling the same bibbed overall wrap skirt with front pockets, but the doll on the left wears a red version of the overalls jumper dress (in the US meaning of the word "jumper") while the doll on the right wears a pink version. — 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.

Adding the bib wasn’t too tricky, to tell you the truth, but I did make a mistake a long the way, in terms of how to affix the straps to the bib. I was thinking that if I put a snap on each side of the strap, then it wouldn’t matter whether I was snapping it onto the red side or the pink side, either way, it would be affixed to the bib.

But this didn’t turn out like I thought it would.

Figure 1 below shows how I had at first affixed a snap to each side of the strap — both the pink side and the red side — but when I put this on the doll (before I finished sewing the skirts together), I discovered that where you see buttons sticking out in Figure 2, there were snap studs sticking out instead. That looked really weird!

Figure 1 shows straps that are half red and half pink, with a snap fastener sewn to the tip of both the red piece of strap and the pink piece of strap. The image in figure 2 is a close-up of these straps attached to a bib, but instead of one of the snap fasteners, there's a red button attached. Figure 3 shows the package of buttons lying beside the sewn snaps and the unfinished bib with its corresponding snaps. Figure 4 shows a close-up of the doll wearing the bib, and from the side, we can see that the buttons are bulky under her snaps on the reverse (red side) of the dress. She wears the dress with the pink side 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.

So as you can see if Figure 3, I seam-ripped (unpicked) my snaps from the red side of the straps and replaced them with little red buttons.

As a final product, this works okay, but when the doll is photographed in profile, those buttons, combined with the snaps (poppers) really add a lot of bulk to the bib.

If I were to make this outfit again, I’d use a less-bulky button. These were the 6 mm buttons, and I think I would opt for the 4 mm buttons instead, if I were going for a third run.

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.

This wrap skirt is just as cute with a bib as it was without, but figuring out how to affix the straps to the reversible bib made the project very tricky at best.

I still think it’s a fun project, and I’m glad I tackled it!

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For anyone who would like to expand their dolls’ wardrobes, you should really check out my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course and my “Design Your Own Doll Pants Patterns from Scratch” classes on the Creative Spark online learning platform. Here’s my bio page on their website, where you can learn more.

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.

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*Please note: when you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include Amazon, JoAnn Fabric, Etsy, and the eBay Partner Network. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how my website uses affiliate marketing, please visit the website’s Privacy Policy page.

Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.