If you’ve ever bought a vintage doll clothes pattern, you may have found a hidden gem inside the pattern envelope.

Sometimes I’ll find an old receipt, a pre-cut outfit with its original vintage fabric still pinned onto the pattern, or a hand-written note that the previous owner left, to help them remember little nuances about the pattern (see image above for one such example).

But when a friend gave me her Sew-Easy by Advance 2896 vintage doll clothes patterns from the early 1960’s, it seemed to be missing the pattern for its View 5 dress bodice. What a shame! I really wanted to make that dress!

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And then this past summer, while searching for Advance 2896 patterns on eBay (hoping to find the missing bodice pattern in a partial), I stumbled across two other Sew-Easy by Advance doll clothes patterns from the early 1960’s: Advance 9938, which has a cute little summer tennis set and Advance 2895, a wedding trousseau, which I already owned. They were being sold together as a pair.

Neither of these was the Advance 2896 pattern that was missing its view 5 dress bodice, but I bought them anyway because I liked the tennis set from Advance 9938.

And frankly, these Sew-Easy Advance patterns are hard to find with all their pieces. Sometimes I’ll buy two or three partial patterns and combine them, just to make a complete set.

But to my utter surprise, I found in my Advance 9938 AND my Advance 2895, a pair of strange little oddball patterns, that didn’t belong to either one. Both were marked “Bodice C.” Neither of them had a pattern number on them. Have a look…

I went through my new/used patterns, sorting each piece, hoping to figure out where the oddball bodice patterns belonged, but it didn’t seem to go with either of these sets of patterns.

And then I remembered that I’d seen a similar bodice pattern in one of my other very old Barbie patterns…

It was a weirdly shaped pattern that seemed to have been cut right down the middle. I was pretty sure I had another copy of this oddball somewhere.

I spread my patterns out on the sewing room floor and rifled through several other patterns, until I found a Bodice Lining D that matched the Bodice Lining C’s, plus a bodice C that had been incorrectly identified as belonging to a pattern 9939.

Now I had a plethora of these odd little patterns that I didn’t have the slightest idea what they were or where they belonged. But it amazed me to notice that everyone who sewed Barbie clothes in the 1960’s seemed to have a copy of this bodice pattern, even if it didn’t match the other patterns in the envelope!

These lay on a little table in my sewing room for days, while I tried to solve the mystery of where these (now a total of six) bodice pieces actually belonged.

Meanwhile, I decided to sew a Thanksgiving/harvest-themed top and skirt, using the view 3 patterns from my Sew-Easy Advance “Around the Clock Wardrobe” 2896.

I was reading through the instructions for the skirt and top, when I discovered where my oddball bodices belonged!

Bingo! That’s right, the other Advance patterns that I’d bought —9938 and 2895— had each housed a copy of the bodice I’d wanted to sew from my Advance 2896 pattern’s “Around the Clock Wardrobe” view 5! Woo-hoo!

Two other patterns that I’d already owned also housed copies of this bodice pattern! But why were these patterns in every 1960’s pattern envelope?

The only way to find out of course…

…was to sew that dress!

But I was really surprised by this bodice! It wasn’t shaped at all like I’d imagined it would be shaped.

Based only on the cover photo on the envelope, I had imagined the dress’s bodice to be more like the bodice for my basic Barbie party dress design. It looks like this:

Can you see how I would have imagined the Advance 2896 bodice looking like that? The fact that it had these strange straps extending way out above the bust really threw me for a loop!

But since my discovery, I now have a hypothesis about why Advance 2896‘s view 5 dress bodice was popular enough for people to cut them in half, share them with each other, swap them, and store them in other envelopes. Someone even traced one so they’d have a backup duplicate!

Why? Because when you fold the strappy extensions down like this:

It creates a gorgeous open back to the doll’s dress!

Have a look:

This dress is truly a masterpiece of ingenuity! No wonder everybody wanted a copy of this pattern!

From the front and side, it looks like an ordinary sleeveless party dress, but in back, it has that lovely dip!

Wow. Just… wow.

I loved making this little Halloween dress. I can’t wait to make another one!

Before I do, though, I think I’ll fiddle around with the pattern and make some slight alterations, which I may talk about in next Monday’s 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.

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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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Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*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 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.