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How to use cord elastic for very teeny-tiny little dolls’ elastic waistbands! #miniature #dollhouse

The photo shows a neatly packaged tassel of very tiny elastic, wrapped in a brown craft paper swatch and signed "Julia's Choice" beside a black Barbie who is wearing either a bikini or a bra with matching panties in white and blue. Around the doll's waist is pinned some of the Julia's Choice elastic. Beside the doll is a pair of sewing scissors. All three objects lay on a large flat of purple fabric dotted with a splatter of pastel colors.
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.

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The image at the top of today’s blog post shows a Mattel Barbie being measured for the usual 1/8 inch wide elastic, which is what I often use for small doll clothes.

However, for tomorrow’s blog post, I’ll be recommending the use of elastic cord because when making clothes for Barbie’s little sister, Chelsea, these clothing items can be very, very tiny. If you’re not careful, you’ll find that 1/8 inch braided elastic will not fit through the casing of a skirt or a pair of tiny pants.

So here are a few tips on how to use cord elastic…

A woman's hand holds a long strand of white, very thin cord elastic. The ends of the elastic cross near her finger tips.
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 the picture above, elastic cord is relatively stiff, so it’s not too hard to just push it through the casing without a safety pin. As you get toward the end, you’ll need to bunch up the fabric a bit and smooth the cord elastic along through the casing, sort of like sealing a Ziploc bag.

Elastic cord has plenty of elasticity to it, but unlike braided elastic, I do recommend that you cut it longer than the casing.

A long strip of fabric with a very tiny casing has the ends of elastic cord hanging out of each end of the casing. A Caucasian woman's hand holds up the strip of fabric, which is a reddish maroon hue dotted with very tiny sunflowers. The ChellyWood.com logo appears in the corner.
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.

Once you’ve pushed it through the casing, pull it to gather the fabric, knot it at one end, and dab a little fray check or even hot glue on the knot to keep the knot from coming undone.

Once the glue dries, trim away the extra bits of elastic, which you may want to save, to use at the end of a miniature shirt sleeve or something.

In this photo, a woman holds an almost-finished miniature skirt between her thumb and fingers. All we see is her hand and the miniature skirt (not the woman herself). We regard the skirt from the reversed side so the fabric looks somewhat parched rather than fully burgundy colored. We can clearly see the casing, as it has been sewn, and it is all bunched up together with a cord elastic sticking out from both ends of the casing. The two long strands of cord elastic have been knotted, right up close to the casing's edge, and the stringy bits of cord elastic extend out from the knot upward. The skirt has been hemmed, and as we're looking at the underside of the skirt, the hem is viewable. It appears to be a double-fold hem, sewn with a sewing machine. The skirt is so tiny, in its finished form, it will likely be about as long as the woman's whole thumb. The Chelly Wood dot com logo appears in one corner of this 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.

When you sew the final stitches of a skirt, closing off that raw edge you see on the left in the image above, you would want to go over the cord two or three times, to make absolutely sure the cord doesn’t escape from the casing.

That’s really all there is to the use of cord elastic.

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.

In case you haven’t heard, my Creative Spark class, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” is available on the Creative Spark platform. You can sign up any time you want!

And don’t panic if it seems like too much to take on right now — sometimes our lives get really busy. I get that. But for any class on Creative Spark, you don’t have to sign up any time soon. Just sign up when you’re ready.

It’s a one-time fee, and there’s no specific time limit to complete your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you.

The image shows a soft doll laying on a cutting mat. Beside her is a pen and pencil, a pair of handmade doll shorts, and a pair of handmade doll pants. A woman's right hand points to a pants pattern which is laying on top of a shorts pattern, as if she is somehow comparing the two paper doll clothes patterns: the shorts pattern and the pants pattern. Beside the woman's right hand is a ruler with imperial and metric measurements. The words to the left of this image say, "Chelly's Class: How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns" and beneath the photo is the following URL: https://creativespark.ctpub.com/
Visit CreativeSpark.CTpub.com or ChellyWood.com to learn more about Chelly Wood’s class entitled, “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns.”

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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.

Mattel’s Kelly, Heart Family, and Enchantimals 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.

Strawberry Shortcake dolls are products offered by Shortcake IP Holdings LLC, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit the Strawberry Shortcake website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

Disney’s Elsa and Anna dolls are products offered by the Disney Corporation, which holds the registered trademark for them (™). Please visit the Official Shop Disney website to learn more about their company and its trademarked toys.

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