Holiday Crafts, Old Patterns from Chelly's Collection, Tips for Beginners, Vintage Barbie

How important is the grainline with dolls’ clothes sewing projects? Simplicity 4510 from the 1960’s will show us! #Sew #Vintage

A titian bubble cut Barbie models a one-shoulder dress with a snug fitting pencil skirt. The dress is red with tiny white Christmas trees dotted on the red cotton fabric. The doll wears a pair of red high heels to match her Christmas themed party dress.
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.

Before we start, I’d like to thank my friend Julie for giving me this lovely doll. She’s a real vintage bubble-cut Barbie! I had never owned one before — even as a kid — and one day Julie stopped by, to drop off a huge box of Barbies. This lovely lady was among the dolls she gave me.

That’s a story for another day, but I do have a question about her… Do any of you know if she’s what’s called a “titian” Barbie? Is that what her hair color is called? Please leave a comment to let me know! Thanks!

*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.

In this close-up, we see the closure at the waist of the Barbie, where the red holiday dress bodice back and bodice front pieces meet under the doll's right arm.
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 I’m addressing a question I’ve been asked, both in the comments, and over email. When sewing Barbie clothes, how important is it to follow the grainline arrows?

Do you see how the little white Christmas trees are all pointing more or less “up” on the Barbie dress pictured above, even though the skirt and the bodice are cut from two different swatches of that red holiday fabric? Well that’s what grainline arrows are supposed to do.

They help you get your ducks — or in this case your Christmas trees — all in a row, when sewing a garment from multiple pattern pieces.

In figure 1, patterns are being laid on a small swatch of red cotton fabric dotted with tiny white Christmas trees. In Figure 2, a yellow arrow points up and down, while a pink arrow points diagonally across the grain of the purple background fabric. In figure 3, a doll is being measured for a skirt, and the Christmas tree pattern on this red cotton fabric shows the Christmas trees looking properly aligned to "stand upright" against the fabric of the skirt. In figure 4, the bodice back pieces come in two types: the one on the left is cut from the red cotton with tiny white Christmas trees; the one on the right is cut from oversized red and white striped cotton, with the stripes so large, that it actually looks like a piece of red fabric has been sewn to a piece of white fabric to form the back bodice's lining.
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.

However the bodice pattern for the View 5 dress in the Simplicity 4510 doll clothes pattern is kind of an oddball. The grainline arrows actually pointed the wrong direction, for the Christmas trees to line up.

Now, as you can see in the figure 1 image above, I was working with a very tiny swatch of fabric for this project. I could predict, in advance, that if I did follow the pattern’s grainline arrows (shown in figure 2 as a pink arrow, whereas the yellow arrow shows the actual grain of the fabric), I would have had Christmas trees going every which way when I sewed the bodice to the skirt (figure 3).

To top it all off, I was limited for resources, which is why I used a whole different fabric for my bodice lining (see figure 4 above). This Simplicity 4510 pattern doesn’t actually call for a lining to this bodice, but I wanted to give it one for longevity’s sake. So as usual, I made an alteration and added my own lining.

Here we see the bodice front and back for Simplicity 4510 Barbie doll clothes patterns, view 3. The front and back pieces have been sewn to a lining, and the stitches show where the underarm area will provide a closure because stitches go from the hemline at the diagonal cusp of the bodice front and back, to the waist of the bodice pieces.
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.

The lining created nice crisp lines at the slanted neckline and arm hole areas. The tricky part was remembering to do the front and back of the bodice as more-or-less mirror images of one another.

Otherwise, I was going to end up with a front with the outer tree-decorated fabric showing from the outside and a back with the inner bi-colored lining fabric showing from the outside.

But thankfully that didn’t happen!

In this segmented three-part image, figure 5 shows the pattern for the dress back next to the back's two-tone red and white lining being sewn to the Christmas tree cotton bodice back. Figure six shows the back on the doll after it has been made into a dress (back view -- figure 6) with a nice fit. The right (figure 7) shows the bodice pinned to the doll, showing a bit of a strange fit from front to back, where it closes under the doll's right arm. In figure 7, we see a yellow arrow pointing to where there's a slight gap where the bodice front lays against the Barbie's bosom or chest area.
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.

Since I deliberately didn’t follow the grainline arrows, though, there was a bit of a gap at the bosom of the dress, as you can see in figure 7 above.

My solution to this problem was to attach the side closure with a tight adjustment to the positioning of the snaps. You can kind of see this in figure 6 above, and it really looks pretty good once the whole thing is finalized, as you can see below…

A titian bubble cut Barbie models a one-shoulder dress with a snug fitting pencil skirt. The dress is red with tiny white Christmas trees dotted on the red cotton fabric. In this image, we see a close-up of the Barbie from the side with her exposed shoulder toward the viewer; then we see a full-body image from the back; finally, we see her posing with the one-shoulder strap toward us as she looks slightly to the left of the viewer.
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 pattern also calls for a tulle over-skirt, but I’ll look at how that was made another day.

These changes to the way the original pattern works are called “alterations.” I teach a class on making these kinds of changes, and it’s called “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns.”

If you’re looking for something your family can give you for Christmas this year, why not ask them to sign you up for one of my online classes? There are more details about the classes I teach in the area below.

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.

If you would like to make a donation to this free doll clothes pattern website, please click here. There’s also a “Donate” button in the main menu.

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.

This image shows four rows of artist's renderings of doll clothing items. The top row shows four different styles of pants. The second row shows four different styles of shirts. The third row shows four different styles of skirts. The fourth row shows four different styles of dresses, with skirts in long, short, and mid-length styles. The text reads at the top, "Classes in Doll Clothing Design" followed by this paragraph: "Have you ever wished you could create patterns of your own? Click on the links to Chelly's online courses below, to learn more about her paid courses in doll clothing pattern design techniques."

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.

As always, feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials.

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

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.

5 thoughts on “How important is the grainline with dolls’ clothes sewing projects? Simplicity 4510 from the 1960’s will show us! #Sew #Vintage”

  1. Dear Chelly,

    Titian haired people and dolls like Barbie are redheads. Just so you know.

    Sincerely,
    Trisha Andrews

    Reply

      1. I think she is a strawberry-blonde. A titian is a darker shade of red hair

      2. Okay, thank you for helping me understand that. Before my hair turned white, I was a strawberry blond! I was often called a redhead by people, even though my hair wasn’t as red as other people’s.

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