In today’s blog post, I’ll explain the challenges I faced when sewing the View 2 culottes from vintage Advance 9939 Barbie wardrobe sewing pattern.

You’ll find that I’ve been through two rounds with this pattern: one pair of culottes is solid blue; the other is made from soft pink gingham.

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As you can see in view 1 (above), I marked my pleats for the blue culottes, using a fabric pencil. I sewed side darts in the culottes, just as the instructions suggested. I had gotten about this far along before I realized that the view 2 shirt pattern for Advance 9939 was missing from my envelope.

So I searched through my other patterns for something similar. I decided to give the View 3 shirt pattern from Advance 2896 another try.

I’d sewn this shirt pattern a couple of times before.

When you look at the shape of this pattern, it seems like it would be an easy pattern to sew, but the end result can stick out at the front of the garment with a bulky bubble right where the doll’s collarbone would be (if she had one — which she doesn’t). Take a look:

So I was being brave by trying this shirt yet again, to go with the culottes. I had managed to salvage the shirt when making the leafy fall shirt you see on my Malibu Barbie, on the right above, so I got cocky and thought, “I can handle this!”

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to alter the neckline in the shirt I had sewn to go with my blue culottes, even though I knew from previous experience, that you have to alter that neckline to make it look decent.

I had to go back to cut the already-finished shirt at the neckline and add some bias tape (to then close up my cut), in order to make the shirt from Advance 2896 look presentable. Even with that, though, the sleeve pops out strangely at the sides.

I would have liked to have used a blue bias tape for my shirt’s collar, but I didn’t have any. All I had was red. So as you can see in the image above, the final shirt looked good with white pants, but that red bias tape collar looked sort of strange with the blue culottes.

And so I never got a photo of the final shirt with the finished culottes. I’ve since given the ensemble away.

But I did take a few photos of the blue culottes while I was making them, before I disposed of them. Here they are:

I really like how they turned out, as just a pair of culottes, even though I was somewhat unhappy with the way the shirt looked.

The pleating makes these culottes from Advance 9939 look nice and full on the doll.

And as you can see in these photos, they also fit modern Barbie, as well as vintage Barbie dolls.

The back view also shows how full these culottes look, but I thought it might be nice to have a little more overlap in the back, to prevent a gap that shows off my Barbie’s little tiny underpants.

Now if you’re wondering how I created the waistband, don’t worry. I have photos of that as well.

But these show my second rendition of the culottes from View 2 of Advance 9939, using pink gingham fabric instead of the blue solid fabric.

I ended up making a solid pink sleeveless top from one of my own patterns to go with these pink culottes, and I think it went well with them.

At least it didn’t have any wonky collar issues like the shirt from Advance 2896!

Which pair is your favorite? Do you like the pink gingham? Or do you prefer the solid blue culottes?

What other fabrics might work well for this project? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.

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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 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.