Sustainable Sewing: Eco-Friendly Projects for Earth Day — #EarthDay #SewingChallenge

For today, I created a little YouTube Short, challenging everyone to create a whole wardrobe from recycled fabrics!

Hooray for Earth Day!!! (It’s April 22nd — but you don’t have to call that your done-with-this-project deadline.)

All you have to do, to join the challenge, is use a small garment, like a child’s tee shirt (that’s what I used) and upcycle that fabric into a mix-and-match wardrobe for a doll or dolls. You can purchase your used garment at a second hand store/charity shop or just grab one that you would otherwise throw out, from your own closet.

The text reads "Upcycled!" with an image of arrows in the recycle-upcycle symbol between the "Upcycled!" text and a photo of a child's purple graphic tee shirt. This tee shirt's graphic images show two sloths hanging from music notes on a series of sheet music lines. The music notes have small green leaves attached to them, as if they are "jungle" music note trees or vines. The Chelly Wood dot com logo appears in one corner of this image, reminding us to go to ChellyWood.com to find out more about a recent upcycle challenge.
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 used this child’s graphic tee, which I purchased at my local Goodwill charity shop.

I even incorporated the graphics into my doll’s tee shirt!

A vintage Sindy sports a purple headband over her long dark brown hair, a tee shirt with the graphic of a super cute little brown sloth with a white face and raccoon-like black eyes, and a purple pencil skirt. The doll appears to be mid-stride while walking.
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.

Leftovers that were harder to use became the lining for the shorts. (You’ll see that image in the video above.)

When you’re all done with your wardrobe, come back to this page and share what you’ve learned, what you’ve made, and if it becomes a gift to someone, who you gave it to (optional). So bookmark this page and return whenever you’re ready!

I encourage you to do what you can to help save our planet! Why buy new fabrics (which use dyes and other harmful chemicals in the manufacturing process), when you can make all of this out of just one tee shirt?

Text says, "Earth Day sewing challenge at Chelly Wood dot com" surrounding a wardrobe of Barbie or Pedigree Sindy fashion doll clothes including shirts, pants, skirts, and accessories.
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 patterns for these items of clothing come in both A4 patterns (for people who live outside the US) and American printer paper. They’re all free patterns, of course, and they are designed to fit both Barbie and Sindy, among other fashion dolls.

Here are the links to the free doll clothes patterns and tutorials for each of the items shown above:

Have fun sewing, everyone! And thanks for your participation in this earth-friendly challenge!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.

If you enjoyed this blog post, and you’d like to see my videos, you might want to navigate over to my YouTube channel, ChellyWood1 to look through my playlists.

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, 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.

4 thoughts on “Sustainable Sewing: Eco-Friendly Projects for Earth Day — #EarthDay #SewingChallenge

  1. This wardrobe is lovely!
    I’m going to use a second hand pair of short pants for a shirt for a Big Jim serie doll.

      1. Hi, Chelly, the shirt turned out very good. The fabric has a very small tartan that is lovely on a small scale dress and looks horrible on a pair of trousers 🙂
        I have made a pair of shorts and a shirt for my new Steve Austin doll (Six million dollars man).
        I have made them from a third hand fabric (if I can say so), I have used some rags from a big bag of rags for cleaning purposes (once they were a skirt and a shirt).
        Even these are lovely, old and overwashed fabric is sometimes great!

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