Old Patterns from Chelly's Collection, Sewing and Fashion History, Tips for Beginners, Vintage Barbie

Unfinished Sewing Projects #MeMadeMonday #SewVintage

McCall's 6260 vintage Barbie patterns: view A shows a ponytail Barbie wearing a pink gingham dress with lace skirt overlaid and a matching pair of pink gingham panties (shown below the doll on a silver graphic line); View B shows a silver evening gown (strapless) with matching stole and a pink ribbon tied at the waist; View C shows a pink swing coat with very large pockets and lots of buttons; View D shows an orange Kimono style bath robe with white trim and a white belt tied at the waist; View E shows a pair of high-waisted black pants with a little bolero style pink top over the top of them; View F shows a blue bikini with tiny pink polka dots.
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.

Have you ever discovered someone else’s unfinished craft project or sewing project in an unexpected place? And if so, were you tempted to finish the project they started?

Today’s blog post is about one such unfinished sewing project! I bought the envelope you see in the image above, and when I got home and opened it up… there was a UFO inside! (An unfinished object.)

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McCall's 6260 vintage Barbie patterns: view A shows a ponytail Barbie wearing a pink gingham dress with lace skirt overlaid and a matching pair of pink gingham panties (shown below the doll on a silver graphic line); View B shows a silver evening gown (strapless) with matching stole and a pink ribbon tied at the waist; View C shows a pink swing coat with very large pockets and lots of buttons; View D shows an orange Kimono style bath robe with white trim and a white belt tied at the waist; View E shows a pair of high-waisted black pants with a little bolero style pink top over the top of them; View F shows a blue bikini with tiny pink polka dots.
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 went shopping at a second-hand store in Boise and found a dozen or so really great vintage doll clothes patterns. McCall’s 6260 was among the stack of patterns I bought that day.

This shopping spree wasn’t really planned. I needed to pass the time while I waited to pick up my brother at the airport in Boise. So I visited the second hand store, bought my patterns, and brought them with me to the airport.

While I waited in the airport lobby, I sort of dug through my newly acquired vintage patterns, suppressing the urge to go “Ooh! Awww!” because each one contained some unexpected little treasures. The McCall’s 6260 envelope was no exception.

Several items are illustrated on a turquoise blue woven fabric background. Top left: The Simplicity 9097 pattern envelope includes five outfits for an 11 inch fashion doll like Barbie. Top center: the instruction sheet for simplicity 9097 actually shows that the view 3 outfit is a dress with a white bodice and pleated blue ra-ra skirt, even though this looks like two separate garments in the illustration on the envelope cover. Pattern pieces for making the dress appear as a back skirt piece, a pleat-design front piece that’s meant to be cut on the fold, and a bodice front piece with a side dart, all of which show seam lines that indicate the bodice will, indeed, be attached to the skirt which will be made from three pieces. Lower left: the McCall’s 6260 doll clothes pattern is a very different pattern which has no similar garments to the View 3 dress from Simplicity 9097. Top lower right: a pink arrow points from a swatch of white dotted swiss cotton fabric decorated with little yellow tulips to the pattern envelope for McCall’s 6260. Bottom lower right: a pink arrow points from the pleated “cut on fold” front portion of the view 3 dress’s skirt to the pattern envelope for McCall’s 6260.
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 I opened up the McCall’s 6260 envelope, I found a little white skirt with orange fuzzy dotted Swiss polka dots and tiny yellow tulips on its white background super-thin cotton fabric. Pinned to it was the skirt pattern you see above (lower left).

But look carefully at that skirt pattern. It doesn’t say McCall’s 6260. It says Simplicity 9097. There were no pleated skirts pictured on the McCall’s 6260 pattern envelope. This was a UFO from some other envelope!

I love a good mystery! And I was excited to take on the challenge of finishing the original owner’s project.

After my brother and I got to our Vrbo staycation locale, I googled Simplicity 9097. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was a skirt with pleats, and it looked super cute on the cover of the Simplicity 9097 envelope!

The Simplicity 9097 pattern envelope appears on the right. On the left, there’s a close-up of the doll clothes outfits for the View 3 skirt, top, cape and scarf. The blue “ra-ra” skirt is 1960’s style super-short with two pleats in the front. The white top is sleeveless with side darts. The scarf appears to be a white ribbon with red polka dots, tied around the doll’s neck. The blue cape is waist length and has two white buttons at the top of an asymmetrical closure.
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.

It reminded me a little of my Ideal Crissy doll patterns, but it was, indeed, for 11 and a half inch fashion dolls. That tiny little tulip-patterned skirt couldn’t have been for a bigger doll!

So I ordered it.

But when it arrived, I was in for yet another surprise. Have another look at the instruction sheet that came inside the pattern envelope for Simplicity 9097:

Several items are illustrated on a turquoise blue woven fabric background. Top left: The Simplicity 9097 pattern envelope includes five outfits for an 11 inch fashion doll like Barbie. Top center: the instruction sheet for simplicity 9097 actually shows that the view 3 outfit is a dress with a white bodice and pleated blue ra-ra skirt, even though this looks like two separate garments in the illustration on the envelope cover. Pattern pieces for making the dress appear as a back skirt piece, a pleat-design front piece that’s meant to be cut on the fold, and a bodice front piece with a side dart, all of which show seam lines that indicate the bodice will, indeed, be attached to the skirt which will be made from three pieces. Lower left: the McCall’s 6260 doll clothes pattern is a very different pattern which has no similar garments to the View 3 dress from Simplicity 9097. Top lower right: a pink arrow points from a swatch of white dotted swiss cotton fabric decorated with little yellow tulips to the pattern envelope for McCall’s 6260. Bottom lower right: a pink arrow points from the pleated “cut on fold” front portion of the view 3 dress’s skirt to the pattern envelope for McCall’s 6260.
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.

It wasn’t a stand-alone skirt; it was part of a dress. Furthermore, if you notice the actual skirt pattern pieces in the upper right corner of the image above, you’ll see that this skirt has two back pattern pieces, as well as the front pleated part.

How on earth was I going to finish this project? I didn’t have any more of the white dotted Swiss tulip fabric. This was somebody else’s fabric from their unfinished project. That fabric was probably from the 1970’s anyhow. There was no way I could have found more of it.

At this point I’m going to table this topic until later. You’ll have to come back next week to find out what I did!

Questions: 

What would you do with this unfinished skirt piece? Would you make it into something else? Would to create the dress anyway, using different fabric?

And what do you think this sewist experienced/thought when they discovered this piece and its corresponding pattern was missing from their Simplicity 9097 envelope?

Please leave a comment!

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.

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*Please note: when you click on links to various merchants on the ChellyWood.com 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 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 “Unfinished Sewing Projects #MeMadeMonday #SewVintage”

  1. Welcome back, Chelly!

    If I saw an unfinished project inside a doll clothes pattern, I think I would finish it, if it comes with easy instructions.

    Thanks for today’s blog post,
    Trisha

    Reply

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