Last week’s Monday blog post was about finding someone else’s unfinished doll clothes project in an envelope for a doll clothes sewing pattern that I bought at a second-hand store.

I decided to embrace the unfinished project, which was just a skirt piece for the View 3 dress from the Simplicity 9097 doll clothes pattern that you see pictured above. But there was a problem…

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If you look closely at the skirt pattern pieces in the upper right corner of the image above, you’ll see that the View 3 dress’s skirt in the Simplicity 9097 sewing pattern has two back pattern pieces, as well as the front pleated part. But the only pre-cut part of the project that I found in the McCall’s envelope was the little white skirt piece dotted with yellow tulips.

It was just one skirt piece, not three. I really wanted to use the fabric from the original sewist’s unfinished project! How on earth was I going to finish this?

I had to get creative, as you’ll see in the image below.

In figure 1 above, you can see that I was concerned that the skirt fabric was too thin. You could see right through it! So I added a white cotton lining.

Next, I cut out the bodice for the view 3 dress from Simplicity 9097. I thought this sunflower yellow fabric brought out the beautiful yellow color of the tiny yellow tulips in the original skirt fabric from the 1970’s, as you can see in figure 2.

Once the bodice pieces were cut out, however, I was worried that the skirt would not be long enough to be directly attached to the bodice, as you can see in figure 3 above. With just the bodice front laying on top of the skirt piece, I was thinking, “Oh no… this is not going to fit!”

But by the time I got the bodice completed (figure 4), I wrapped the skirt around my Barbie’s body and was pleased to discover that the skirt — even without the pleats — looked like it would be a match for the bodice. Whew!

You can kind of tell in figure 5 above that the completed dress was very plain. I decided it needed a ribbon at the point where the bodice met the little white tulip printed skirt. But what type of ribbon would work best?

At first I laid a narrow 1/8 inch wide transparent ribbon across the dropped waist of the Simplicity 9097 View 3 altered dress. This transparent ribbon gave the dress a nice shimmer effect, but I wanted to use my sewing machine to apply it, and I was afraid the narrow width of it would be problematic. I didn’t want to have it drop a little below the seam, like you see in figure 6. That would look wonky.

Next I tried a plain white 1/4 inch satin ribbon. It didn’t seem like it offered enough of a contrast, but it would certainly be easier to sew than the 1/8 inch wide ribbon.

Then I laid a bright neon green grosgrain ribbon across the meeting of the two fabrics. This ribbon, if you zoom in on it, has tiny white dots on it. I was worried the dots would make the whole pattern too “busy,” but once I laid the green across it the dress’s fabric, I sort of liked the effect of the dots. But the neon green wasn’t the same green as the tulips’ leaves. I didn’t particularly like that.

Questions: 

Which ribbon do you think I chose to embellish the view 3 dress from Simplicity 9097 ? Take a guess. Which one would you choose?

Now scroll down just a bit to see which one I decided on, then leave your guess in the comments section. Tell me which one you would’ve chosen, and why. I’m very curious!

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I don’t know if you can tell, but I ended up hand stitching the white satin ribbon on it. Since I hand stitched anyway, I probably could have sewn on the little yellow see-through ribbon. I’m not sure I made the best choice!

I’m curious to see what your thoughts are on the choice.

If you want to learn more about how to sew a ribbon on a doll’s garment, I do have a tutorial video on that very subject. Just click on this link to watch it.

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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.