What is the right side in sewing? A quick guide… #SewingTips #EasySewingProjects

Here we see a front yoke which includes the collar and top portion of a doll's dress. We are seeing the yoke from the wrong side, and we can see that it has been stitched at the collar. A woman's hand lifts up the blue fabric with tiny polka dots, to show that two pieces have been sewn together at the neckline, keeping right sides together. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

I’ve recently had some sewing newbies reach out to me, including one dad who’s teaching his daughter how to sew. Way to go, to all the dads out there who are learning to sew right along with their kiddos!

And a question I often get from people who are new to sewing is this: What does “right sides together” mean in your videos? So today I’m going to make a quick blog post that answers this question.

Before I go on, I need to make my required disclaimer statement: As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how affiliate marketing works on my website, please go to the Privacy Policy page. Thank you!

The open, flat bodice of the Valentine's Day dress is laying flat, with the underside of the skirt exposed on the wrong side. We can see that the skirt has been hemmed, the back closure of the skirt has been hemmed, and the bodice is lined. There are two strands of a single ribbon that extend from the center of the bodice front up toward the top part of the photo. — 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 a look at the unfinished Barbie dress above. Do you see how the fabric has bright red and pink hearts on one side, but on the other side of the fabric, the hearts are a duller color? The bright side is considered “the right side” of fabric. The duller-colored side is called “the wrong side.”

But there’s also this to consider: We’re looking at “the wrong side” of the garment in this photo, even though you can see some of the bright-colored fabric which has been sewn into the wrong side of the garment.

So when we say “the right side” by itself, we may be talking about the right side of the fabric (the pretty side of the fabric), or we may be talking about the right side of the garment.

Figure eight shows the bodice from View 3 Advance 9938 with two red cotton straps pinned to it from the back. Figure nine shows the same straps being sewn to the front of the bodice. In both figures eight and nine, the doll wears the bodice inside-out while someone pins and sews the straps onto the bodice. In figure ten, the dress is shown from the wrong side with straps sewn on. Here we see that the bodice has been sewn to the gathered skirt from Advance 9895 View 3. — 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 doll in the image above is wearing her dress wrong side out.

Why might we put a dress on a doll wrong-side-out? To pin the straps on it! Recently I posted a YouTube Shorts video about creating straps for a doll’s dress. Figure 8 shows you how to pin the straps onto the wrong side of the dress, so you can be sure the straps will fit against the doll’s shoulders snugly.

Then, in figure 9, I’ve begun sewing the straps to the wrong side of the garment.

Note: these are from a different blog post, which is why they start with Figure 8 instead of Figure 1. To read that whole blog post, please click here.

Figure 8. Chelly Wood's hand connects the pintucked front of the View A dress from McCall's 8531 to the pin tucked back of the dress, at the shoulders. We can see where a lining has been sewn at the back closure, neckline, and armholes, creating a finished look to these areas of the dress. The lace and eyelet "petticoat" is barely visible on the wrong side of the dress. The skirt of the dress has not yet been hemmed, but a pink chalk line marks where the hem will be, on the wrong side of the 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.

But what about when you’re using a solid color of fabric, like the lovely yellow dress you see me working on in the above photo?

With a solid color of fabric, you can tell the right side from the wrong side by the raw edges of fabric.

See the image below? This is a little scarf for a vintage Skipper. I’ve sewn a hem all the way around the outside of the scarf. You wouldn’t want that raw edge of fabric showing when you put it on the doll, right? (Look closely at Figure 9 below.)

In figure nine, we see the trapezoidal cotton scarf (made using vintage Skipper doll clothes pattern Simplicity 5861) lying next to a metric ruler. The scarf measures about 20 centimeters long from tip to tip. In figure ten, we see a woman's hand sewing the end of a scarf that's more rectangular. She's whipstitching the end of the scarf, but this scarf is made of blue jersey fabric, and it's much thinner than the two centimeter wide trapezoidal scarf shown in figure nine. In figure eleven, we see the length of the long, skinny, rectangular scarf being whipstitched. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

In this case, I’ve folded the scarf so wrong sides are together. Then I’ve whipstitched to make the raw edges invisible.

That’s not actually how the designer of the pattern, Simplicity 5861, intended for it to be sewn. They were okay with having the raw edges of the hem showing, like you see in Figure 9.

But I was not a fan, so I re-designed the scarf, to hide the raw edges (to hide the wrong side).

Here we see a vintage Skipper modeling a handmade scarf and the upper part of her coat or jacket is shown. Both garment pieces are blue. The coat and scarf were made using Simplicity 5861. In this view, the scarf has been tied around Skipper's neck, and while part of the scarf is more or less laying flat against the front of her coat, the other half sticks straight up, exposing the seams of the hem where Skipper's ear is located. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

The image above shows how the original designers of Simplicity 5861 wanted Skipper to wear her scarf. Can you see why I wasn’t happy about that?

Doll clothes are typically made for children. And when children see a loose string on the wrong side of a garment, guess what they do? They pull it!

So I created my own version of the scarf, hiding the wrong side of the fabric. Here’s how my design looked:

A modern African American Stacie doll from Mattel models a coat that was made using Simplicity 5861 sewing patterns for vintage Skipper. She also wears a handmade scarf. The coat is made of sky blue cotton, while the scarf is made of a similar blue cotton jersey fabric. The scarf has been tied around her neck. Part of the scarf -- about one inch or a centimeter and a half of the scarf -- lies neatly against the front of her coat or jacket. The other half of the scarf appears to lie against the back of the doll, just beyond the area where it's tied at her neck. This looks quite natural, and makes her appear very realistic. — Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

If you want to read more about Simplicity 5861, and all the various lessons that I learned while sewing it, please click here.

In fact, on my website, I have a whole page dedicated to the lessons I’ve learned while sewing vintage patterns. For newbies, it’s a goldmine (if I do say so myself)!

From the home page, just look for this logo and click on it:

This image represents a button from the Home page of Chelly Wood dot com. When this button is clicked, it takes you to a whole gallery of vintage doll clothes sewing patterns for dolls of all kinds, and with each of these vintage commercially made sewing patterns for making doll clothes, doll clothing designer Chelly Wood shares with you the important sewing lessons she has learned while creating these doll clothes from the commercial patterns in her collection. — 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.

Also, I’ve been reading Tova Opatrny’s book, Beginner Guide to Sewing, and her book offers lots of tidbits of information for beginners who are just learning to sew. I highly recommend it!

Pages 40 and 41 are dedicated to this idea of “right side and wrong side” to help you wrap your head around this topic.

Tova Opatrny is best known on YouTube as “Professor Pincushion.” Just click that link to follow her YouTube channel. You won’t regret it! She has even taught me a thing or two, and I’ve been sewing for 56 years!

The Chelly Wood doll from ChellyWood.com holds up a copy of Tova Opatrny’s book, The Beginner Guide to Sewing: Garment Making for Nervous Newbies. Beside the doll and a little to the side of her head are half a dozen little pink hearts, indicating that she really enjoyed reading this book. — 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.

Here are 3 ways you can help support my website and YouTube channel:

Visit my eBay store to see if there’s anything you need there, and if so, make a bid
Purchase one of the fabrics I’ve designed — here’s a link to my Spoonflower store
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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.