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

How to turn one dress pattern into two dress patterns #MeMadeMonday #SewingTips

McCall’s 2970 View B dress is shown on a Snapstar doll in three views: (left) in profile, (center) front-facing, and (right) angled slightly facing toward the viewer’s left side. Text beside the image of the McCall’s 2970 pattern envelope reads McCall’s 2970 sewing pattern. Text in lower right corner says, What patterns can Snapstar dolls wear? Learn more at Chelly Wood dot com.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

In addition to the View B dress from McCall’s 2970, my Snapstar doll can also wear a number of outfits I designed to fit the Bratz dolls. So if you came here looking for free doll clothes patterns for your Snapstar dolls, please click here.

But today’s blog post is actually about how to expand one doll dress pattern into more than one. Read on for more tips and tricks, explaining how you can take the View B dress from McCall’s 2970, and turn it into a bunch of different dresses that all look slightly unique.

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Dress pattern shows what appears to be a kimono sleeved dress bodice and a skirt. A cartoonish image of a doll wearing the dress after it has been sewn appears at the bottom of the image. Figure A points to one of the apparent shoulders of the dress bodice. Figure B points to the other shoulder of the apparent bodice. Figure C points to what looks like the trunk area of the bodice.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns for making crafts for many projects.

In quite a few past blog posts, we’ve been learning that the McCall’s 2970 doll clothes sewing pattern actually fits a large number of modern, small-bodied dolls. To see the past blog posts on this topic, please click here.

But my Snapstar doll (shown at the top of today’s post) only fits in the View B dress. She doesn’t fit in the pants suit or the shorter View C dress from the McCall’s 2970 doll clothes sewing pattern.

So how can we turn one dress pattern into two? Or three? Or four different dresses?

Laying in a mish-mash pile, but laying more or less straight across a white surface are a variety of rick rack trims (aka ricrac, or rickrack, or ric rac). They come in these colors: turquoise blue, royal blue, violet/purple, green, and yellow.
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.

Method #1: Add Rickrack Trim

One way to take a dress’s overall appearance up a notch is to add rickrack trim.

In the image below, you’ll see how I’ve added rickrack to the neck and sleeves of the View C dress from the McCall’s 8531 wardrobe pattern for Francie.

Beside a white Christmas present wrapped in red shiny ribbon stands a Mattel vintage Francie doll with brown hair. She wears a handmade tan colored dress with elasticized three-quarter length sleeves that have rickrack trim. The neckline of the dress also has rickrack trim. It's printed with holly leaves and other Christmas themed objects. Her shoes are the same color tan as 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.

Rickrack is inexpensive to buy, and it really adds that nostalgic look to a dress, reminding us of the dresses our grandmas made for us when we were kids.

Method #2: Lengthen or Shorten the Skirt

It may surprise you to learn that the View C dress in the McCall’s 8531 pattern is originally much shorter than the one you see above. I lengthened the original skirt to make it a little longer.

It’s also possible to take a long skirt and make it shorter, but when you do this, you want to make sure you don’t shorten it up too much.

In the image below, I was worried I’d run out of the red floral fabric, so I shortened the View 5 skirt from my Simplicity 8281 doll clothes pattern for Barbie. And this, of course, gave the View 5 skirt a whole new look!

Two versions of the same skirt pattern appear in the photo. One is the original wrap skirt pattern from Simplicity 8281 Barbie doll clothes sewing patterns. The other is a traced and slightly altered skirt pattern with a shorter length than the original wrap skirt pattern. The traced and altered skirt pattern lies on a very oddly shaped piece of vintage floral red fabric. The skirt pattern fills an area of fabric that's shaped sort of like an upside down anvil, with the flare of the skirt filling what would be the top portion of the anvil, if it were upright. Above this, on the swatch of red floral fabric, we can see that a solid red doll's bodice fabric has been laid out to be cut around, like a pattern. With this layout, there's plenty of spare fabric between the skirt and the bodice, plus a bit more extending beyond the doll's bodice, for making straps.
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’s how that View 5 skirt looked in its original length:

Standing on a hardwood floor with a mottled turquoise backdrop behind her, an African American or African Made to Move Barbie with pale pink lipstick and chocolate complexion models a handmade white tee shirt and a handmade wrap around skirt. The skirt is made of Irish-style plaid with shades of green and white. The darkest of these greens is almost black. The skirt makes a nice A-line and the plaid stripes run at a slight angle in front but seem to be perfectly vertical/perpendicular in the back. The doll's hair, pulled up into a pony tail, is straight and light brown. Her shoes are white plastic flats, to match the white tee shirt. The logo in the corner is the ChellyWood.com symbol.
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.

And yes, that’s actually a wrap skirt, not a dress, but the idea is still the same.

Here’s how that same wrap skirt looked after I shortened it up:

A modern standard Barbie models a red summer top with a red floral wrap skirt and red ankle boots. She stands with her arms spread wide, facing the viewer.
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.

If you noticed that the skirt opens from the other side in the altered version, this is kind of the case, but kind of not.

You see, I also made that skirt reversible. Making a garment reversible isn’t easy to do, so I don’t advise attempting that with your dress projects until you’ve gotten some really great sewing skills under your belt.

Here’s how that same skirt looked from the other side (the reverse side):

A modern standard Barbie models a red summer top with a red wrap skirt and red ankle boots. She stands at a slight angle, looking to the left of the viewer.
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.

Method #3: Add a Ruffle

If you really want to change a dress so it’s completely unrecognizable as the same pattern, adding a ruffle to the skirt is the ticket!

Of course if the dress is already quite long, you may need to take it up a little before you add a ruffle because any time you add a ruffle, it will extend the dress’s length by the width of the ruffle.

For more information on how to add a ruffle, this tutorial video should give you some guidance.

A vintage Tammy doll is shown modeling a pale blue denim dress with a floral print and a two-layered ruffle at the bottom of the dress. The doll holds out a little matching handbag made of the same pale blue denim fabric. The doll has long, almost-floor-length auburn hair, which is straight and has no bangs (fringes). Although she is a vintage Ideal Tammy doll, she has had a face repaint and she has had her hair changed to this lovely auburn straight hair (from the original strawberry blond curly short hair that she came with). Her shoes are made of silver plastic. Her dress fits her body like a sheath dress with a tie-belt that matches the pale blue floral denim of the dress, but the two-layered ruffle (which is also shown in a close-up image to the side of the full-doll image) has a top layer made of light blue floral fabric and a layer of ruffle underneath, made from pink gingham. This lower layer of ruffle is an inch or two centimeters long, while the upper layer is less than a half inch or less than one centimeter long, making the pink gingham ruffle stand out. This coordinates nicely with the pale pastel colored flowers on the blue denim, including pink flowers, white flowers, some blue flowers, and the green leaves. It makes the pink flowers really pop on the denim fabric.
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 some alterations I made to the ruffle that went with the View 1 dress from Simplicity 4883 for Ideal Tammy and vintage Sindy dolls.

If you’d like to learn some additional lessons from the patterns I’ve mentioned in today’s blog post, please click one of these links:

Questions: Can you add a fourth tip? What alterations do you make to doll dresses, in order to turn a simple dress pattern into something unique? Please leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments section.

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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To read more about my free sewing patterns and tutorials, please visit the “Helpful Tips” page.

And if you want to really get GOOD at making pattern alterations (the topic of today’s blog post), I teach a class on the Creative Spark website on exactly that! Click this link to learn more.

This informational image shows a woman who is working at a craft table, altering doll clothes pants patterns. The text above her head says, "How to alter doll clothes patterns" followed by the words "online course" and the following bulleted bits of information about the Creative Spark online course the Chelly Wood will be teaching: bullet point 1: 40 plus videos; bullet point 2: work at your own pace; bullet point 3: one fee (no subscription); bullet point 4: learn how to enlarge or reduce your patterns. Next is a textbox encouraging you to "register now" and under this it says, "Go to Creative Spark dot CT pub dot com" and "search for Chelly Wood."
Link to Chelly’s courses: https://creativespark.ctpub.com/pages/chelly-wood-instructor-page

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*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.

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