We have just put my newest pattern, “Princess Ballgown and Classic Dress” on line. I have had a lot of fun designing this pattern. Here are two Madame Alexander dolls wearing the dresses.
If you would like to see other small dolls wearing the dresses, go to my pattern page and select the doll of your choice from the drop down window.
The free pdf of quilt blocks now contains a third quilt block. In addition to the mini Dutch Doll blocks, and the large Dutch Doll block there is a pattern for a flower applique quilt block.
If you are interested in any of the quilt tops, go to my patterns page. You can find the download in the red box on the right that lists all the free downloads.
I was thinking of Florabunda when I made the flower quilt. Here she is taking a nap with her flower quilt.
Other dolls can use the quilt and bed, too. My Madame Alexander Wendy would fit the bed just fine.
Coming next week: A free download for a star applique quilt block. (Twinkle says it is about time!)
Coming in August: A chance to win a free pdf of your choice from my pattern selections.
I am amazed at the riches that the internet adds to our lives. It is so easy to find answers to questions and to make friends all over the world. The wonderful prospects for communication also have made me look carefully at things that I have always taken for granted, such as measurement systems.
My younger son is home from college for a few days. He mentioned to me that only the United States and one other country in the entire world had not gone on the metric system. In the US we really have a blend of measurements. Science and medicine use metrics. The doll joints and animal eyes that I use as well as silk embroidery ribbon are labeled with millimeters. But it has always been convenient for me to use inches and fraction of inches when I am sewing.
Since we have been tracking the hits on this blog, I have noticed that a large portion of my readers live outside the US. I need to do something about all the inches and fraction of inches that I use in my patterns and sewing tips.
My goal is to add a conversion chart to my Tips, Tools, and Techniques free download. In the meantime here are a few measurements converted to metric.
One fourth inch equals 6 millimeters.
American Girl® mini, Twinkle, and Corelle’s®small doll are about 17 centimeters tall.
Vogue’s Modern Ginny®, Floribunda, and Madam Alexander’s Wendy® are about 19 centimeters tall.
Tender Heart and Effanbee’s ® Li’l Innocents® are about 21 centimeters tall.
The two tiered skirt in my pattern Gown, Smock Top, and Two Tier Skirt is a fairly easy garment to make.I noticed a pattern that would make a nice matching girl’s skirt. McCall’s 5841 has patterns for two and three tier skirts for girls. Small dolls are really too little for three tiers. The McCall’s pattern looks like it would be quick and easy to make.
Many illustrations of girls wearing tiered skirts show them paired with a T-shirt. My doll’s T-shirt pattern is offered in my Pants, T-Shirt, and Skirt pattern. The T-shirt pattern has ribbing at the neck and set in sleeves.
If you would like an easier top to pair with the two tier skirt, try the top from my free pattern Sundress and Summer Top. I wrote about sundress patterns for girls in a previous blog. To make a matching girl’s outfit, shorten one of the girl’s patterns for a sundress and use it to make a girl’s top for a tiered skirt.
Remember that my small doll clothes patterns will also fit American Girl mini, Madam Alexander dolls, Vogue’s Ginny, and other small commercial dolls.
Continuing the idea of making a girl and small doll matching dresses, I have found a few girl’s patterns that can match my small doll’s A-line dress pattern. Simplicity 2194 is a girl’s A-line dress. It has suggestions for embellishing the dress that you might copy on the doll’s dress. Amazon offers a book titled Absolutely A-Line by Wendi Gratz that has received fairly good reviews. The pattern and the book both promise dresses that are easy to make.
Simplicity also has a few short jackets included in other girl’s dress patterns. None of the patterns that I looked at are an exact match for the jacket included in my doll’s A-line pattern. The girl’s jacket patterns are more complicated than the A-line dress pattern. My doll’s jacket pattern is an easy pattern. If you are sewing for a young girl, you might want to look at the jacket patterns. A short jacket is an interesting addition to a wardrobe.
I have not tried any of these patterns. The pictures look like a good match for my doll’s A-line dress. Give the little girl in your life a pair of matching dresses for her and her Ginny, Madam Alexander doll, mini American Girl, one of my three cloth dolls, or other favorite small doll.
If you have visited my blog before, you may have noticed my blog’s new look today. My technical support (my husband, as I have said before) has put the finishing touches on my website’s new look. The blog was the last page that he worked on.
I have noticed a current trend of making girls and their dolls matching outfits. If a young girl in your life has a small doll such as Madam Alexander’s Wendy, Vogue’s Ginny, Amanda Jane, or one of the American Girl minis, you can use my free sundress pattern as half of a matching outfit set. Of course if she doesn’t have a small doll yet, you can make her Twinkle, Floribunda, or Tender Heart from my pattern.
I have found three patterns for girls that look similar to my doll’s sundress. Any one of them should work as part two of the matching outfit pair. There is a book on Amazon titled Making Children’s Clothes by Emma Hardy. The dress on the cover looks a lot like my doll’s sundress. I also found two Simplicity patterns that might make a matching girl’s dress. They are: Simplicity 2383 and 2391. I have not tried to make any of these dresses, but I usually have good luck with Simplicity patterns.
I just discovered that the Alexander Doll Company is now making their small Wendy doll a little larger than the dolls they made a few years ago. This information is important to me because I am trying to design cloth dolls that can share their clothes patterns with commercial dolls. Wendy is one of several small dolls that can share clothes with Floribunda. The new Wendy can wear some of Floribunda’s clothes, but the jeans are a tight fit.
The new Wendy is wearing Floribunda’s green t-shirt and khakis. The smaller Wendy’s outfit was made by the same pattern. If you look closely, you can see that the khakis on the new Wendy are a little shorter and are a tighter fit than the jeans on the older Wendy. The new Wendy also has bigger feet. She is wearing my larger doll’s, Tender Heart’s, shoes.
Measure your Wendy before deciding on the pattern to use for her clothes.
