Some years ago one of my husband’s aunts passed away. She was artistic, bubbly, and a favorite of mine. I had always enjoyed visiting with her at reunions. I made it a point to talk about her with her husband when I saw him at the reunion the next summer. He told me that she had left some unfinished doll clothes that she had planned to make for their granddaughter. I offered to finish the doll clothes. He thanked me, but I didn’t hear anything more about it for over a year. Then one day a delivery man left three huge boxes on our porch. The boxes were full of craft projects, mostly cut out clothes for American Girl and Magic Attic dolls. I had not realized that I had volunteered for such a large undertaking, but I was a good person to choose to finish this project. I had most of the doll clothes patterns that she had used. Some of her patterns and their guides had been misplaced, but I was usually able to find the information that I needed to finish the outfits from my own patterns.

I could not finish everything in the boxes, because I have an allergy to wool and I had to give some lovely wool pieces away. I made and dressed three dolls for my young cousin: one American Girl size, one Magic Attic size, and one the size of my Florabunda doll. I made the small doll to use up the scraps. It took me three years to finish all the dolls and their clothing. Since we have a reunion every year, I brought a doll along me to give her each of those three years. The “reunion doll” almost became a tradition.

My young cousin is now in high school. I sat by her at our last reunion dinner and she told me that she still has her dolls and still displays them.

Here is a doll I made for my sister-in-law using a “reunion doll” pattern that I drafted to wear American Girl doll size clothes.

My Kitty doll pattern is related to this pattern, but I have made a lot of changes in the original pattern. I think that Kitty is easier to sew.

If you happen to try to look at my website this Tuesday (October 2), and it has disappeared, don’t be alarmed. My web service is changing servers and the site may be down for a little while. It should be back on line in a few hours.

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I am putting the final touches on my pattern for eighteen inch (46 cm) Kitty. I am also finishing a pattern for an eighteen inch doll’s A-line dress. I already have an A-line pattern available for my three small dolls. Here are Kitty and Florabunda wearing their matching A-line dresses.

I think that matching dresses for American Girl Dolls and American Girl Mini-dolls are a lot of fun to make. Here are Samantha and mini Samantha in matching A-line dresses.

American Girl Mini-dolls can wear clothes made from Twinkle’s patterns.

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I have written a first draft of instructions for making an eighteen inch (45 cm) Kitty doll. I like to sew a new doll while I am proof reading new instructions. I made my new doll with brown hair. I used the wig instructions that I had already written, but I gave my new doll two ponytails at first to see if I could adapt the basic wig to different hair styles.

Then I braided the yarn wig. Here she is wearing braids like my first Kitty doll. The dress and jacket were made from my new A-line dress pattern for eighteen inch dolls. Now I need to edit my new dress pattern.

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I’m still working on an eighteen inch (45 cm) doll pattern. Here is a doll with braids.

She is wearing another outfit from Learn to Sew for Your Doll. I have made more changes to my pattern since I sewed her. It always takes longer than I plan to design a new pattern.

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I hadn’t bought any doll clothes pattern in quite awhile. I don’t always need to buy patterns, because I enjoy designing my own. However, McCall’s has published some very nice eighteen inch doll clothes patterns recently. I especially liked the fact that the patterns contain some interesting accessories. When Jo Ann Fabric and Crafts put McCall’s patterns on sale last week, I treated myself to several of the new patterns. I usually enjoy reading a good book at bedtime, but a new pattern guide makes a nice change.

After I had read all my new pattern guides, it was time to file my new patterns. When I got my pattern box down, it occurred to me that I could share a pattern organizing trick with you. I got the general idea from one of my husband’s aunts and then changed her system slightly. This trick only works for managing patterns for small things like doll clothes.

I cut out all of the patterns in one pattern envelope and sort them by outfit. I put the pattern pieces for each outfit in a separate small envelope. I label each envelope with the pattern number, the name of the outfit and numbers of the pattern pieces. All the small envelopes go into the pattern envelope with the pattern guide. Here is a favorite Vogue pattern that I had organized several years ago.

I wanted to remove cat and dog patterns from several envelopes, because I am interested in designing my own doll pet patterns. I want to study the techniques for making small stuffed animals. I labeled a brown envelope and pulled the pet patterns from several different pattern envelopes.

I have learned from experience to add an index card to each original pattern envelope to explain what has happened to the missing pattern. Here is my vogue pattern with the dog pattern removed.

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Last week I explained how Florabunda got the dress that she is wearing on my newest book’s cover. This week I want to explain why she is on the cover of a book that contains only patterns for an eighteen inch (forty-five centimeter) doll.

I wrote this book for elementary students to use with an adult. I tried to write clear instructions for a consistent progression of skills. To make the book more interesting, I wanted to include some light humor. I also wanted to explain some techniques in a boxed area of the text rather than with the general flow of instructions. I decided to use a cartoon version of Florabunda for humor and to introduce the technique boxes.

I tried to draw a cartoon Florabunda, but I do not have the artistic skill. My husband helped me turn photos of Florabunda into cartoons.

First we photographed the doll in several appropriate poses. Here is the first photo that we used:

Then my husband experimented with photo-processing. After some frustration, he found that he needed to shrink the photo before working on it. Then he used line detection on the smaller picture to make a black and white image. One program that does line detection is call “Charcoal.”

His drawing program contains cartoon balloons that will accept text and change shape. Now I have a cartoon version of Florabunda.

Florabunda has many jobs. She is a cute little doll that is fun to play with or collect. She can also be a doll that belongs to a larger doll. She stars in a story about modern little girls and another story about princesses. (For a free download of the stories, check the bottom of my Patterns Page.) Her newest job is to teach sewing skills.

Remember that you can download patterns for Florabunda and her friends on my Pattern Page. If you are only interested in Florabunda and would like a hard copy of her patterns, you can order a book with all her patterns from the My Books Page of this blog or from Amazon.

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Look at the right bottom corner of my new book’s cover.

Florabunda is wearing a sundress that matches the eighteen inch doll’s dress. Here is a close-up of the two dolls.

The pattern on Florabunda’s dress is scaled to match her smaller size. The smaller size print was not available at a fabric shop, so it was printed with a computer printer on printable fabric. I do not have the skills to create this interesting fabric on my own. I had my husband’s help and we found that the project took more effort than we expected. The first step was to scan the original fabric.

Then we picked out a rectangle of fabric that included the complete design without any repetition.

My husband used a photo-processing program to straighten the design so that it would match the straight of grain when it was printed. He also used the program to crop the scan, leaving only one complete design.

While he was still in the program, he shrank the design and then repeated it until the now smaller design would cover a sheet of printable fabric.

The colors on the first printed sheet did not match the original.

We went back to the photo-processing program and worked on making the colors match. We printed several paper samples before using another sheet of printable fabric.

The computer printed fabric is a little more difficult to sew on than regular fabric. It is slightly thicker and does not drape as well. It took some effort but, I was happy with the little dress when I had finished it.

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I have finished my third book. It is called Learn to Sew for your Doll.

It is a little different from my patterns and my other two books. This book is written for elementary students to use with an adult. It is a series of sewing skills presented in a learning sequence. The patterns are for bedding and clothing for eighteen inch ( forty-five centimeter) commercial dolls, such as the Springfield dolls or the American Girl dolls. I think that making clothing for larger dolls is a good starting place to learn to sew.

I felt comfortable writing this book, because I taught elementary school and have an MA degree in curriculum and instruction.

If you think that this book sounds interesting, please go to the the “My Books” page on this website. You can learn more about it and also see ways to order it.

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