OK, so I've done several dresses, inspired by these 2 blog posts. The first: Skip 2 My Lou's Simple Doll Dress and next UCreate's Pillowcase Doll Dress Tutorial. I do not have fabulous pics like these 2 have, but can tell you what my "un"pattern has morphed into after making 4 18" dresses, 1 18" doll shirt, and a 14" doll dress.. Perhaps after a few more, I'll have more details and some in progress pics.
Materials:
Fabric (2 pieces of the size below)
- 8 1/2"x11" for 18" doll dress
- 8 1/2"x8" for 18" doll shirt
- 5x8 (or 5x9) for 14" Hearts 4 Hearts Doll
Thread
Ribbon or elastic for belt (optional)
First cut your 2 piece of fabric.
I neither used the pattern provided on Skip2MyLou or cut a U shape like on UCreate. Instead, I laid my 2 pieces of fabric together right sides facing, and folded in half. Then, I cut a 1/2 triangle out at the top (for each arm hole) from 3 1/4" down to about 3/4-1" in on the 18" dolls or 2" down and 1/2" in on the 14" doll dress.
Next, I roll hemmed the bottom on the front and back.
Then, with right sides facing each other, I sewed the sides together w/ apx 3/8" seams, stopping about 1/4-1/2" from where the cut for the arm holes begins..
After that, I turned the dress right side out and turned the arm hole edge to turn and top stitch at about 1/8-1/4", down the front, then back up the back.
Then, I turned the front and back both down about 3/4" to create a casing (for 14" dolls, more like 1/2"), and sewed across.
I like elastic for feeding through the "ties" better than ribbon. I have 5/8" FOE (fold over elastic) that works great, and have found that an 8 1/2" cut works fantastic for an 18" doll. I am going to order some 1/8" elastic from ShabbyRoseTrim on Etsy to play with for the 14" doll dresses. Otherwise, ribbon works fine too. For elastic, feed through the casing, then stitch closed and feed the seem into one of the casins.
For a belt, for 18" dolls, a 10-11" piece of FOE sewn together in a circle works great. For a 14" doll, a hair elastic/nylon works good. Or ribbon for both.
Hope this helps... and like I mentioned, I'll try to get more pics as time goes on.
The pics below are my in progress, from 1st attempt, using both tutorials as guides, to the last attempts where I made the shirt as well as the 14" doll dress.
