Wednesday, August 5, 2015

American Girl Meets Dr. Who: My New Hobby

Syd loves playing with dolls, dressing them and taking them on adventures and changing their clothes and taking them on more adventures. She has a large collection of vintage handmade doll clothes from a great-grandmother, and she loves to make her own temporary fashions, using scrap fabric and lots of tape and rubber bands, but when we visited the American Girl store for her birthday in May, I could tell that Syd also longed for REAL clothes for her American Girl doll.

Clothes that fit the doll perfectly. Clothes that were well-made and didn't need rubber bands or tape to keep them up.

And so what is a Momma to do, but start an entire new hobby of creating American Girl doll clothes?

I don't love fussy sewing, so I actually do appreciate sewing for a larger-format doll such as the American Girl (I know that Syd wants "real" Barbie clothes, too, but I dread the eensy seams that would come with that sewing, so I'm putting it off), and in that sewing, I'm consciously choosing the least fussy patterns available, ones that also allow for a lot of customization, such as this reversible wrap skirt.

The skirt pattern comes with a copyright that allows for personal use AND sales of finished skirts made using that pattern (which is AWESOME!), so while I made skirts for Penny, Syd's own American Girl doll, I also made a duplicate of each skirt for my pumpkin+bear etsy shop. Here, for instance, is the Dalek reversible wrap skirt--it's also my favorite:








I also "made" the shirt in the last two photos, if you can call cutting a single straight line "making" a shirt. Can you tell what that shirt USED to be?

Yep! It's a newborn onesie!

I'm a little (LOT) surprised at how much I'm enjoying making these doll clothes. But again, Syd has always been the kid who stretches my interests into outlets that I'd never have explored without her, whether it's dance or fashion design or hairstyles or makeup or, yes, doll clothes.

3 comments:

  1. TinaAugust 5, 2015 at 12:15 PM

    I love it! I have a pin board of American Girl stuff to make, but have yet to try making much of anything. I have some left over dog and horse fabric though, so I might have to see what I can make.

    And how cool would it be if Penny and Saige became pen pals!

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  2. julieAugust 5, 2015 at 1:04 PM

    Oh, my gosh, Penny and Saige should TOTALLY become pen pals!!!

    After I make my fill of wrap skirts and newborn onesie shirts (and finish the Girl Scout uniforms), I'm eager to see what kind of outfits Syd will want next. I think I could teach her to sew some of the American Girl doll dress patterns pretty easily.

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  3. TinaAugust 5, 2015 at 4:46 PM

    We cut out a bunch (seven I think) of wrap skirts before I realized I don't have any velcro. So, we get to stop at the store on the way home from gymnastics tonight.

    I also printed out the pattern for the quilted twirl skirt thing. I'm excited to try that with some of her horse fabric.

    I'll have to keep an eye out for newborn onesie shirts. Have you tried any other newborn shirts? I'm wondering if a button down or sweater would work.

    I think I know what Emma's writing assignment will be for Friday :0)

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