This 18-Inch Doll Swimsuit Was Really Annoying To Sew, But It Turned Out Cute So I Guess That's Fine

Recognize that fabric? It makes me so happy to use it again--I miss that little mermaid kid!

This swimsuit got on my nerves SO BADLY while I was sewing it!

But in retrospect, and after looking back at the pattern and the photos of the sample suit, I think my whole entire issue was that my zig-zag stitches were too wide/too long. Fold-over elastic is normally dead easy to sew, but the stitch width and length that works perfectly for the 18-inch doll leggings that I made a billion of this summer did NOT work with the slippery four-way stretch that I used for this swimsuit. I kept thinking I'd finished sewing it, and then noticing a tiny spot where the stitching hadn't caught the fabric, so I'd rip it out and redo that part, then I'd think I was finished, and then I'd notice another tiny spot that hadn't caught.

Grr!

The stitching on the sample photo, though, looks a lot shorter and narrower, presumably to keep better hold of that slippery spandex? It's a variable to experiment with, anyway.

And presuming the whole thing doesn't end up falling apart, it DOES look pretty cute on the doll!

The little kid was helping me take photos of all the doll garments I was planning to send off to my niece, and she discovered that this swimsuit also makes a cute bodysuit to go under other clothes:

That idea might actually be enough to get me to make another one someday!

If I really wanted to make another proper doll swimsuit, I think I'd spring for the paid pattern from this same company. I would personally way rather wear a surf shirt and boy shirts for swimming, so why wouldn't a doll?

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I Could Not Figure Out How To Sew This Dress

For the first time, a pattern plus instructions has me completely stumped!

And what makes it worse--this is my old pal Joan Hinds, whose praises I have been singing to the Moon and back thanks to all my sewing from All Dolled Up. But I just cannot wrap my head around her Turtleneck T-Shirt Dress from Doll Fashion Studio. It's supposed to be a dress that looks like a turtleneck and skirt combo. Cute, right?

I got the turtleneck part just fine, and I also think it's very cute, although it definitely does best with the drapiest fabric you've got (this fabric is a weird kind of mustard-colored polyester knit that I let the little kid pick out when she was going through a very specific phase of wanting to make her own very specific clothing items--that phase did not last quite long enough for her to make the shirt she'd planned for this fabric, and I don't tend to sew with a lot of polyester knits, ahem, so I've resigned myself to simply chipping away at it for eternity):

I got the skirt part just fine, too, and I'm particularly pleased about the bottom, which is unfinished since the selvedge on this fabric is really nice!

I'm even pleased at how well I matched the thread color! Turns out that tan thread is nearly invisible on mustard knit, yay.

But okay, here's the step that threw me. You've got your shirt made and your skirt made, and here's what comes next:

Gather the top edge of the skirt slightly and, with right sides together, stitch to the lower edge of the top. Fold the top edge 1/2" (13mm) over the seam line and stitch the fold to the seam allowance. The stitching will be approximately 1/2" (13mm) above the fold.

There's an accompanying hand-drawn illustration of what I guess is the process of stitching the fold to the seam allowance.

So what I think I'm meant to do is sew the skirt and bodice together, then kind of pleat it to make a pretend shirt hem, then stitch that pretend hem in place? So that means the seam line where I sewed the top and bottom together will be at that fold? Or hidden inside it somehow?

Anyway, I did what I thought I was supposed to, and I guess it kind of worked, but it looked super bulky and not like a turtleneck with a skirt.

So I picked it all out, hemmed the bottom of the turtleneck, added a casing and elastic to the skirt, and made a turtleneck with a skirt!

That's way better, anyway, because now my niece's doll has a turtleneck that can be paired with any other bottom-

--and a skirt that can be paired with any other top! 

So, ultimately this outfit was salvageable, but not a winner. I'm keeping the pattern pieces, though, because you don't come across a doll turtleneck sewing pattern very often!

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I Might Have the Obsession With American Girl Dolls Version of Perimenopause. Anyway, Here's My Review of All Dolled Up!

All Dolled Up: Sewing Clothes and Accessories for Girls and Their 18-Inch Dolls by Joan Hinds
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Welcome to my summer obsession! Also, does anyone else want to die from the cuteness of those dinosaur pajamas, or am I just really that deep into perimenopause?

Because I personally think they're so freaking cute that I can't stand it. If I saw an actual toddler out and about in those jammies, I guarantee I'd kidnap it. Turn your head for one minute, parents of cute toddlers, and the next thing you know your kid and I are going to be sprawled out on my living room floor, surrounded by the plastic dinosaur toys I kept from my own kids' childhoods, happily making them roar and chomp at each other while listening to old Nancy Cassidy CDs.

Don't worry, though--I'll bring your kid back when it starts to actually want something or get hungry or whatever. Because my favorite thing about perimenopause is no longer cooking meals!

You're obviously meant to use this book to sew matching outfits for kids and their 18-inch dolls (I hate the gender essentialism in these books, but it's too prevalent to get worked up about lest I simply always be worked up, sigh), but what I really wanted was a selection of classic pattern pieces that I could make my own. Some of the pieces here are a little dated and some are so specific that I didn't think they'd customize well, but otherwise, that's mostly what I got!

The pattern pieces are well laid-out on large-format pattern paper in the back of the book. I've read multiple reviews now of people complaining that patterns laid out in that way are impossible to copy and I'm always like... ??? You literally just have to trace them? 

So many pattern pieces, traced onto tracing paper because that is literally not a big deal?

I think the step-by-step instructions are very well-written and thorough, with illustrations for many steps. I would have liked options laid out for more advanced finishing techniques for seams, especially, but since I was intentionally making my favorite patterns multiple times in different colors and fabrics, I think I figured out nice ways to finish most of the seams.

Check out that nicely finished shoulder seam. No raw edges for my dolls!

My favorite patterns in this book are the Monkey Pajamas (but not with the Monkey applique because that part is kind of corny)--

--the ruffled capris (I also lengthened this pattern so that I could make a full-length pair of ruffled pants)--

--and the T-shirts, which worked fine as-is but which I also ended up modifying to make them a little roomier and to utilize the finished hems of upcycled thrifted shirts:

These T-shirts are exactly what I was thinking of when I was wanting a classic, easily modified pattern that I could customize however I wanted. They're simple, they work with all knit fabrics from jersey knit to ribbed knit to four-way stretch to stretch velvet, and I've currently got Mr. Craft Knife working on making me .svg files of cute little appliques that I can add to them. 

Because if you thought that a doll-sized set of flannel dino jammies was cute, think about how cute a little dino T-shirt will be!

P.S. View all my reviews.

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I Sewed Many and Varied Little American Girl Doll Leggings

Okay, I said that the American Girl doll T-shirts were my favorite thing to sew--and they are!--but these leggings are just almost my favorite thing to sew.

They're MUCH simpler than the T-shirts, for one thing. And they're just as cute, and just as amenable to every kind of knit fabric, from performance stretch to old T-shirts, so the possibilities are endless. 

I actually didn't like this pattern, the Snow Day Pants from Doll Fashion Studio, by Joan Hinds, when I first made it, and the first pair of leggings that I sewed following the instructions as-written are now the American Girl doll equivalent of painting clothes, ahem. Like, the instructions tell you to zig-zag stitch the elastic straight to the raw edge of the waist? WHY, THOUGH, when there are so many options just as easy and way cuter?

I modified the pattern quite a lot, including lengthening it so I could also make a full-length version, and remembering that I have a random but huge stash of fold-over elastic in the closet that looks a LOT nicer sewn to raw edges, and now, I LOVE this pattern!

I love the fold-over-elastic at the waist and the ankles for the knit and rib knit fabrics:

And since I'd already made about a million American Girl doll T-shirts by the time I took a break for leggings, I also love using an old T-shirt for leggings, including its existing hem:

Even cuter when I realized that I had room on most old shirts to make both a doll T-shirt AND doll leggings! They're so perfectly matchy!

If you put them both on the doll, they're basically those jersey knit pajama sets that I used to put on my daughters, and that I would in all honestly 1000% wear myself if they just made them in my size. 

I'm already working on an American Girl doll skeleton costume using a black T-shirt and leggings set. Stay tuned!

Alternatively, you can mix and match for comfy play clothes in any color range:

Anyway, I made a bunch of these leggings for my niece's doll, too, just because I think it's nice to have plenty of neutral-ish options for dressing her doll. The simpler the components, the bigger the scope for imagination!

As an example, lol, see the outfits that my kids came up with when I asked them to dress our dolls in some of these new clothes before I sent them off to my niece:

full-length leggings, long-sleeved T-shirt, and puffed-sleeve blouse

long-sleeved T-shirt, short-sleeved T-shirt, and 3/4-length leggings

full-length leggings made from four-way stretch, and a doll tunic a kid made once upon a time from one of their old newborn onesies

sleeveless dress, short AND long-sleeved T-shirts, and 3/4-length leggings

You can see I got a little lost in the weeds sewing doll T-shirts and leggings all summer, right? I kept thinking of new fabrics to test and pattern variations to try, and while I was doing that the summer whisked itself away and now I have to sew a bunch of witch hats as fast as I can.

OMG, y'all. SHOULD I SEW AMERICAN GIRL DOLL WITCH HATS?!?

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American Girl Doll T-Shirts Are The Most Satisfying Sewing Project

Which I guess is why I've sewn so many!

I started with the basic T-shirt pattern from All Dolled Up, by Joan Hinds, which is an absolute classic, a super versatile pattern with both short- and long-sleeved versions. It's perfectly fitted to the waist of the modern American Girl doll, so much so that you need to be very precise about where you place the back fasteners--

--and you'd likely need to alter that part of the pattern if you were sewing for a wider doll. 

But for American Girl dolls, it's perfect!

As written, the pattern works great both for jersey knit (check out what a cute T-shirt this very, very, very last scrap sock monkey fabric turned into!)--

-and for fussy cutting elements from existing T-shirts. This perfectly proportioned Hawaii graphic T-shirt--

--came from a shirt that once upon a time belonged to a small daughter!

I also liked transforming a once VERY well-loved horse print daughter's shirt--

--into one that looks just like it, but smaller:

A few of these shirts in, though, I figured out that if I altered the pattern a little bit, I could actually cut the pieces to utilize the existing hems of old T-shirts, AND I could also seam rip off and use their neck ribbing, which I think makes the shirts look very realistic, as well as being more eco-friendly:

I also realized that I only have to zigzag seams along the neck and waist, so the top-stitching looks much neater!

The vintage shirt that I cut this T-shirt from was very pilled, so I didn't give this piece to my niece. I love it, though--it reminds me of my 70s childhood!

The exact color match of the neck ribbing to the rest of the T-shirt is the main detail in making the doll T-shirt look realistic, and that's completely solved when you upcycle an old T-shirt:

I found an episode of Sewing With Nancy featuring Joan Hinds herself (!!!!!!), showing Nancy making one of these doll T-shirts with a serger:

It's interesting to me to contrast the first T-shirt I made, on the left, to one of the more recent ones:

I was also trying to upcycle an old jersey knit pillowcase, including its existing seam, for that shirt on the left, and that didn't do it any favors.

There really is real benefit it making 100 of the same thing--every 20th iteration, you figure out how to make it a little better or you get an idea of how to do it a little differently! 

I cannot emphasize strongly enough how SATISFYING these little T-shirts are to make. From fussy cutting tiny pieces to precisely top-stitching tiny seams, I swear that I spent half my summer humming happily to myself, listening to the latest Mumford & Sons album over and over and over again, and sewing doll T-shirts.

We didn't do a big summer trip this year, so I had to do something to keep myself entertained, I guess! 

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I Sewed Tiny Ruffled Capris Because American Girl Dolls Need More Camo In Their Wardrobes

You can take the redneck out of the South (or rather, she can flee it on her own two feet, lol), but you CANNOT take the camouflage out of the redneck's wardrobe rotation!

Not out of her wardrobe rotation. Not out of her child's wardrobe rotation, since the camo print fabric that I used to sew these eensy American Girl doll camo capris actually came from a pair of my older daughter's old camo pants--after she outgrew them, I obviously tossed them into my fabric stash, because that was some nice quality fabric, not to mention CAMO!

And, it turns out, not even out of her niece's American Girl doll's wardrobe rotation, since that's where these adorable little camouflage ruffled capri pants are headed. Here's a pic of the outfit in progress modeled by my most helpful buddy, this American Girl doll that I found at Goodwill for $7.99:

The kids don't mind when I dig out their dolls and dress them up as my sewing models, but I know how precious those dolls are to them so I don't feel quite comfortable just keeping them out and about all the time while I'm working. My little Goodwill buddy has been an awesome solution, and is even collecting her own little wardrobe of... let's call them "second-quality" handmade garments, ahem. 

One day I'll even figure out how to fix her frizzy hair!

The capri pants pattern comes from All Dolled Up, by Joan Hinds, which is hands-down my favorite 18-doll pattern book that I've used so far. Ruffled capris don't have quite the versatility of some of her other patterns (I have made about 5,000 of those T-shirts so far!), but I managed to put together a couple of different looks for my niece's birthday package.

The younger kid dressed this doll up in the layered T-shirt look for this photo, but the actual outfit that I sent my niece is the marbled purple T-shirt, sewn from an adult T-shirt, and the purple and black ruffled capris, sewn from a huge batik wall hanging that I found at Goodwill (I sewed another part of that giant batik into this witch hat!):

Actually, ALL of the components of this outfit, from the purple T-shirt to the batik wall hanging to the doll herself, came from Goodwill!

I paired the camouflage ruffled capris (with ruffles made from stash quilting cotton) with a T-shirt sewn from an old T-shirt of Mr. Craft Knife's that had also found its way into my fabric stash (mwa-ha-ha, because it was a really ugly shirt):

What I really need for this ruffled capris pattern is a shirt pattern to pair with it that can also be made from quilting cotton, not jersey knit. Then I could use the same fabric for the shirt and the ruffles, and the outfit would be so mitchy-matchy!

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I Sewed American Girl Doll Pajamas That Were Too Cute For the Birthday Box

To be fair, 1) my own children egged me on in my impulse to keep the most adorable pair of American Girl doll pajamas that I sewed ostensibly for part of my niece's birthday present, and 2) I did sew my niece another pair of American Girl doll pajamas to make up for it.

Can you look at that above photo and guess which pair of pajamas I ended up keeping for our own American Girl doll collection?

This one!!!!!

Once upon a time, the big kid had the CUTEST pair of jammy pants that I made from this flannel dino fabric, and I also made endless other kid things from it, from crayon rolls Christmas stockings. When the big kid got more into horses than dinosaurs for a while, the little kid took up the mantle of lover of dinosaurs, and then you know a homeschooling mom can't let any kid interest alone so I got involved, too, and the culmination of all of this seems to mostly have been that when I showed around this brand-new pair of flannel dino pajamas that I'd just sewn for my niece's birthday box to each kid in turn, each kid in turn's eyes got very big and they each said, "AWWWWWWW!"

And then they both started saying stuff like, "Our cousin [Name Redacted] doesn't even like dinosaurs! She likes rainbow unicorns! We should probably keep the dinosaur pajamas so she doesn't have to look at them. Ooh, can you make a little robe to go with it?!? Can you make a little dino stuffie for her to snuggle?" And so on and so on. 

Not that my arm had to be pulled very much, though--I think these particular pajamas are adorable and immediately coveted them, too!

What I'm actually going to do is dig through my fabric stash to see if I can muster up just enough of this dino flannel to make one more pair of American Girl doll pajamas, because I think I've found the only thing in our entire home that my kids would even possibly fight over after my death.

ANYWAY!

These adorable pajamas are the Monkey Pajamas pattern from All Dolled Up, by Joan Hinds. This book has so many classic patterns that I think are super versatile, including this one. You do need to figure out and add your own finishing bits, though, especially if you don't use a serger. I've got a lot of her patterns pretty well down pat by now, though, so I automatically top-stitch the seams, and figure out for myself what kind of fastening I want:

Tidily top-stitched shoulder seam!

The original pattern calls for the pajama top front/back to also be sewn from the secondary fabric, but I wasn't feeling it, at least for these pajamas. I think they look cute enough with a contrasting fabric just at the wrists and ankles:

Kids who want everything around them to look like it was dunked in magical rainbow unicorn vomit do sometimes get beyond that (case in point: my own kid!), so I didn't do every single piece of doll clothing for my niece in pinks and purples and sparkles. Sometimes you just want to throw on your comfiest pair of brown flannel pjs and kick back with a book in front of the fire!

Although these specific garments look VERY pajama-y, I think that both parts of the Monkey Pajamas pattern are actually quite versatile, especially as a basic top and bottom made from woven, not knit, fabrics. I need to dig through my stash to find some thin denim, which I think would be perfect to make doll jeans using this pattern, cuff and all. I'd probably omit the cuff on the top, though, if I was making anything other than a pajama top. I think it would work very well with novelty quilting cotton, though, particularly a small print that would look proportionate to the doll. Very Hawaiian shirt-esque!

Here's everything that I've sewn for my niece's American Girl doll so far:

• sleeveless dress with a gathered skirt
• romper
• blouse with puffed sleeves
• germ mask

Next up: capris with a ruffled hem!

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