Dolls for a birthday.

Nearing the end of what has been a big birthday season for us over here, I just finished up some gifts for two cousins of ours, B + A.  One is turning 7 and one 3, both seemed to like playing with Abby's 18" doll, so I thought to myself, why not get them each a doll and sew a few dresses for them?  Brilliant, right? 

 

 

First up, I made a Sofia Blazer intending for it to go to B, but then I realized I would have to make bottoms and a shirt to go with it... so I ended up letting Abby have it as she beeegged me for one just like it.  (Also, there was a mistake or two)

 

Cah-ute, right?  The whole time I was thinking to myself, I wish Oliver and S would just come out with a blazer already!!

You're supposed to be able to add a button to the front, but this particular doll has hair that "grows" so she has a knob on her back that makes it impossible to close the blazer. 

I made the pants a while ago, the deets can be found here.

 

I love making doll clothes because they use those "too big to throw away" kind of scraps.  Like this gray?  From Jack's pants, and the lining is from Abby's maxi dress.

 

Funny story about the blazer.  So, I was all excited to get it finished, right?  I was sewing waaay to late at night, nearly midnight, knowing I only had a few more steps.  You see those teensy tiny sleeves?  Well, you turn them under and are instructed to sew them in the machine if you can- I accepted that challenge.  The first sleeve went off without a hitch, perfect in fact, the second... not so much.  I got a little too confident and stitched a leeeeettle too fast and ended up stitching through my finger tip, ha!! Never fear, dear friends, I managed not to get any blood on the fabric, bandaged up and soldiered on.  The fact that I literally had only a half inch left to sew helped my decision to finish that night.  So my finger tip is still in a bit of pain and is missing a chunk of skin, but on the plus side this time I didn't break the needle off in my finger! 

 

So I pressed it one last time since the iron was still hot and Abby woke me up the next morning with a "IS THAT BLAZER FOR ME?!", I would call that success. 

 



This one is the same pattern I drafted here for a knock-off Roller Skate dress (can't believe I never blogged that dress! hm!) If you follow that link, there is a picture of the back.  It is constructed identical to the kid sized dress, aside from the elastic casing.  For the elastic I just stitched it directly on the inside of the dress after it was completed since I wasn't worried about the doll's comfort, ha!

This yellow is left over from Abby's geranium, which was left over originally from 4 skirts I made for  a wedding reception.

This dress is the Oliver + S popover sundress (free pattern) made from scraps left from this skirt.

I actually made three of the sundresses, two of the roller skate dresses and some headbands to go along.  Abby is keeping the pink one, she thought it would be fun to have "best friend" dresses.

Abby made her doll and B's doll a keychain using charms found on the jewelry aisle.

Our local Wal-Mart has a big selection of doll shoes, jewelry, backpacks, hats, etc (so much fun stuff!) most for $2-3 so we threw in a few pairs of shoes to go with.  In fact, I bought a stockpile and that is now how Abby is rewarded for doing her chores for the week. 


One doll all ready to be packaged and gifted to her new owner, hope she loves hers as much as Abby does!