What a doll!

Each Holiday season the Detroit Goodfellows sponsor a variety of children's gift programs, one of them being dolls that are purchased, dressed and then given to thousands of little girls around Detroit.  Each Holiday season my aunt purchases a few dolls, and this year instead of buying an outfit she asked me to make one.  Her company sponsors a best dressed doll contest, and when she asked for my help, I told her in one sentence everything I know about making doll clothes.  "If you want to win this contest, look elsewhere." 

But, I've had some pretty successful garments that I've made, so I figured that to make a doll outfit, one would just take the same principle and make it on a much smaller scale.  Easy peasy, right?

Wrong. 

These two little outfits took me about an hour to cut out, and I don't even want to calculate how long to make.  I finished in a day, but it wasn't a smooth ride, I'll tell you.  I had a pretty rough time with the sleeves.  Being so small it was pretty impossible to contruct and then sew them on, so I had to wrestle them into a curved seam and then sew up the underarms while I sewed the side seams of the shirt.  Once I had that down, it went quickly.  (Perhaps I should give this a shot next time I make my own shirt?  I'm not sure the same principle will apply.) 

The dresses turned out pretty well, even with a few pretty easy to fix mishaps, and I hope they find nice appreciative homes.  I'm also not thrilled with the quality of the dolls themselves, but I understand why they want each one to be the same. 

Doll 1 got a black and pink cotton dress (both dresses close with velcro in the back) with a pink hem. 

She was meant to have black knit pants, but when I pulled out one doll, I assumed they were identical size.  They weren't, so her shirt ended up being too long to pair with pants.  I added the pink strip to give her some decency.  (Which, looking at the picture, was a good idea.  I should have had her stand for her photo.)

Doll 2 had a floral cotton dress with a bias tape ruffle.  I had planned to pleat a strip of muslin for the skirt, but found this brilliant trim at Joann and took advantage.

Her dress actually hits about two inches above her ankle.  You'll have to excuse my poor photo angle/quality (as well as my dirty basement rug), by the time I finished the dresses it was all I could do to even turn on the camera.