Sewing September

 Skirt Alterations, Doll Dresses, and A Pattern for a Little Girl Dress

A lady from Church hired me to make alterations on this denim shirt. She wanted it to have less of a flare. It was hard for me to do because I think the more flare in a skirt the better the skirt. So I took a perfectly good skirt and made it inferior, in my opinion, of course.

After I had made new seams I added topstitching to make the new seams match the old ones.

The lady was happy with these alterations.

I couldn't finish the doll that I started working on in August because I don't have any poly-fil at hand. All my poly-fil is stored in another city. So until I get over there to dig out my poly-fil, I have turned to doll dresses as my handwork project. 

I finished this red one.

I can't help myself from sewing in a way that makes the stitches almost like a to-scale model of a real dress. I don't know if you can see these stitches on the sleeve, but this is what I talking about. Tiny stitches that are totally over kill and definitely not necessary in a practical way.

How do I market this? It doesn't make any sense for me to go into such detail for a dress intended to be a child's toy. On the other hand I hate toys who's purpose isn't to be played with, in other words collectable dolls. Toys should be played with. They should bring joy to children. It's just dumb for an adult to have a child's toy just to put in a case and stare at, in my view. I don't want to offend any doll collectors out there. I have an Aunt who collects dolls and I love her. She's a nice collector. She did always give me and my sisters one of her collectors edition dolls whenever we visited. But, she didn't mind that we opened the packaging and played with the dolls. And I can assure you that they weren't collectors items by the time that we were done with them. She was happy to sacrifice her dolls to bring joy to children.

Sorry about the tangent there. I was wanting to ask if anyone out there can tell me if there is a niche for this type of sewing that isn't a collectible?

I finished all the exposed raw edges with a blanket stitch.

I cut out two more doll dresses.......

And marked the seam allowances for easy hand sewing.

My daughter's birthday is coming up in December, which means that I had better get busy if I want to make a dress for her. Like really busy! 

I cut out the pattern.

This pattern only has two views: long sleeve 

And short sleeve.

I have several really cute fabric options so perhaps I can make more than one dress and try both views.

I can't wait to show you how much I can get done in October!