Dance, ballerina, dance...then let's fix your shoe

Well I was ready to try my hand at another pair of those shoes I had made out of the stripy fabric – a nice black satiny pair. Plus I definitely wanted a nice non stretchy material to work with. I also got to thinking that I didn’t have much luck with the 2 attempts I made on the American Girl patterns, whereas I had a little bit of luck with the commercial pattern.

I chose the same McCall’s pattern as the winter outfit. This time I went with the ballet outfit in the lower right hand corner.

I had a nice black satiny material. I don’t think it was actually satin because one side was a softer, non-shiny while the other side was satiny and shiny. Not sure though.

I laid out my material, cut out my pieces and began to construct the garment. I think I did a pretty good job on the leotard, but again with my inability to follow directions well… I didn’t understand the back piece where the Velcro goes – at the bottom. I don’t know why I just can’t seem to get some of this, but I “winged it”. For some reason, it seemed to indicate that there should be a notch or something cut into the back and then I couldn’t figure out what to do with the notch, so I ended up just ironing it crisp and then adding the Velcro.

The leotard did come together fairly well. I liked doing the leg elastic and had all kinds of visions of making doll swim suits and people underpants. And I’ve discovered I have a knack for sleeves. For some reason, my sleeves usually turn out really good J

When I got to the skirt, I discovered that I am NOT good at hemming in a circle…I have a lot of difficulty with that. I can hem straight all day long, but hemming curves has proven a bit difficult for me. I’m gonna need some tips and advice on that, for sure.

I liked that this was a ‘wrap-look’ skirt – and I LOVE the little bow. I bought the black satin ribbon to make the shoes and it was just the right size for the skirt bow.

Then I did the headband. I know that shouldn't tickle me as much as it does, but I just think this headband is super cute. Unfortunately, I did one of the sides kind of cruddy and it already has come loose, so the headband doesn’t look as impressive as it did when I made it.

 

Then I did the shoes – I chose to do the shoes from the shoe pattern instead of the shoes that came with the ballet outfit. I followed the instructions really carefully but I don’t think they came out as nice as the stripy ones. I have found that I have difficulty shaping the toes well. I also didn’t realize until I took these pictures that I did not sew the ribbon on well, as one came off. See she’s holding it in that bottom picture… as if to say “tsk tsk such poor craftsmanship” ha ha ha

That’s ok. I give this outfit a strong, resounding sideways thumb. I think I did a mediocre job on the outfit, but I tried my best and am pretty satisfied with the final product.

Too good to be true

Well, working with the fleece and the dress form really bolstered my confidence so I decided to move forward with my next project. In my searches for free doll clothes patterns on the internet, I have come across so many wonderful blogs devoted to dolls, doll collecting, doll clothes, and best of all (for me J) doll clothes making!

I’m not too good at this whole blogging thing yet, but as I get better and learn more, I will be adding those places to my blog.

One of the things I came across is a fantastic page that has all of the original American Girl doll clothes patterns the company released. For free. I am in 18 inch doll clothes making heaven!

The first piece I decided to make is Josefina’s nightgown.

I didn't do the rebozo

 

It seemed fairly simple and straightforward. My mistake? Not reading the directions thoroughly… I know, I know, if I am a beginner, I really need to be paying extra close attention to the directions.

I have a stash of top sheets in my fabric collection – I chose a white and light blue striped sheet that I had been using as a cover for my fabric shelf. (I just threw the sheet over the messy shelf when company came over J)

I cut out the fabric, making a real effort to keep my stripes in the right spot – you’ll see what I mean when you see the pics! Then I started to construct the garment.

Now I must pause a moment to talk about confidence. I read that as your confidence in sewing increases, your stitch length should decrease. A larger stitch, like a basting stitch, is easier to take out. Beginners know that ‘easier to take out’ means ‘when I make a mistake’. And since I make LOTS of mistakes, my stitch length has always been set to the longest possible.

My machine, for whatever reason, doesn’t have a good ‘baste’ stitch – my longest stitch is actually much shorter than a baste stitch and it has been the only length I sew on  - I need all the help I can get when it comes to fixing my mistakes J

But if you remember my machine broke and I was using a loaner – that machine has a nice long baste stich. I was surprised to see how long; it made me realize that I shouldn’t be sewing on the longest stitch length always.

Also, the shorter stitch length makes a more professional-looking garment that is “held together” better, obviously.

So for this project, I decided to shorten my stitch length. I figured if I needed to use the seam ripper, I needed to use the seam ripper, right?

So I am starting to sew this nightgown together, and not only are my stitches perfect, but all of the seams are straight, the stripes line up, I mean this piece was getting ready to be my magnum opus here! Since I felt so satisfied and confident of this piece, I felt OK to change something: the instructions say to sew lace to the neck line but since I have never sewn with lace before, it was a bit intimidating to me, so I opted to just hem it instead. No biggie, right? Here I am thinking that NOT using the lace would make the project “simpler” – ha ha on me…

I completed the nightgown and was just so impressed with myself that I decided to add a bit of rick rack to the neck instead of lace, congratulating myself on doing such a neat and careful job. So I continued to follow the instructions to the end and then I got to the part where it says to “add a ribbon to the lace” (some of you more experienced seamstresses probably see what’s coming, right?) I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but since I wasn’t using lace, I figured that part didn’t apply to me…

Let me use this opportunity to say that when I chose this pattern, I didn’t pull up the website to see what the “store bought” version looked like. Had I done that, this project would not have gone as awry as it did L here is the nightgown that American Girl sells.

Anybody figure out what I did wrong?

I sewed in the rick rack, still congratulating myself on a job well done. Check out the stripes in the back: do they not line up perfectly?

Well I finished and gazed upon this lovely garment I made, not really noticing how big the front seemed to be in relation to the back… I put it on the doll and was shocked!! You could have fit 2 dolls in this nightgown!! It looked terrible!! Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures of this catastrophe – I wish I had. I was crushed! The back was perfect, the front was perfect, the sleeves looked great, where did I go wrong??

Well, apparently, the part I didn’t understand about adding the ribbon was that the ribbon was meant to weave in and out of the lace, creating a drawstring for the neck…

So here I am with this massive front (gorgeously sewn…) perfectly fit back (gorgeously sewn) and me not wanting to even fix it because I’ve never sewn anything so neat and tidy before. L

Now, I have learned a bit since this sewing disaster, so I know now I have some options to fix something like this, but at the time, I was flabbergasted. I chose to add a small piece of elastic to “suck in” the neck line. It only brought the neck line in marginally. So I added a second piece of elastic, thinking it might help. It didn’t.

 So I had a good cry at my beautiful garment that turned out ugly and told myself that if I could sew so nicely on this one, I can sew just as nicely on the next one! Back on the horse, right??

PART 2

In the meantime, one of the projects I was interested in was making some shoes. This is kind of funny to me because I refuse to buy this doll any store bought stuff since I am making the doll stuff to practice sewing, not clothing a doll for fashion purposes, you know? The thing is, I’m still a woman, and the thought of not having a good pair of all-purpose shoes to wear with the outfits I’m making just bothers me for some reason. When I make an outfit, I’d like to see it showcased well…

So I decided a good, plain pair of black mary jane style buckle shoes would be a good shoe to go with many of the outfits I plan to make and I’d been debating whether or not I want to buy a pair just to be able to put shoes with the outfits, or if I am really adamant about not buying stuff for this doll. Not wanting to buy shoes when the purpose of even owning the doll is to practice sewing, I opted to make a practice shoe, similar to the type I wanted.

While pattern shopping, I had picked up McCall's 3469

I chose the shoe in the lower left corner – the pink ones. I thought they looked simple enough and in black, would sort of look like a buckle shoe – with ribbon instead. I didn’t want to waste the black satiny fabric I had in case I botched them badly, so I decided to practice with “practice” fabric – my striped sheet.

The shoes were relatively simple, pretty straightforward, and gave me an insight into the basic concept of a how a shoe is put together. I used the fabric cut into strips and folded in half instead of ribbon and they came out really nice.

When I realized I had a nightgown and little “slippers” out of the same fabric, I went ahead and cut out 2 triangles, sewed them together, and hemmed the edge with elastic to create a sleeping cap. I didn’t measure or anything, so the cap turned out kind of dumb-looking, but altogether, the pieces look pretty cute together.

I give the nightgown a sideways thumb, the cap a thumbs down, and the little shoes a thumbs up!

Whattya think? J