Hello! We are finally back after crazy Christmas! Everything went off without a hitch! The relatives came and went, the Christmas parties were had, the dinners were delicious, Santa filled the stockings, and the kids were all properly rowdy, and thoroughly keyed up on sugar. 😛 

Now that all of the chaos is settling, we have finally found a moment to ourselves to get back down to blogging! We have tons to catch up on! First up on the list is all of the sewing that I have been doing for the dolls for Christmas! I have to say, this year I might have gone a little overboard, but the kids were incredibly excited to receive everything. I have three little girls and their dolls to sew for, and I have to say, I just love it!!

This year, I had a request for more teen and preteen clothing for the dolls.  As my daughter and my nieces are growing older, they want their dolls to look, and act more like them. That means no more fancy dresses with loads of ruffles. Sigh. In the words of my daughter, “Mom, when was the last time you even saw me in a dress?” Okay, okay, point taken. No more doll dresses. LOL! 🙂 

Needless to say, I always enjoy a challenge, so I set to work gathering up all of my spare fabric to see what I could create. Next, I headed to my daughter’s closet to get an idea of what I should be focused on making. I soon realized that there were a lot of jersey knit fabric pieces in there. 

I had a lot of woven cotton fabric, but nothing in jersey knit, so off to the fabric store I went to find some more suitable fabrics. 

Every time I go to the fabric store, I can never decide. I just want all of the fabrics, is that so much to ask? LOL! 🙂 

Once I had chosen all my fabrics, I began to look through my patterns. My daughter wears a lot of leggings so I knew those were going to be a must. I already had the Liberty Jane Leggings pattern. I highly recommend this pattern for leggings. It’s pretty much perfect. I made quite a few pairs of these in many colours. I also made the capri version.

I really wanted a swing top pattern too. It would be a good way to use up a lot of the woven cotton fabric that I already had, and these tops would match the leggings, creating a good selection of outfits. I searched on Pixie Faire and found Doll Tag Clothing’s Strawberry Patch pattern. I decided to only make the top from this pattern as the pants weren’t something that my daughter would actually wear. I had so much fun with just these two patterns alone!

1. Yellow Squares

2. Pink and Mint

3. Pink Bubbles
4. Navy Cherries

5. Teal Flowers

Next, I went looking for a nice easy skirt pattern. Luckily, Doll Tag Clothing offers their pattern Simply a Skirt on Pixie Faire for free! This pattern is adorable, and the finished product looks like more work than it actually is. I also really like the skirt length. I made quite a few of these and paired them with the free Liberty Jane Trendy T-Shirt pattern as well as the free Liberty Jane Tank Top pattern. I love free patterns. 🙂 ❤

6. Heart Applique

7. Tartan Lace

8. Red Rhinestones 

9. Bronze Glitter

10. Silver Sequins

I really like these patterns. They are easy and very versatile (not to mention free). You can create so many different looks just by changing the fabric used. Or add some iron on rhinestones from Walmart to dress up a plain shirt. The options are endless! The skirt is also just too cute with boots! 🙂 

My next mission was shorts and capris. Yes, this had now become a sewing mission, and I was determined to succeed. LOL! 

I wanted to create shorts and capris with a flat waistband and an open fly front, much like the ones that I’ve seen for sale at American Girl. I could have just done an elastic waistband, and been done with it, but many of the shirts that I had in mind would not cover the waistband completely, so I wanted a smoother front look.

I chose the Liberty Jane Shorts and Capris pattern. This pattern features a very cute welt pocket, but because I was planning to make three of each outfit, I omitted it. If I make them again, I will try the pocket though. It looks really cute. 🙂 I paired all of the shorts and capris with either the free Liberty Jane Trendy T-shirt pattern, or a cropped version of the free Liberty Jane Tank Top. 

11. Blue Rainbow Rhinestones12. Pink Dots13. Pink and Gold Scroll14. Green Stripe

The green striped capris are paired with an off the shoulder top. This look is in right now so I knew that I wanted to make some of these tops. I chose the Liberty Jane Off the Shoulder Top pattern. A slight warning about this pattern. I found it to be quite baggy. I was looking for a more fitted look so I brought it in an inch on either side. Of course this is just my own preference. 

I layered the off the shoulder top with the free Liberty Jane Tank Top pattern. I made cropped versions of the tank top to layer as well as longer versions. I also made some leggings to match, but I wanted more pants. I finally chose the Liberty Jane Bootcut Jeans pattern. I love all the pocket details on these jeans. 🙂 ❤ 

15. Sherbet

16. Green Bootcut17. Pink BootcutMost of these items can be mixed and matched as well. 

I found a really nice pattern for a cardigan that I really liked, so I wanted to add a couple of them to the mix. It’s the 123 Mulberry Street Trendy Slouch Cardigan. I had made a few already for the Little Miss in my hunt for more preteen outfits, and they turned out really cute.

Below are the cardigans that I made the girls for Christmas. Again I used the free Liberty Jane Trendy T-Shirt pattern as well as the Liberty Jane Leggings pattern to make some items to match. I also found the Liberty Jane Denim Mini Skirt pattern to make the fringed khaki skirt.

18. Blue and Grey Stripes

19. Navy and White Polka DotsI made these leggings from the same navy and polka dot fabric. I couldn’t resist making these bleach resist t-shirts. I found the tutorial on Pixie Faire. I made the little fleece shorts from the bottoms of Doll Tag Clothing’s Heartwarming Pajamas. I just shortened them, and added 5 inches of elastic to the bottom of the legholes. 

I initially made these little pants as part of a warm up outfit to go with the dance leotard I made, but then I decided to make an orange lace tutu instead. Although, I think the fleece shorts would still be cute too. 

After all was said and done, I felt like I just had to add some dresses in there. I couldn’t have a doll wardrobe with no dresses at all! I found some tartan fabric on sale for $5 a yard and decided to make Addy’s Tartan Plaid Dress from the original PC Addy’s Pretty Clothes Patterns. I had always been wanting to try this pattern out anyway. 

 Green Plaid Red Plaid

Finally, and at the very last minute, I decided to whip up some red Christmas dresses for the girls as well.  It was super last minute, like the night before the Christmas party, but I had some red pillowcases that I had found at a thrift store, and I thought they would make the perfect Christmas dresses. 

Whew!! What a lot of work! But through all of it, I have realized that I really do love to sew for the dolls. I am growing in my pattern knowledge and my pattern stash too.

However, I am also starting to realize that my girls are starting to grow out of getting doll clothes for Christmases and birthdays. They also probably have way too many doll clothes anyway. (Not that you can ever have too many doll clothes!)

Anyway, with that in mind, I have an announcement to make! I will be opening an Etsy store!! My store will be open for business sometime in January so stay tuned! I am very excited! I will be selling doll clothes and other doll items. We are in Canada so I am not sure what shipping will be like, but for now, I will only be shipping to Canada, or the USA. 

I will also be releasing the final novel in my trilogy very soon, so stay tuned for that too!

All in all, I feel like it has been a very productive year! I am really looking forward to the New Year too! It feels like so many new things are about to happen! 🙂 But don’t worry! We will still be here, and we will still be faking it, mostly. 😉 

I hope that you enjoyed, and I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas! 

❤ ❤ ❤

 

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