Guess Who Won?

Do you even have to guess? Tessie is happily ensconced in the bedroom with piles of fabric and a Simplicity Pattern Book. She can manage turning the pages if I lay it on it's back and turn it to a specific section. She is immersed in the costume section in the back of the book. No. It's not for Halloween. It's for sensible clothes, according to her.

She has picked out way more fabric than she will ever need or use. She says it's good to have a selection to choose from. She also raided my lace bin and she found the box where I keep mini hangers. She reasons that every empty hanger she can find should be filled with clothes for her. And she still wants the trunk filled too! The fabric at the front right is her favorite. I tried to tell her that it will make her look like a circus clown......She thinks that would be good for a gypsy skirt. We shall see.........

You can enlarge this pattern to get an idea of what I am doing. I made it to fit Tessie. It is just a basic dress pattern and can be adjusted to fit whatever doll you are dressing by doing a few adjustments. The measurements in the upper left corner are Tessie's. Strangely, she is a bit of a Mini Me. She is about 5" tall and I am about 5' tall. She has red hair. I have red hair(don't ask how often it has to be dyed to stay that way. It's not polite!) She is very opinionated. There we part ways. I am sweet and easy going.....Yes. I am! I think I will quit this line of thinking while I am ahead.

Anyway, I just made the pattern this morning and it is what I used to make the green and white dress that I am going to show you now. These are essentially for clothes on hangers. You could adapt them to go on a doll, but you would have to add seam allowances and do more hand sewing.

There is also a pattern for a mob cap. Tessie says she needs a couple of these to hold her hair out of the potions when she is concocting them.

The nice thing about this pattern is it's mostly glued. The only sewing I did was the gathering on the waist and top of the sleeves. For the rest of the seams I used Fast Grab Aileen's glue.

The first thing that I did was run a line of glue down one of the back edges of the skirt and the hem and turn them under. Then I overlapped the hemmed edge of the back over the raw edge so that it looks like there is a seam down the back of the skirt. Next I gathered up the waist by needle and thread to the size of her waist.

I cut out the bodice and turned under the front side edges and glued them the same way as the center back of the skirt. I cut a waistband and glued it in place. I glued the lace trim onto the bodice and the skirt.

Incidentally, the lace was all cut from one wide band. Most modern machine made lace can be cut anywhere and not ravel at all. The little cross/flower pieces that hang from the bottom of the lace on the skirt were holding the triangular part to the rest of the lace. They will stay just as they are.

OK. Back to the dressmaking part. I gathered up the top curve of the sleeve as tight as I could and then did the glue seam down the length. Then I scrunched up the bottom of the sleeve and glued down the lace cuff, overlapping in the back. Then I tucked in the raw edges of the gathering and glued the top of the sleeve around the sleeve hole That's basically it. You can add other embellishments and change the width and length of the sleeves and skirt.

I finished the red skirt that you see a little differently. It is an A-line shape that is gathered in at the waist and has a pointed waistband.

The nightgown is of course trimmed in puce. It was made from a handkerchief with a lace edge. I used the lace as the hem and gathered the bodice by pulling threads in the fabric. Then I just glued it down the center back and trimmed it with silk ribbon.

I pinned the garments to my pin board and sprayed them with hairspray so that they will hang well on the hangers.

Now I have to go make more clothes and figure out where Tessie is going to hang them. When I left Tessie was pulling pins out of the board and throwing them every which way. I will be picking pins out of the carpet for a week. Usually the way I find them is with my bare feet! TESSIE!!! CUT THAT OUT RIGHT NOW!!!

See you tomorrow.