SONY DSCWhile I don’t think my parents ever encouraged it, I have very fond memories of Barbie.  Granted, my Barbies played right alongside a GI. Joe doll and parachuted (yes, they had a parachute) off my parents’ bed instead of going on dates with Ken, but still—they were Barbies.  They had a pink Barbie Corvette.  The old-fashioned Skipper with a red plaid skirt and a red shirt emblazoned with a proud “S.”  Whitney. Courtney.  Midge.  The Heart Family.  I liked Barbies.

So when E started asking for a doll whose clothes were “made to come off” (I’ve strongly discouraged her babies’ clothes from coming off and thus getting lost), Barbie was, naturally, the first thing to pop into my head.  Off to the store I went for her third birthday.

Please, someone, tell me Barbie dressed a little more decently when I was a kid.  Or maybe this is why I remember so many clothes in her wardrobe that were made by my mother.  I finally settled on a Barbie with non-removable clothes, ordered some dresses off Etsy, and got the supplies to make my own (with E’s help, of course!) in the near future.  Making them is of course much much cheaper, but if memory serves, it’s not the easiest to turn such little seams.

I did not, unfortunately, find very many very good sources for either premade clothes or free patterns.  Here’s what I did find:

Premade Clothes

Sewing Resources

Honestly, I finally gave up trying to find a good printable pattern online, and ran off to the store for one of Simplicity’s fashion doll pattern sets instead.  But the following sites all had either useful information or good ideas that I want to imitate when I do try to sew my own:

  • Janel Was Here has an entry on making a Barbie Strapless Dress, which could of course be easily converted to a sleeved dress with a bit of lace or ribbon (or, you know, actual sleeves…), and another entry on sewing Barbie clothes.  I wish she put her patterns out for download, but you can get a good idea of how to make your own, and see roughly how the pieces should be shaped and how they should fit together.
  • Niki Jin Crafts has an entry (again, no downloadable patterns!) on making quite a few different clothes. The thing I really love about hers is the shaping she gets out of her patterns—they somehow manage to look cute while still being quite a bit more modest and non-tight than any of the ones I’ve seen elsewhere.
  • Here are instructions for making a cute peasant blouse for any doll.  This looks fool-proof and simple. I also saw somewhere the suggestion of doing this same kind of thing with a sock, which will of course stretch to fit the doll perfectly (and tightly), but also very, very simple.  Few seams and you’re done.
  • Lastly, Modest Barbie makes and sells the clothes – lots of great ideas here, until she comes back from vacation!  She also has a tutorial on a princess dress.
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