PennilessCaucasianRubbish American Doll Adventures: American Girl (18" Doll) Dresses Made from Blouse Sleeves!

Greetings and Salutations!!

I woke up this morning with a project on my mind... I've been wanting to try making more dresses for dolls by upcycling doll dresses from ladies blouse sleeves. I've made one before, when I was hand stitching everything and it took much longer. Here is the first, one of my favorite upcycled outfits I've made, so far.

So I started a bit the other day with the sleeves of some dress shirts that were too small for me or had stains. Nothing to lose! I wanted to make some items for the thinner body types of the BFC INC dolls and the sleeves practically make themselves! Just cut off sleeve, hem, add a neck tie and that's it. I started a few, need to add ties but need DearDaughter to pick out ribbons. Here is a bit of that process:

Here are the dolls with the sleeves I have ready to use. In this instance, I am sewing for dolls with thinner body type.

I simply hem the 'skirt' of the dress.

And I am done if I just want a tube dress!

Simply measure with doll how long you want skirt. Then cut, pin and hem!

And done, except for ties and embellishment!

Here is Kimberly modeling it with all its embellishments!

Meanwhile, this morning I wanted to make a few for the more standard American Girl Doll and other 18" doll body types!

Here is what I did this morning:

The blouse to be upcycled. Pretty fabric but kind of hideous top unless you're married to Mr Roper on Three's Company. Eh? Here is what the sleeves became thru much same process as I followed with the ones for the BFC INC sized ones.

The end results. A skirt and dress. I still have all the 'body' fabric from blouse and am considering making like an infinity scarf to match these so my DearDaughter can do the 'match your doll' thing! The project doesn't take long, pinning the hem is the most labor intensive part probably. Ha! So, find a pretty blouse you don't wear and make a dolly some ensembles!