It's been a few days since I posted! I've been busy creating and finding treasures for the Doll House and that has to happen if I am going to have anything to report here when I come say Hi! So, today we are going to talk about Upcycling baby clothes into Doll clothes. Again. This is a bit different than baby outfits I've made before though because these two dresses were Upcycled from 3mnth sized baby onesies!
They really are pretty simple to make if you've had any experience with sewing at all.
So here is what I did!
You start out with standard baby onesies. You'll want ones with cute collars, not the ones with snaps in the shoulder! Below are the two I decided to convert. I got them at Goodwill for $1.50 each and that is actually pretty spends for me. However I liked the collars and they screamed out doll dress to me. I am trying to make a few outfits for a friends daughter for her Birthday and thought they'd make a find addition to the little bundle of clothes I am going to give her.
The first thing you do is to cut off the bottoms, where the leg elastic and snap area is. As you can see, the bottom of one of these has stains and so I felt even less bad about cutting it up. You want to cut close to the leg openings as possible, getting as much length as you can at the bottom of what will become your dress hem. I use a pencil and ruler to draw a strait cutting line. Make sure you lay your source garment flat, turned inside out, with all the seams layed flat and strait! After you make your line, take a deep breath and cut it off!
Here they are (below) with both of their leg snap areas cut off.
Then you hem them by about a half inch. I should've photographed this but sometimes I forget to take photos as I go along through the process of making something. With the hems, half of the time you'll spend doing hem is the pinning but take the time to pin it so you'll get a nice strait hem. It's a bit tricky sewing knits, I think and so just take your time.
Now it looks like a dress! It's still too wide for the dolls though! You'll want to try it on your doll to make sure of measurements but I've made a few of these now and am getting a sense of now much needs to be taken in. Then I, again, make a pencil line with a ruler down from top to bottom.
And I pin along that line.
Being as this is knit and being as little girls often can be rather rough with their dolly clothing, I like to make things very durable. Knits can fray and I want it to last. So I sewed the first seam down the pencil line I made and then made another zigzag stitch on the "seam allowance" side of the seam. It will keep the main seam from fraying and make garment more durable. That part is entirely optional though...
Then you cut off the excess. Again, you might want to try on doll before you cut but I've made a few of these and am getting a sense of the sizing and so just winged that part.
Here is the first one I made. It took me less an hour from start to finish even with stopping for photos and coffee. I think it came out rather cute!
"Adorably soft, perfect for tiny adventures!"baby dress
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