Here it is! Our first official post in the new Make It! Mid-Week series. For the next month, we’ll be posting patterns and tutorials for making inexpensive American Girl Doll clothes. Check back each Wednesday for these fun, easy to do sewing projects.
For this project, I used an old Gap sweater that was given to me. It was beautiful and I was terrified to cut it. I started and was very pleased with the result. I did my best to use parts of the sweater that were already hemmed, so I sewed as little as possible. See the iPad Cozy, and mittens I made from the same sweater here.
The pant legs were the sleeves. I cut them off and then tried them on the doll to know how far down the sleeve seam to cut for the doll’s pant leg.
I did a zig zag stich on the part I cut to keep the yarn from unraveling.
Then I pinned them together.
I tried the pants on the doll to see how wide the pants should be and where the waist should be making sure to leave enough for the waistband.
For the top sweater, I used the actual neck hole and put it on the doll inside out. That allowed me to easily pin and mark where I wanted to sew.
Once the you have sewed the seam and zig zagged along the seam, cut the excess sweater. It’s much easier to reinforce the seam before you cut off the excess.
Try the out fit on the doll and hand sew the sleeve cuff. My sleeve was shorter than you may want yours because I created two iPad holders, 1 pair of mittens, and this doll sweater and pant from one sweater.
I hope your daughter enjoys her cozy winter sweater outfit as much as me!! ~Julia
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Anonymous
Thank you for these doll clothes patterns to sew and the tips on cutting from a shirt. This week I have made time free to take care of the hair of several Teendolls, about 1970;s European, I think they are 16 incj teendolls with lovely faces and loads of hair. I found two at a thrift and the hair was all tangled and here and there frizzy. A night hairtreatment in fabric softener (it is nylon, not real hair) and without rinsing it took hours but I got it detangled, must have been combed dry before adopted by me. There were a few other dolls too that needed the special treatment. I think I can easily transform patterns for the AG doll to mij teendolls. I do not fear seams, as I consider myself a good seamstress. Thank whomever my Daisy Kingdom Pansy Doll, a brown or black girldoll has just vinylformed hair on het head, i read the AG dolls clothes would fit her, so I downlloaded the basic, the pyama,s and one other from your log and I think I will have loads of fun with the in the long wintery hours to come. I am, with your patterns able to do them up a bit. I also downloaded AG knit patterns, so my time will be filled whenever I have the gust to knit or sew dolls clothes. I read one tip on dolls hair I would like to share with you. hen you have wetted the dolls hair and combed it through (this is o.c. when you thrifted one) go over the wet hairlocks with an old toothbrush. You will be amazedn how much, lets call it dollhairdandruf, uglies and tiny bits you will brush out and of course, every one owning a longhaired dog knows that every little titbit hidden in its hair is the start of a knot, so get rid of that dan druf. Thanks again for your generosity of publishing the patterns for free, I sew allright but am terrible at drawing. MA
sbreuker
Thank you for these great American Girl Ideas! I am planning on making a bunch of clothes for my daughter as a Christmas present and these are a great place to start!
Margaret Johnson
Thanks so much for posting this tutorial. I have thought about doing sleeves from a shirt before to make a pair of pants (but I too feared doing it). I think those items I have stored I will try and do that. I recently created my own blog and opened up my own Etsy store. I love sewing girl doll clothes. http://gigisdollcreations.blogspot.com/
Diana - FreeStyleMama
Hi! I found this post on Pinterest. I too have done some AG doll clothes & items. I love re-purposing and have a basket at my feet of various doll clothes/things I am working on. I am a new follower and would welcome you to come check out my DianaRambles.com blog!