Dress made by one of our readers, Galeb
When I was in middle school I learned how to sew. One of the first things I started making was clothes for my Barbie dolls – boy, do I wish I still had some of those outfits. I haven’t sewn in years, but now that my girls are getting older, I think it might be fun to get them involved and try making some doll clothes ourselves. I have bags of fabric scraps and it would even be a fun way to recycle some of their favorite dresses they have outgrown.
In looking for doll clothes patterns to sew, knit or crochet, here are some of the best resources I found:
DollClothesPatterns.net – this site is totallly focused on doll clothes patterns for 18″ dolls like American Girl. She has great tutorials, ideas, projects and tips. This is the first stop you need to make!
Infinite Freedom has a big selection of free doll clothes patterns and even holds sewing challenges for her readers.
Can you knit? Knitting Pattern Central has a huge list of knitting patterns for doll clothes. Their sister site, Crochet Pattern Central has an equally impressive list of crochet patterns for doll clothes.
Allcrafts.net has plenty of free doll making crafts and patterns for crafters of all levels.
Bev’s Country Cottage has plenty of Barbie clothes patterns – some vintage, and patterns for a variety of doll clothes projects.
AGPlaythings also has the original American Girl Doll dress patterns available for print. (Thanks for the heads up Lena)
Search Flickr for even more ideas, patterns and pictures of doll patterns and handmade outfits for dolls.
Amazon actually has the BEST selection of doll clothes patterns for all sizes of dolls, difficulty levels, and styles:
AGPlaythings has the clothes patterns made by AG a long time ago.
Thanks for the heads up Lena – I added them to the list.
well,i can sew,but i’ve never made doll clothes except for REALLY little dolls like polly pocket,but maybe i could give it a try! the patterns look a little hard though.
You’re welcome Char!
Priscilla, some of them are very hard, especially to an inexperienced sewer, but some are simple. Josefina’s for the most part are easy, I’ve made some of the outfits before (for me) and they are pretty simple.
i’m working on making molly’s raincoat with some of that material – oh, and i got it that color… charmine!! haha jk, carmine!!
wow cool
selena,when your done making her raincoat,can you e-mail char a picture of it so we can all see it in the photo galleries? i’d love to see it!
ya sure!! it might be a while though..
Darn it didn’t work.
cool.
There’s a 2 lady’s at our church that sew AMAZINGLY, I bring them a picture of a doll dress I want to make, and they walk me step by step and TEACH me how to make doll clothes. The finished results are awesome, I use the patterns from AGplaythings because they come with step by step instructions. I also like to hand sew little things for my dolls and I love to embroider like do-da’s on my dolls hankerchiefs ands stuff, lol. I only know how to straight knit, but no croqueting. I’m so happy with all the doll clothes I’ve made, my favorite dress is this long white one with lace overlay and different color sashes. That’s what my doll Samantha is wearing, I hardly ever take it off of her!
Sarah, that’s really cool! I can knit but not crochet. I tried knitting an outfit for one of my dolls and gave up…and I recently bought a hand-crochet cap (kind of like Julies, only it is a thicker light blue material and covers more of the head) for $2 at a craft sale and it is so pretty! I only buy AG/Pleasant Company clothes for my dolls, since that is what I collect, but I buy little handmade things for picture-taking (my new hobby!!!). Some of the handmade outfits are beautiful – If I had the room for them, I would buy them!