ella wanted a new christmas dress to wear when she visited santa this year. the one she has been wearing for the past few years has gotten too small to fit. but she wanted it to be made of the same fabric santa’s suit is made of, with “fur” trim, and with a santa belt. and she wanted dora to have a dress just like it.
ta-da!
this dress is similar to the magistrate dress from a few years ago, except with narrow sleeves. to make the pattern, i traced around one of her pajama tops, added length and width for the skirt, and reshaped the neck.
when you make a pattern such as this you have to be careful not to flare too much or it will have a lot of folds on the side seam. you also much be sure to measure the same length from the waist to the hem all the way from center front to side seam—the hemline will curve—this is correct.
it is not hard to make this pattern—it just takes a lot of pictures to show the steps.
turn one sleeve inside out and tuck the other into it. fold flat and neat along center front. lay on a piece of paper with center front on a straight line.
square a line across the bottom or wherever you want the waistline to be.
measure your desired length on the center line, then move the yardstick and continue marking desired length across. swing the yardstick when you get to the side seam to create some flare but continue to mark the same desired length measurement.
sketch in the hemline. it will curve. make sure the hemline is perpendicular at the center line.
trace around the sleeves.
trace the back neckline (it is the higher one), then open the shirt to trace around the front neckline.
add seam allowances.
mark the center fold.
label the necklines.
if desired, draw a new neckline. i choose to make one neckline for front and back which i call the compromise neckline.
label the pattern for future historians.
fold your fabric exactly as for the magistrate dress. for this dress, i chose to align the sleeve with the top fold so that there is no overarm/shoulder seam line. i traced around it, then i aligned the center front/back with the center fold and continued tracing the skirt. i removed the pattern for cutting.
assemble just like the magistrate dress.
for the belt i cut a couple of pieces of leather and stitched them wrong sides together, slipped on a buckle from an belt that i no longer wear, and pieced in an elastic section in the back to make it easy to pull on an off.
*dora’s dress is similar but since it is for a dolly, it goes together a little differently. i’ll show you how i made it in the next post!
