A party dress for your doll

I have a habit of looking back at what I have done, and supposedly completed, in order to change and refine it.

The 18" doll party dress (1811 in my shop) was a topic of discussion with one of my customers. She found  the fit a bit too tight for her doll. This dress is meant to be a snug fit but I didn't want it so tight that variations in doll stuffing made it hard to wear.

After sewing up the original design I decided to add a tiny bit to each side of the skirt and bodice so it had more ease. If you like the original fit then by all means stick with the original pattern pieces. However, I have also done a lot to the instructions. You will find the new steps easier to follow as well as easier to sew. For example, you sew the flat skirt on the bodice and then you sew the other side seam. Sounds obvious to me now but years ago I didn't have the experience I have now to see easier ways to do things.

A couple of other things I am doing to make your life easier are to work through all my patterns over time and make sure they open at 100% for easy printing from a phone or tablet. The other thing is that I am also renaming my files with Val Spiers at the front of the name so it is easy for you to search your computer for patterns by me. 

Any patterns that have a number will retain the same number in the file name but all my new patterns will have the month and year that I created them along with a few words of description rather than a number.

The party dress has a side opening at the skirt waist and at the shoulder. This makes the back nice and smooth to show off the shaping. 

I made up a dress in halloween fabric and found one of my plastic spiders from last year to adorn the deep curved back. It looks kind of creepy since I am not a fan of spiders but it goes with the theme.

If you bought this pattern a while ago you should find a message in your Etsy account with a link to the updated file.

You can purchase this cute dress in my Etsy Shop.

I couldn't decide whether I liked the pleats or the gathering more. I think making the 4 pleats is easier than doing rows of gathering threads and fitting the gathered skirt to the bodice but the gathers are a nice soft finish. I suppose you could also do pleats in the front and gathers in the back to fit nicely over her bottom.

Happy Doll Dressmaking,

Val