Doll Clothes Sewing Tips - Bias back neck facing

There is always the opportunity to improve your doll dressmaking skills by looking at how others put the designs together. 

I am so grateful for the many doll dressmakers who post on blogs and on you tube and Facebook about their sewing experiences with doll clothes.

Many times I have thought "What an obvious method, how could I not have seen that?".

So in that spirit I am sharing a simple way to neaten the collar seam on a button down doll blouse.

For years I have resisted this method because I had an unfounded dislike of additional sewing or cutting out of pieces.

The couture appearance of this finish far out weighs the extra few minutes to set it up and I have no explanation to why I have left it so long to use this seam neatening method.

So, what is the finished result? Here are some shirts I made for my Summer doll clothes capsule. 1806 is a perfect second layer for the Summer clothes capsule.

And what do you need to do to get that finish?

About 4 1/2" of bias strip 1 1/8" wide.

Quite simply, you sew on the collar as instructed then you cut a 1 1/8" wide bias strip that extends about 1/2" into the front facings on each side. Fold the strip in half and press it. Centre it on the collar so the raw edges match the raw edges of the neck seam. Stitch it in place and trim the seam. Press it down over the seam allowance and stitch it down.

All this takes about 5 mins.

I haven't tried this folded bias strip on a round neck blouse yet but that is something I will do when I republish my round neck blouse pattern. At present I am redoing the Open Neck Blouse pattern to include the instructions for the bias facing. Look out for the New! version on Etsy.

You can download the instruction page on creating a bias facing with a collar from my Dropbox.

If you are signed up for my newsletter you can also access it as no.20 in the Newsletter Patterns folder.

Happy Doll Dressmaking,

Val

3 tips for sewing doll knits

I love sewing with knits. The garments always turn out like miniatures of people clothes rather than just doll clothes. Probably because they usually mimic the same styles as people clothes like t-shirts, sweaters and cardigans.

There is no need to worry about getting your knits to behave while you are sewing. I can count on one hand the number of times the needle plate has eaten the knit and I have have made a lot of knit doll clothes.

I don't even change the needle to a stretch needle unless I am sewing lycra that stretches in all directions. 

There are some simple ways to get your knits to behave. 

• I sew with a a very narrow zigzag that fits in the needle hole of my 1/4" foot. This is just enough to stop the knit wrinkling a lot or getting stuck in the needle plate.

• Press the hems and band seams as you go to make any waves flatten out.

• Folded bands can be controlled by pinning the raw edges together every inch or so. You then gently stretch it as you fit it to the front and pin it in place with the pins already in it.

Here is a video of how I do my neck bands for all my knits. You just have to make sure the length of the band fits the garment edge when being firmly stretch.

It is also important to choose your knits carefully. If you are using people t-shirts you will find that not all t-shirts are made from t-shirt double-knit. You can read more about choosing knits here.

You can find this t-shirt pattern in my Etsy Shop

1874 T-Shirt for boy dolls

Happy Doll Dressmaking,

Val