I love crafting for my kids. My mother says, I’m indulging them. She says that they don’t appreciate my work enough. I think it’s not valuing that is important, but what my kids feel when they get a handmade gift from me. And I know they feel my love.
Veronica had a desire to bring her Winx doll to the kindergarten, but the doll couldn’t go outside in that cold in her super-light fairy dress. I volunteered to help Veronica and provide her doll warm cosy leggings and a modern top to complete the outfit.
So today I’m going to share here a tutorial how to sew a modern outfit for a fashion doll from scraps (or old baby clothes) without any pattern.
You will need old baby tights for the leggings, a piece of jersey for the top, a needle, scissors, a thread and pins.
DIY Doll Leggings
Леггинсы для куклы своими руками
I took Marge’s tights she had grown out of and cut one of the legs off from the top and the bottom. The piece was longer then doll’s legs. This was for the leggings.
I took some pins and chose the needle. I would suggest you to choose a medium sized needle for sewing jersey. Look at the size of mine (the one with the thread):
Then I wrapped the doll in the “sock” with the wrong side out and pinned together the fabric on her waist so that the “sock” would sit tight on the doll. I did the same thing for the legs gathering all extra fabric on the back between legs, so that I could see where to make the seam that had to go from one leg’s foot to the crotch and then to the second leg’s foot.
I sewed with a back stitch (it’s important to use the back stitch rather than a running stitch when sewing jersey, because this stitch stretches with the fabric). Parallel parts of the seam were very close in the front, so I had to make sure that there were at least 3 mm between the legs, so that I could cut the fabric between them after sewing both of the pants legs.
This is how the back looked after sewing and cutting between the legs and cutting off the extra fabric.
And this is how the front looked (no extra fabric on the front to cut off, as you see).
And this is how it looked on the doll. After that I just had to make the last back seam (the place for it is marked with the green dotted line on the picture below). I sewed it right on the doll.
Ok, I actually also folded the waist edge inside towards the wrong side and made a seam there too.
DIY Doll Top
Топ для куклы своими руками
Then it was time to sew the top. This one was made from Marge’s old bodysuit (the fabric was too cute, so I couldn’t help it). I cut out a rectangle-shaped peace and folded it in half so that the fabric covered the dolls body. I decided to make asymmetrical bottom of the top, so I cut it curved, the way I wanted it to be.
I folded the fabric once more in half and pinned the middle.
I unfolded it and marked with a pin the place where the shoulder begins.
Folding again in half here…
… to cut out an opening for the neck.
Then I folded the fabric vertically and cut out a triangle on the back (because the dolls head is big, and because bare backs are trending now).
This is how it looked unfolded.
I folded 2mm of the fabric on the neck opening towards the wrong side and sewed along the edge. Then the doll had her first try-on and I pinned the places for the side seams.
And made a cut from the long side.
I sewed the first side seam making the allowance of 2mm, folded the fabric to make the next symmetrical cut.
I made the second side seam and decided to leave the bottom as it is. Usually I like to process all of the edges, but I was in hurry and the fabric didn’t crumble.
And then the outfit for our Winx was ready: the leggings and the top. Oh this little happy doll and her precious owner!