Blog post 2 of 2!
Part 1
This is the inspiration! Black dress with puffed sleeves.
This is not a tutorial, you would definitely not be able to follow my words.
I again began with a sketch to get my plan ready – it was after dinner and light was slowly fleeting.
The bodice is a small rectangle of black cotton I hemmed, pinned to the doll, created darts to fit the bust (I had to created the illusion of tight-fitted smocking), then used a random stitch to get the look of smocking.
I then took a much larger rectangle, and hemmed it. I was two thirds of the way through when my bobbin ran out of thread without my knowledge, so I rethreaded that. I then ran a running stitch along the unhemmed edge, to pull gathers that I would then pin and sew onto the bodice.
I then sewed 2 6mm snaps onto the bodice, and pinned the skirt section to see how close it could be before not fitting the doll. The back was sewn together by hand, because my machine's arm is a bit too large for tiny doll work.
I tackled the sleeves last, as I was the most scared of them. I sketched the vague shape of a bell sleeve with chalk, and cut two out. I hemmed the top curve by hand as I feared the curve to be too complicated to maneuver with a machine. The bottom hem was done with a machine, as was the elastic, zig-zag stitched on as Micarah Tewers warned me. To affix the arm to the bodice, I ran a running stitch across the top (in order to pull it into more of a puff), then stitched it in one section of the side.
Bam! Here dolldie is, wearing the black dress. And holding the red dress as seen here!
Thanks for joining me :D









