McCalls 2123: View G, bias-trimmed robe

Francie Repro in View G,  Robe

This robe was a good learning experience in applying bias binding. I have applied miles it before--but only on quilts, blind stitching it down by hand. This application is different and more difficult, I feel.

But because my mother was so good at it, I really wanted to learn too. She made diapers for our baby dolls from flannel with bias tape binding--six tricky curves for each one!

You can't see all the mistakes in this picture! There are places where the topstitching didn't catch the edge on the other side, so I will have to be doing some hand-sewing after all, to fix that up.

If I made another version of it, I would probably get better... but I think for now I will go on to the next view.

This pattern would be quite fast and easy to make, if it weren't for the binding. You could use fleece for it and skip the binding, or do some decorative serging around it.  I thought of lining it too, as a way to finish the edges, but that hood would make it difficult. It was tricky enough with a single layer--it has to be gathered up a little.

TNT Barbie in View G, Robe

Being so loose, this robe fits all my dolls pretty well. Even Barbie's tiny waist doesn't cause any problems with the fit!

If the doll has much hair, though, it won't be easy to get the hood up. Tammy isn't going to be wearing it any time soon!

Both the fabric and the bias tape came from my stash. I remember buying that fabric to make some little outfit for my niece when she was a baby... about 22 years ago. Obviously I didn't. Sorry about that Jean! Sorry carry! If you have a Barbie, I'll give you the robe for it to wear!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

McCalls 2123 View B: modified version

Here is how View B looks with my modifications. It's pretty much the silhouette I wore all through high school and I still love it.

I felt that my first version of this dress, made exactly as directed, had way too much fabric gathered into the waist. The pattern piece for the skirt was 19 inches long; I cut five inches off from it, so the version you see here has only 14 inches in the skirt. It looks much more natural to me!

I wish all the people who complain that Barbie is unrealistically thin would take note: When dressed up, she looks perfectly normal!

Whenever I work on gathered skirts in the future, I think I will just whack off  5 or so inches right from the first, and not bother making a version that's too puffy. I learned doll-dressmaking from some very talented women who dressed porcelain dolls; they felt strongly that a very full skirt, gathering up as much cloth as you can manage, was the sign of quality costuming. Anything less looked skimpy to them. They were sewing for a very specific look though--not Barbie's look.

My other modification was to the sleeves: instead of making a casing for elastic, I left the last inch of the seam open, folded the seam allowances back and sewed snap closings in, and then hand gathered the sleeve edge with a doubled, waxed thread. You can't really see much difference, but it is a lot easier to get on the doll! Especially on Maxie and Misty, who have larger hands. When I make this dress again I will trim off some of the turning--don't need a full 3/8 inch when finishing it this way, and the gathers will go in better on a single thickness of fabric. I could even move the gathers up the sleeve a little and get a frilly cuff effect.

Here's a look at one of my new Christmas dolls: Pos'n Tammy. You see her face has been redesigned; stylistically she fits much better with her friend Glamor Misty. Her redesigned figure is also much like Misty's--just a little shorter through the torso.

A nice feature that this Tammy, Misty, and Maxie all share is "rubbery arms," for lack of a better phrase. When dressing them, you can easily squeeze their arms together to get them into the armholes. They also all have very pretty hands.

Tammy here has an unexpected feature: if you move one arm up or down, the other goes with it! Same with her legs! You can push them out of sync a very little bit, but judging by the resistance you can feel, it's probably better to keep them aligned. And of course, they bend at elbows and knees--flexibly, not with wires that click, like Barbie does.

She is a pretty addition to my Tammy collection, and I just happen to have the Pepper that matches her, so maybe there will be some big sister/little sister sewing coming up soon.

McCalls 2123 View B: gathered waist dress, first version

View B is my favorite of this pattern: the bishop sleeves and the slightly raised waist of the dress are pretty elements from 60s fashion, and the jewel neckline is sweet and demure, letting the focus be on a slender waist.

That makes it Barbie's turn to shine.  There's so much fabric bunched up in the gathered waist--fabric that is human scale, not 1/6 doll scale--but she still looks petite. Instead of tiny, her waist just looks small.

Elsewhere the fit is problematic: there's a wrinkle stretching from neck to bust, pointing, as wrinkles always do, to the trouble spot--the bust that is just not quite accommodated by the fabric covering it.

But it's subtle enough that it probably wouldn't bother a young girl dressing her Barbie doll. And as usual, it doesn't pull when the other dolls wear it.

As it turned out, the elements I had liked in the sketch did not translate to the finished dress. The waist was lower than I expected, and the gathered skirt is fuller and sticks out more than I like for this look.

But the biggest problem was the sleeves. The pattern instructions want you to turn up 1/8 inch, then another 1/8, then top-stitch to form the casing, then slide 1/8 inch elastic inside. There's no way you're going to get 1/8 inch elastic into a casing that is six layers thick (counting the turnings), especially after top-stitching has further reduced the width. I considered using string elastic, but it wasn't stretchy enough. So I just zig-zagged the cut edge to prevent raveling, turned it up 1/4 inch, and fed the 1/8 inch elastic through that--and it wasn't any too easy even so!

Immediately I began plans for modifications to a second try at this dress. I will change the way the sleeve is gathered, reduce the bulk at the waist, maybe raise the waist a bit.

Time out for Sindy

I'm taking a break from sewing to enjoy one of the vintage Sindy dolls that are joining my collection--some of the "Belles of Christmas 2015."

For a long time I resisted Sindy dolls. They weren't familiar from my childhood, being mostly sold in Europe, and they were so much like Tammy as to be almost redundant. Plus it is expensive to buy one in really good condition.

But they grew on me after a while--such a sweet face and nice demeanor.

This one was on ebay as a very cheap "Buy it Now." Her hair was sparse and badly rooted; she smelled like stale cigarette smoke; and her face paint had faded.

She came with the wedding dress and veil, both of which had stains, plus her calico & lace dress and two pairs of jodhpurs--all of which also smelled like stale cigarette smoke.

So right away everything got lathered up and washed with sweet-smelling soap.

Getting rid of the smoke smell can be difficult, but I was lucky this time: now she and her clothes smell fresh and nice and all the stains cleaned away very easily.

Next I figured out a hairstyle for her that would cover up the parts of her head that weren't rooted: a simple ponytail or ballet bun will work--maybe that was her original hairstyle. Her hair is still shiny and nice--not dried out and frizzy like some old dolls.

Last, I carefully changed her expression by adding paint to her face: I enlarged her pupils, thickened her eyeliner at the outer corner, and gave her lips some color.  I just used washable watercolor paints--the color can come off and she can be restored to her original coloring any time.

Here is her "before" picture--can't really see her hair problems very well.  But she did look nervous, so I changed her eyes.

The calico & lace dress she's wearing needs some work too: there's no tears, but the white lace and elastic have turned grey. Will have to experiment a bit with trying to whiten them up again.

Sindy already has a pretty new sister in the collection, and they will I hope soon be joined by two brunettes. I despair of ever adding a red haired one--they are rare and costly.

McCalls 2123: Another version of Dress C

Sorry that this photo is a little blurry!

Since the striped dress had to be cut out on the cross-grain, I made another version on the straight grain to see if it made any difference to the fit. I'd say that it does a little, on Barbie here. The front bottom isn't gaping quite so much.

I put the other dress on a new Barbie to see how the fit would be on the so-called "new" body. Fits her great!

For this version I still used used fusible interfacing on the front edge, but this time I put a second strip just on the left edge to support the buttonholes better. 

I like how the striped dress fits across the bust and shoulders  All the views in McCalls 2123 have sleeves that are cut-in-one with the bodice. I might cut them all out on the cross-grain in order to get that same nice fit. Another experiment to make!

Here's the same dress on Misty, and as usual she wears it very well. 

She is such a nice doll. When I was a girl, I would have loved to have her. But we got only one doll a year, and that was at Christmas. And the year I asked for a Barbie, Dad decided I must be out-growing dolls and told me that Barbie would be my last doll. 

I was broken-hearted--I loved dolls of all kinds still! But he kept his word--I never did get another doll until I was an adult and bought one for myself. I guess explains my collecting habits. No more dolls for Christmas? Hah! This year I got eight! In heaven my dad must be shaking his head and laughing at me. :-D

Old patterns are treasures, but for most of them the envelopes are not in good shape. So to protect the cut pieces, I make an envelope out of pretty paper to store them in. Often I will take a color photocopy of the front and back of the pattern envelope, paste them on to a big 9 x 12 envelope, and keep everything inside it. Whenever I sew anything, I leave myself notes about the experience in case I want to make it again--written right on the directions where I or the next owner will find them.

Finally, here's a little surprise! I was googling images of McCalls 2123 to see what else would turn up, and I found this little picture of View C that was made by somebody, somewhere! The links it was attached to did not lead anywhere, so I'm preserving it here lest it disappear entirely. It's so fun to see it as someone else produced it!

Vintage Pattern Sewing: McCalls 2123 View C Striped Dress

Click for larger view

This week has been all about "doing what you can, where you are, with what you have." To me, that's what creativity is all about. Plus, I have a lot of stuff to use up!

And I just happened to have a fat quarter of a pretty striped material handy so it was easy to pick out View C as the next project.

But it needs six buttons, and I  wanted round white ones--but I didn't have a single one! What to do? First I tried making  them out of white Sculpy. No luck--they broke. But I did enjoy the process and might do better next time.

Then I tried making French knots out of baby yarn for the buttons. Thought I could harden them with clear nail polish. Well, that didn't work either--the knots pulled out. Probably I should improve my embroidery skills!

Finally I cut apart a doll necklace I'd made with white pearls the right size--can always make that again later. They weren't the white-white look I wanted, but close enough. Might buy some round white buttons later and replace them.

A reproduction Francie in McCalls 2123 View C

 About the pattern. Matching stripes is time-consuming, but kind of fun.  It's important to note that the dress pieces are supposed to be cut with the straight grain running up and down, but to make the stripes horizontal, they had to be cut on the cross-grain. More about that when we look at the fit.

I was surprised to find that this pattern wanted me to cut out square pockets and then just sew them on with their raw edges showing!

I was even more surprised that it wanted me to cut slits into the fabric to make raw-edge buttonholes!

Were they crazy? No,  the pattern calls for "iron-on tape" to interface the pockets and the front plackets. Apparently the product they had in mind was meant to fuse the edges so they wouldn't ravel.

I'm not sure if they meant mending tape or what, but didn't matter, I didn't have anything like that, so I used iron-on interfacing, and that turned out not to

be heavy enough to protect those edges. But I did have clear nail polish, so I very carefully painted the raw edges of the buttonholes and the pockets, and I think that will hold them. Wouldn't have been my technique of first choice, but I did what I could with what I had.

There was one element of the pattern which I do think was unworkable: for the belt, they wanted you to cut a piece of elastic to fit the doll's waist and then stitch the ends together.  Why make a child slide the elastic up and down the legs and over the dress to get a belt on?  Why not sew a snap on the ends?

Since different dolls would be wearing this dress, I just cut a quickie sash out of bias tape.  A mom who sewed much would have lots of bias tape around--her child could have doll belts in all colors!

Now for the fit! I salute McCalls for their superior knowledge: I was SO sure that dainty little Francie would be dwarfed in this dress, and yet she looks just as cute as anything in it. You can pop her into almost anything and she looks chic. She is so fun to dress!

TNT Barbie in View C and Tammy trying the boot prototype

Here, TNT Barbie is having her usual problem--what a trial it must be to have a tiny waist! Cinching it in is causing the skirt to pull over her hips and to separate at the bottom.

As I mentioned, this dress had to be cut out on the cross-grain in order to have horizontal stripes. That means the straight grain, which doesn't stretch or "give" much, is going around the figure just where a little give would be helpful!

I'm making this same dress out of other fabric, cut out on the straight grain so that the stretchy direction will go around the body. It will be interesting to compare the two versions, and see if the grain line makes the dress fit better.

In this picture Tammy is trying on a prototype of the boot pattern that comes with McCalls 2123. That's the pattern for it, along with the View C front and back patterns. The first boot didn't impress me, but the concept is interesting and I'm going to experiment with it some more.

Lastly, here is a look at lovely Misty, one of the Girls of Christimas 2016. A little pull at the hem, but not so much as Barbie's.  It fit Tammy and Maxie pretty much the same way.

Misty wearing McCalls 2123 View C

As soon as all my various packages arrive, I hope to do a special blog post about the Girls of Christmas 2016.

Here's a hint: two of them are a kind of early '70s doll that I never owned or even knew anyone who owned. But I already have a whole book of clothes patterns that were designed just for this kind of doll, and the co-author was a designer that people who have been crafting or making dolls for a long while will have heard of.

Sewing Vintage Doll Patterns: McCalls 2123 View E

I'm starting with View G, the yellow mini-dress. It's easy to sew as the sleeves are not set-in and the tent-dress style  is pretty forgiving.

The sleeve pattern has a big corner in it, giving it that deep bell shape. First you press up a 1/4 inch hem, mitering the corner, and topstitch that down. (I may try a lined version of this dress to avoid the topstitching.)

For the closure in back, I don't use snaps, buttons, or zippers, I use Velcro.  No, it's not elegant and it's not historically accurate. But it does have a very important advantage: it allows you to adjust the fit. It can make the dress tighter or looser, you can even tilt it to allow more room in the bust and less in the waist, for example. Plus it's fast to sew in and to use. So for most things I'll be sticking with it.

The dress front has a long dart stretching from the hip to the bust point. The back pieces don't have any shaping to them. All the seams are straight: sleeves to front and back, then sleeve seam and finally the side seam.

This pattern uses a fake facing technique that is very common for Barbie doll clothes. You stay-stitch a quarter-inch away from the raw edge; then clip into the seam allowance; then press the seam allowance under and top-stitch along the edge.  You have to roll the seam allowance under enough so that the stay-stitching doesn't show.

It's a handy technique to know and not hard to do, and I did use it here, but in general I would rather line the garment with tulle--you get a much nicer finish without adding much bulk. I'll probably be writing about that a lot as I go along.

So here's how they came out:

Misty and Maxie's dresses fit them well--as I mentioned last time, 11 1/2 inch fashion doll patterns are usually great on them because their figures are more natural, not extreme in any way.

Misty's dress is the project that started me on McCalls 2123. I wanted to make a very "mod" dress so went looking in my fabric stash to see what I might find. This cloth is more op art than mod,  but cut up into small pieces, it's manageable. The symmetry was fun to play with, trying to get the dress cut out of it in a way that would flatter.

Maxie's yellow dress fabric was picked to match the illustrated view on the pattern front.

Tammy's figure, being larger all round and with that very high bust, still can wear the dress quite well. Her arms are a little shorter than the other dolls', need a deeper sleeve hem.

For this picture, I pinned the big sleeves in back, in order to see how I liked the dress with straight narrow sleeves. And I do! I might make it that way sometime.

Barbie, though, is having some trouble. You can see the stress lines where her bust is straining at the seams and the fabric is trying to create different darts. Adjusting the Velcro closure didn't help. It's not actually her bust that's the problem, it's the rib cage underneath it.

By the way, did you notice that this is a different Tammy? This is one with a feet-together stance, just to prove that they do vary.

Finally, here's a surprise: While the yellow dress is still too tight for a TNT Barbie, the op art dress is a little bit looser and fits her better! Why the difference?  Probably because I sewed the turquoise dress with my usual "scant quarter" inch, but the yellow one with a full quarter inch. A scant quarter inch means the seam allowance is a bit less than a full quarter inch.  It compensates for the little bit of length you lose in the fold of the fabric.

But it could also be a little difference in the fabric; they're both quilting cottons, but there is some variation in how they handle.

Sewing Vintage Doll Patterns: McCalls 2123 for Barbie: Overview

I thought it would be fun and maybe helpful too, to sew my way through some vintage doll patterns, showing how they come out, how they fit various dolls, and the techniques I use to work with them.

This McCalls pattern from 1969 is the first project, just because I'd already planned an outfit with it. If you would like to sew along with me, the pattern is easily available on etsy and ebay.

Notice, first of all, all the dolls that it says this pattern will fit: Barbie, Francie, Casey, Julia, Christie, Midge, Barbara Joe, Babs, Gina, Annette, Batgirl, Mera, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Betty, Maddie Mod, Tammy, Stacey, and others.

There's going to be some variations in these dolls' figures even though they are all around 11 1/2 inches tall.  The first three dolls in the picture below are on the "will fit" list. Francie is noticeably more petite than the others. Barbie has more dramatic contrasts in shape, plus a thick ribcage.

This Tammy--older than the other dolls--is larger all round, plus her bust is much higher.  By 1969 slimmer Tammies had been on the market for several years; this pattern would no doubt fit them better but I don't own one so we'll see what happens with this gal. The other two dolls--Misty (Tammy's friend) and Maxie (a '90s doll) --are included because they can also wear these clothes--often better than any of the others!

L to R: TNT Barbie, Francie, Tammy, Misty. Maxie

While we have these figures before us, let's take a moment to notice the stance of each doll. By "stance" I mean how their feet and legs look when standing up straight. Francie, Maxie, and Misty all have very ladylike stances: their legs come together so that their feet come together, side by side. In fact, Francie actually has a perfect stance, with her legs touching just slightly above the knee. But Tammy and Barbie have a more "sporty" stance--their legs go straight down from the hip and do not meet each other, making a wide gap between their feet. A wide stance isn't bad, it's just something to consider when you're deciding how you want to dress the doll. (Back when we were playing with dolls, the stance didn't matter anyway, since we used the legs as handles for propelling the doll around!)

I'm curious how McCalls 2123 will fit each of these varying figures. The back of the pattern gives the measurements of the doll they used for fitting the pattern and advises the home sewist to take her own doll's measurements so she can adjust the patterns accordingly. But this is not as easy as it sounds and no assistance is given. I have a feeling that the pattern companies figured that children really weren't that fussy about a perfect fit and neither were the moms. They did provide patterns for the hat in two sizes--that's a nice feature.

My plan is to make up the patterns just as they are, and see how they fit the various dolls. At some point I my try some adjustments to improve the fit--we'll see how it goes. 

Collecting Barbie hair colors--a very good day at the sale!

I went to the Antique Fair today hoping to find a blonde Francie to complement my new brunette one. I've never seen a Francie there, and I couldn't even locate the dealer who usually has the most Mattel dolls for sale, but there she was at another booth, in very good shape and for a good price. Her hair is thick and her eyebrows all there, and her face color is very nice.

So here is the new girl looking all golden next to her rosy cousin.

Francie is so easy to dress, I'm looking forward to stitching up lots of things for her. 

I have the old McCalls pattern of designs for Francie, so that makes it extra easy to arrive at some basic slopers for her. The styles that are suitable for her just happen to be ones I especially love.

These poses are rather informal--hurried, even! I didn't want to keep them out in the sun too long.






Here are five different versions of Twist n Turn Barbie hair colors. From left to right they are: Chocolate Bon Bon, Summer Sand, Sun Kissed, Go Go Co Co, and Platinum. They are all vintage Barbies except the platinum one, who is a reproduction. Someday I will probably pick up the titian-haired repro, just to have the whole set.

Now I get to tell a funny story about how I acquired one today at the sale!

Last year at the sale I bought the doll in the swim suit. At the time I thought she was the ash blonde version. Today I saw the girl in the green polka-dot dress, and I loved her so much and she was such a good price that I bought her, even though I thought she was ash blonde too, and that I was going to have duplicate dolls.

After walking around the sale awhile, I saw a strawberry blonde Midge, and I wished that I had not spent my money on a duplicate doll when I could have bought this nice Midge in a hair color I don't have yet. I resolved not to be disappointed, but to find ways to enjoy having these twins.

Once I got her home, I put the two dolls together and was amazed to find out that their hair is not the same color at all! The new girl was definitely ash blonde, in comparison to which the other was clearly light brown. Some fast research was called for, and now I can identify all the colors and am thrilled to have all these five! Definitely not regretting that strawberry blonde Midge--she will wit for another day--along with brunette Midge!

The same dealer who had the Midge doll had some lovely vintage Skippers that I couldn't pass up. She made me a really good deal for both of them. I already had the pretty blonde doll, who is the anniversary repro version. So now I have a nice brunette, plus a titian-haired girl to replace an old one who had lost most of her nose and all her left thumb. Their hair is still nice and shiny and full.

Finally, here are all my girls out on the patio on this lovely golden summer afternoon. Well-not quite all! I still have more Barbies and Kens to bring out and photograph another day.

Francie out of the box!

I opened one of my birthday presents today. That is, I finally took her out of the box! This is the 30th anniversary Francie doll from 1996.

Back in 1966 when she was new, I definitely wanted a Francie doll. She was so pretty and feminine and her mod clothes were so lovely. In Barbie world her age was younger than Barbie but older than Skipper--probably 16, I felt, and since I was only nine, 16 seemed like a very fine age indeed.

For a while it was fun to keep her in that magical "Never Removed From Box" state, but my plan was always to bring her out and, yes, play with her--more or less the same way I would have in 1966, since I liked making dolls clothes then too, but now I'm better at it.

I put this dress together quickly, just to see if the pattern was going to fit. And it does, quite nicely. I can see that she will be easier to dress than Barbie because she doesn't have the thick rib cage and the tiny waist that required some engineering to accommodate.



This is what her packaging was like. I had to borrow this picture from the Internet, since the one I took turned out to be very blurry. So thank you to "Texas Doll Designs" for uploading such a nice one.

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It's nice to have the pretty outfit too, but my girl is probably not ever going to wear it. It looks like the sweater would have to go on over her head and I don't want to mess her hair up. It was surprising to find out that I actually owned a vintage Francie dress: last year I bought a Pepper doll who was wedged into "Side Kick," a little number of navy gingham and eyelet. After I freshen it up a little and reproduce a matching hat she can have her picture taken in it.

Meanwhile, I still have two more birthday presents to take out of their boxes!