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.