Sew Quick Summer Skirts!

Two of our dolls wearing cool summer skirts in the garden.

       These little summer skirts are very versatile for a variety of doll waist sizes if made with elastic waistbands. These fashions fit Our Generation Dolls, Journey Dolls, American Girl Dolls, Madam Alexander Dolls and Magic Attic Dolls from our collection.

       To make skirts like ours you will need to recycle a baby or toddler jumpsuit with elastic leg openings. From one jumpsuit, we made three items of clothing, two skirts and one dress. Here I will describe to you how I made the skirts. In a later post, I will explain how I made the dress.

       You will also need scrap fabric lengths measuring 19" x 7", a flexible fabric tape measure, lace, rick-rack trim, needle/thread and additional novelties for accents.

       I held a flexible fabric tape measure onto the outer edge of my recycled leg openings on the jumpsuit in order to measure just how much additional fabric I would need for the short summer skirts. I needed 19" lengths of fabric to pin and sew onto the recycled pieces with straight stitching. 

       My doll skirts measure seven inches from the waists to the top the knees on each doll photographed here; that includes the lace and the 1/2" seam allowance at the waist and 1/4" seam at the hem. However, the length of the skirts will depend on taste or fashion.

       I also added a bit more trim to the skirts, blue rick-rack and white lace for one and a white embroidered flower with lace for the other example. 

Left, is the aqua checkered print jumpsuit that was worn by baby. Center, you can see that I have cut away 
the elastic binding, snap and approximately 1 1/4" of the fabric beyond the leg opening. I will then attach
 fabric to each in order to make the quick summer skirts. Right, I chose playful green and blue prints
 for my skirts, plus white and blue trims.

Shown are dolls walking through our kitchen garden in the finished skirts.