Chelsea Dress

I mentioned in the previous Stacie post that I was trying to use an old free Fibre Craft Cindy pattern, found here, to make a dress for Barbie's Chelsea Can Be Builder Doll . Clearly since I made a Stacie post out of my first attempt I had to make a second try to get it to fit .

I'd purchased a selection of size 20 thread from Creative Yarn Source last year for making Barbie clothes. It proved the right choice for making this outfit work for Chelsea. I needed my .4mm thread hook to get the size right for Chelsea. I also added two rows of purple prior to changing to yellow to give the dress the length it lacked likely from the smaller thread size and the smaller hook size. I chose not to use the collar or the buttons suggested for the Cindy doll. I tried the collar on the Stacie outfit and found it was too large. The Cindy doll has a slightly larger rounder head and the collar fits better on her.

I will be keeping this pattern for both Stacie and Chelsea. I have my notes on my blog and the printed copy of the pattern for both dolls so I should be able to find them again and repeat for future donation projects. I'm working on hunting down more easy to make Chelsea patterns as I did feel bad she left with only one dress last year.

Along with getting a dress made earlier in the donation cycle I'm also pleased to say I found some Mattel branded Barbie items specific to Chelsea at the Dollar Tree that will be headed out with the donation as well. I've had luck there for Barbie with shoes and other various Mattel specific accessories but this January was the first time I'd seen stuff targeted to Chelsea so I stocked up for this year and to have stuff for future donations in case this was a one time only situation.