Barbie Winter Formal Take One

With the confidence gained from practice with some of the free Barbie patterns I made over the holidays, I decided to return to some of the Annie's Attic vintage books I have been collecting. This dress is based on the Winter Formal gown found in Annie's Fashion Doll Quick and Easy book number 87D20.

There are a couple of reasons this dress is based on the original and not the pattern. The first is a mistake on my part. After making the Skipper outfit, I mistakenly thought I had enough blue sports yarn to complete another dress. Instead of having a skein and a half, I had about 3/4 of a skein to complete the outfit. This meant the dress was going to be shorter than the pattern requested.

The second reason had to do with some lessons learned in making the free patterns. I am making these outfits for little hands not display. The elastic waist lines do make creating and dressing the dolls easier. Once I did that I had to play with the top of the dress to accomadate the new waist. I realized I had made a good faith estimate at making the top small enough but without straps Barbie was not able to hold up the dress. Then I remembered my Grandmother talking about strategic pieces of lace being used to cover necklines. In my case I did not want to cover the neckline I needed to tighten it, but the strategy was similar. I used the white yarn I have been trimming my outfits with to decrease the stitches at the bodice and now Barbie's gown is fitting the way I hoped it would.

Barbie and American Girl Doll Free Patterns are listed on my blog at these locations:

Barbie Crochet and Sewing Page

Barbie Knitting Page

Ken Page

Kelly/Skipper Page

American Girl Doll Crochet and Sewing

American Girl Doll Knitting

Additional Doll Patterns also Available on the Holiday Blogs:

Valentines

Easter

Graduation

Patriotic

Halloween Page

Thanksgiving

Christmas

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