Chelsea

The last time I worked on Barbies this small the doll was Kelly and she and her friend Tomi were 4 1/2" high. The current small doll in the line is Chelsea and she is 6". This meant finding a new model. I picked the Chelsea Can Be a Builder Doll since I was able to pick up several on sale under $5 each. I'm using one as a model to fit the clothes and the rest will be donated. It also meant finding patterns that would fit the larger doll.

I've used Sweet Silver Creations 18" doll patterns for years. I never noticed her Barbie patterns as I'd not had an interest in revisiting Barbie clothes in years. However, when I went searching to find a starting point for Chelsea her name came up in my search. Instead of buying a pattern set, I decided to settle on one single pattern to get a feel for how clothes would fit this doll. While you can start from scratch and design your own outfits, sometimes I like having a skeleton to work from to learn how to make items fit.

With that in mind I purchased the Strawberry Shortcake pattern. You can purchase it here. While I've made her character patterns for the 18" dolls I really wasn't as interested in making the Strawberry shortcake outfit. What I wanted were the bones of a dress that could be converted into other pieces and played with and adapted.

For this project I made the dress and the apron to get a feel for how clothes fit this doll. While larger than the original Kelly doll there still isn't a great deal of doll to dress so it is something to get used to, especially since I spend most of my time working with far larger dolls.

I used a size 5 1.65mm hook. The suggested size is 7 but there is no mm size listed so I'm not sure exactly what size hook was originally used. I found the outfit roomy with the 1.65 hook and size 10 thread. I added elastic to the waist of both the dress and the pantaloons. I went back and read old Barbie posts and one thing I noted was how often I added elastic to patterns and how helpful I found it. I decided to start working more with it and I found it helpful in this outfit.

I've been experimenting with new methods for doing things and I did try crocheting the first arm and sewing it on as suggested. I didn't like the look. Instead I crocheted around the open arm hole and reduced until I had the look I liked and continued to a 3/4 sleeve. It was worth the experiment but it just isn't a method I like using. I find it challenging to set the arm correctly into the arm hole and as a result it doesn't fit right.

The hat is made with beads so I skipped the accessory. I also skipped the shoes. My focus is on making some basic outfits. If I have time I'll work back towards accessories.

One challenge of this pattern is there are no stitch counts. It is one of the things I depend on when working on a pattern that helps me check to make sure I'm following directions I may not be sure I understand. If I get to the end and my stitch count and the designers match, there is a good chance I've followed the directions correctly. However, if my count doesn't match the directions there is a high probability I need to go back and fix my mistake.