Two new dresses for Barbie

All of a sudden Susie really needed some more clothes for her Barbie dolls. I guess I wasn't really hard to persuade to knit her some... :) We had a look at THIS great web site for something to knit, and Susie picked out quite a few things she wanted....

I started by knitting the dress on the right in the pic (this is pattern no 10 on the web site). I'm not sure about the green "fur", but that was the only furry yarn I could find in my stash. I know I have some other colours somewhere, but I didn't want to spend the entire day looking for it. And Susie really wanted the green trim anyway.... I have knitted the dress in the round, even though the pattern said to knit back and forth... I couldn't be bothered with sewing it together after knitting... The dress is really snug and it fits perfectly!

It was quite a quick knit, so I decided to cast on for a second dress. The one on the left is no 1005 on the web site (wich is Swedish by the way).... I have knitted this one in the round as well, AND I've altered the back by knitting some shaped ribbing for a snugger fit on the doll.

I finished the second dress after Susie went to bed, so I'm quite excited about what she has to say tomorrow morning when she sees it....



A new dress for the princess...

I've made Maja another dress from an old shirt. I started this dress ages ago but it was put aside with only the hem left to do... hemming is my least favourite part of dressmaking... it's sooo boring, and I was struggling a bit to get it to look nice on that other dress I made back in... March?? Well... not really struggling... but... I just wanted it to look perfect... and it didn't.... So to get this dress done, I decided to skip the whole hemming thing and put some ruffles on instead. I don't know if it was any quicker, but it was more fun! And I think it turned out quite well.

Since I put ruffles at the bottom, I thought it would look nice with some at the top as well. I should have sewn the ruffles on when I made the top, but since I hadn't thought about ruffles at that point, the top edge was already done so the ruffles here are just sewn on the back (instead of inbetween the two layers of fabric). Looks ok.
The back of the dress has buttons down the middle. This used to be the shirt front, so it wasn't any hassle involved making button holes etc...
I still got the sleeves from this shirt, so I might make some matching trousers/leggings to go with it.

New dress

Finally... It's washed, and Maja's not been allowed to wear it until I was ready to take a photo. I made this dress a couple of weeks ago, but before I'd gotten my camera out, Maja had gone and got the dress dirty... that's 5 year olds for you...

Aaanyway... I found this tutorial for making a toddlers dress from an old shirt, and I thought this was such a brilliant idea that I wanted to try it out myself. And since I had just made a dress/pinafore for Susie, I figured I'd try and make this for Maja. I just got a bigger shirt to make it fit my 5 year old (instead of a toddler). It was really fun to make, and quite easy too.
It's not easy to get her to behave when there is a camera around....

The front of the shirt makes the back of the dress... brilliant solution... I didn't have to sew a single button hole...

I used the sleeves of the shirt to make a pair of trousers to go with the dress.

The best thing is that when I went to pay for this shirt (which I bought in a secon hand/charity shop in town) they told me they had "buy one, get one free" on all gent's clothes that day, so I got two shirts for the price of one... which was virtually nothing... hehe, I love a good deal. I've already started making a dress of the other one as well. I'll show you when it's finished.

Birthday!

We had a birthday party for Susie today with a few of her friends round. Her birthday isn't until Monday, but Saturdays are better for parties. Happy Birthday, Susie! Where did the past year go? I can't believe you're one already!
I just thought I'd show you Susie's dress. This dress was made by my great grandmother, and I wore it on my first birthday 30+ years ago. It's crocheted and it's quite thick (and short....) but I thought it was a bit fun to dress my girls in it on their 1st birthday too (Maja had it on on her first b.day too.)
Here's the proof... Me on my first birthday. You'll have to excuse the colours... the cameras wasn't all that in the 70's... (Why did she make it that short?? Was it fashion?)

A dress for Susie

I knitted a dress for Susie a few months back, and just realized I'd forgot to put it on here... I've had this pattern and wanted to knit it for ages, but haven't had anyone to knit for... until Susie came. Even though she's worn it on several occasions, I haven't managed to get a picture of the dress on her... Anyway, here are some pics:

Here I've just started. I had some problems in the beginning because there was a fault in the pattern... I think I knitted this little bit here two or three times.

The skirt is finished:

This is the top before I knitted the edges around the arms and neck:

And finally the finished dress...

I also knitted some bootees to go with it, but haven't got a picture of them either. I will try to get a pic with Susie wearing the dress and socks...

edit: Why does the pictures not get bigger when I click on them????

Knitting for Barbie

Maja got a couple of Barbie dolls for her birthday.... They neeeed clothes (uhh.... sort of... or maybe it's just me wanting to make some...)! I was originally wanting to sew some clothes for them, but I couldn't find any free sewing patterns for Barbie clothes on the net, but there was plenty of knitting patterns. And since I rather like knitting... why not?? I've knittet two dresses. I found the pattern for these on this Swedish site (it has lots of patterns in english as well). There's lots and lots of really nice clothes here. It was kind of hard to choose, but I let Maja help me choose seeing as it is her that will play with them. They are both made with some old knitting wool that I found in my drawer of wool.

This is the first one I made (pattern no 160).

And here is the second (pattern 152).

If anyone knows about a place I can get hold of sewing patterns for Barbie, I would be grateful if you left a wee comment...