Pixie Faire High-Waisted Jeans Pattern for 18" Dolls

As I was teaching my young sewing students today how to make jeans for their dolls, I realized that I hadn't yet posted about the jeans I had made!  There is a website, www.pixiefaire.com which offers a wonderful array of clothing patterns for several, different sizes of dolls, American Girl being the most popular.  If you get on their mailing list, every Friday they'll send you an offer to download one of their selected patterns for FREE.  What a deal!  Back in April, they offered this high-waisted jeans pattern which I had saved, but never made.  A few weeks back when my sewing students expressed an interest in making jeans for their dolls as their next project, I knew I had the perfect pattern:

Isn't it just the cutest?  I think the thing I liked the best was all the attention to detail.  I mean, they look just like the real thing, don't they?

 

So, after making a quick run to the fabric store for some denim fabric and a few hours of sewing time, this is how my first attempt came out:

 

The pockets are all functioning...even the little coin pocket!  A belt could actually fit through the belt loops if I had one, and the front fly opens and closes with a narrow strip of Velcro.

 

Cute back pockets

 

All in all, if you are wanting a pattern to make realistic looking jeans, I highly recommend this one!  Although it has a lot of pieces, it goes together fairly smoothly and easily.  There's a lot of top stitching, but that's what gives the jeans such a realistic look.  The pattern also suggests adding tiny beads or rhinestones which resemble studs to the places on the jeans where "real" jeans might have them to add to the realism, but since I didn't have any on hand, I left them off.

 

The only thing I did differently when having my students tackle this project was to widen each leg seam by 1/8" for a total of 1/2" more width per leg.  The legs on my doll's jeans turned out really skinny, and were a little bit of a struggle to pull on over her feet.  By adding the extra 1/2", the jeans my students made turned out much easier to pull on and looked just as nice.

 

Marie Grace was my model today.  She normally only dresses in period clothing, so she had a little bit of fun seeing how it felt to dress like a "modern" girl!  And running barefoot through the grass was a nice change from the lace-up boots from the 1800's she usually wears.

 

If you love to sew for your dolls, do take a moment to check out Pixie Faire's website.  Besides clothing patterns, they also offer footwear and accessory patterns, sewing notions, and even dolls.  All of their patterns are instantly downloadable, which means you can start your project just as soon as you pay for it!

 

Next up for our sewing class:

McCalls 7268 Tent and Sleeping Bag for 18" dolls 

 

I've already picked out fabric from my stash that will work, and only need to make a trip to Home Depot for the window screen and dowels.  Looks like a fun project.  Stay tuned!