New Dress for my Girl for All Time MATILDA

Matilda was acting a little indignant that I had made a new dress for Amelia but not for her.  So out came my stash of clothing and vintage linens I buy just for the purpose of turning into doll clothing.

 

The dress was cut from a skirt and the apron is made from two different linens stacked together.  I also had a beautiful piece of antique lace that I applied to the bodice.

 

The dress without the apron--the reason I bought this skirt to begin with was because of the tucks and eyelet--I immediately knew it would make a cute doll dress!

 

Of course, no outfit is complete without the proper undergarments.  I made her an identical slip to the one I made for Amelia, and pair of pantalets from a vintage table linen.

 

Petticoat slip

 

Pantalets

 

Matilda decided to spend some time outdoors with Flora and Fitzgerald.  I recently found Flora the sheep at Goodwill.  Fitzgerald is the goat from American Girl Josefina's collection--I think it's name was Sombrita?  But I think he looks more like a "Fitzgerald" to me!

 

"Oh, no!  Flora, where did Fitzgerald go?  I can't find him anywhere!" 

Here you can see that Matilda's dress closes in back with snaps under decorative buttons.  The apron simply ties at the waist.  I was going to make another pinafore, like Amelia's, but I didn't want to cover up the pretty lace on Matilda's bodice.

 

"Where, oh where did that naughty little goat run off to?" 

 I added trim to the bottom tuck of Matilda's dress to match the trim on her sleeves.  Her apron is two layers of vintage linens, since I couldn't decide which one I liked better.  I actually love how it turned out.

 

I was so pleased that I had a piece of embroidered linen in my stash that had the same shade of green in the embroidery as the color of the dress.  Perfect!

 

"I found him!" exclaimed Amelia.  "He was eating the wildflowers near the chicken pen."

 

Sweet little Fitzgerald, back in the fold.

 

Amelia decided to add wildflowers to Matilda's hair while keeping a close eye on Fitzgerald.

 

So pretty.

 

Have I mentioned how much I love these dolls?!?  They are so fun to dress and photograph.  They easily stand on their own and hold lots of fun poses, thanks to their multiple, tight joints.  Their hair is gorgeous.  And to think that I didn't really even like these dolls when I first saw them!  I would like to try making them some Victorian style coats, next.  I'm going to take a standard pattern and try shrinking it down a bit.  I'll let you know how that goes, since these dolls are shorter and much slimmer than most of the standard 18" dolls on the market. 

 

Hope your dollies are able to enjoy a little time outside today as well!