What You Need Before You Begin
- Dress Pattern
- Fabric (one dress can be made from less than a quarter yard)
- Thread
- Sewing Machine (optional if sewing by hand)
- Scissors
- Pinking Shears (optional)
- Colored Pencils or Sharpie Gel Pen (fine tip)
- Iron
- Mini Craft Iron (optional)
- Tacky Glue or Fabric Glue
- Sewing Pins
- Toothpicks
- Dritz Fray Check or Quick Drying Clear Nail Polish
- Sew-On Hook and Loop Tape
- Crochet Hook or Other Fine-Tipped Instrument
- Ribbon, Lace, Buttons, and Any Other Embellishments You Like
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Why You Might Need Certain Items:
- Pinking shears are optional, but recommended because they help keep the fabric edges from fraying.
- Colored pencils are perfect for tracing patterns on to dark colored fabric, particularly black fabric.
- Sharpie Gel Pen (fine tip) is perfect for fabrics with a pattern. The gel ink doesn’t run or bleed when tracing a pattern.
- Mini crarft iron is optional, but perfect for ironing seams on small doll clothing.
- Tacky Glue or fabric glue is a good replacement for pinning certain areas that need to be sewn. Tacky Glue adheres faster than fabric glue, but either works well.
- Dritz Fray Check or quick drying clear nail polish is used to keep fabric from fraying, particularly when sewing darts in the bodice. Darts are important because they give the bodice shape around the breasts of the doll. Keep in mind that nail polish does shine on certain fabrics and my be noticeable on the completed dress.
- Sew-on hook and loop tape is important to this design in that the back of the dress lays flat rather than having it bulk up when using snaps or hooks and eyes to close the dress.
- A crochet hook or other fine-tipped instrument is used to make sure your sewn corners are square. If you don’t push the corners out when sewing, they will look round and uneven.
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