If you’ve been around my blog here for a minute, you will know that the Party Time Peasant Dress is my go to sewing pattern for all the holidays. I love to mix and match the holiday fabric prints and this dress looks good on every doll and in every color!
Sewing Pattern for 18 inch Dolls: Party Time Peasant Dress by Oh Sew Kat!
It’s quick to sew and I just keep going back to it season after season. Here are some of my favorites for Valentine’s Day- notice how different they all look from each other despite all being from the same sewing pattern! Find the Party Time Peasant Dress pattern in six popular doll sizes HERE. See this post for information on making the dress with long sleeves.
Below, I added some lace to the neckline and the hem. See more information in THIS POST.
You can easily create fun Valentine’s Day themed outfits and accessories for your 18 inch dolls like American Girl, as well as other popular sized dolls with these simple patterns and easy tutorials.
Valentine Craft Tutorials for Dolls
Pull out your pinks and reds to show your dolly love today! Click the photo to go right to each project/tutorial.
PDF Party Time Peasant Dress Hack- Make a Cute Elf Dress for the Holidays
If you’ve read my blog for very long, you know by now, that sometimes a pattern hack is hardly more than changing colors when you sew. That is nearly true of this adorable elf dress. The Party Time Peasant Dress is a quick sew. I used THIS TUTORIAL to add a small ruffle on the neckline (the tutorial shows the top, but it works the same way for this dress. Simply add your ruffle, then add the elastic and finish the back according to the directions. I followed the skirt cutting measurements from the pattern as if to add lace, but added the striped band instead. How cute did this turn out????
It’s been awhile since I’ve stitched up a cute holiday outfit. I’m so happy with how this green elf dress came together. The Party Time Peasant Dress is so quick and easy to sew; it looks amazing in all kinds of holiday fabrics. See more ideas for this versatile dress pattern in the INSPIRATION GALLERY HERE.
Easy to Sew Holiday Doll Clothes- Cute Elf Dress
Be sure to spend some time in the Oh Sew Kat! Christmas Inspiration Gallery to see what myself and others have sewn for the holidays. I hope you find something to inspire you this holiday season.
DIY Holiday Doll Clothes for your American Girl Doll
When you purchase this doll above (Evette Peeters) from the American Girl® store, she comes in an orange dress with a black leather belt. It’s the perfect accessory for your Santa and Elf outfits!! If you don’t have a belt, you can stitch a metal buckle to the waistband, or use gold or glitter HTV and your CRICUT or Scan n Cut machine to add a buckle like I did in THIS POST. The dress looks cute with or without it if you ask me!
Make an Elf Dress with the Party Time Peasant Dress PDF Pattern
I find it so hard to resist all of the cute Halloween fabrics that fill the quilting shops and online fabric stores this time of year. When my daughter was young, we would pick our favorites each year and create a holiday twirl skirt in lots of fun colors, with wide eyed spiders and grinning ghosts. Now just the dolls get to wear fun Halloween themed fashions these days, but the colors are fun to sew and bring a little more fun to the season.
Halloween Fun for your 18 inch Dolls- Easy To Sew!
Grab your favorite Oh Sew Kat! PDF Sewing pattern in your favorite doll size and mix and match your fabrics to create your own one of a kind outfit. Add some fun striped socks (I make mine from dollar store socks) and tennis shoes or boots to complete the look.
Use the Party Time Peasant Dress pattern from Oh Sew Kat! and your fun, Halloween fabrics to make your 18 inch American Girl doll a fun and not so spooky outfit!
Halloween Fun and the Party Time Peasant Dress for Dolls
These cute fabrics are made by Doodlebug. They are perfect for some not so spooky Halloween outfits. Use THIS HACK to make the Party Time Dress with long sleeves for the cooler seasons.
In honor of pride month, here are some rainbow inspired doll clothes to inspire you!! Both the dresses above and below were sewn with the simple Oh Sew Kat! Party Time Peasant Dress pdf pattern.
I knit this adorable rainbow dress with varigated yarn from Hobby Lobby and the Metropolitan pattern on Ravelry.
Add a splash of rainbow on the Spring Shine Dress with an easy hem band.
Courtney’s 80s world was full of rainbows!! This skirt was made with the Four Season Skirt pattern. You can get it FREE right HERE.
When it comes to doll dresses, I say, can there ever be enough ruffle? Whether it’s a full, twirly doll skirt, or a cute ruffle at the hem of pants or a skirt, you can make your ruffles in mere seconds with this fancy accessory for your sewing machine!! Use this quick method when you sew the Boardwalk Boutique, Party Time Peasant Dress, Playtime Peasant Skirt, and the Sugar n Spice dress patterns from Oh Sew Kat! See the full pattern collection HERE.
Learn to Use Your Ruffler Attachment for Your Sewing Machine
The first thing is to ensure you have the exact correct ruffler for your specific machine. My machine is a Bernina 560 and the ruffler foot is #86. I have a ruffler foot for my babylock machine as well, and even though it looks almost identical, it’s not compatible with my Bernina. A ruffler for your machine is not a cheap accessory, but if you use it often, it can be a huge time saver!!! Be sure to watch a few quick videos on you tube to get familiar with how to use it. Generally, a ruffler will look like the photo below. It’s quite the contraption! But once I tried it, I fell in love!
Sewing Doll Skirts: Ruffler Tips
There can be a lot of math involved when using a ruffler. It has a few options and if you change the number and the stitch length, you get even more! That all gives me a headache, to be honest. I’m an English teacher not a math teacher, remember? If you want a great tutorial on how to figure all of this out, I highly recommend searching you tube. Me, I just want to put a piece of fabric in and gather my doll skirts in about 15 seconds! So this is what I did and maybe it can benefit you too.
The ruffler foot seems intimidating at first, but it really attaches just like any of your other sewing feet. You need to make sure the top “hook” (looks like a backwards “c”- see Fig 1) is over the needle bar (see Fig 3), which will move the entire mechanism. This is similar to some buttonhole feet. Once the foot is secure, and the “c” hook is over the bar, lower the foot and check that your needle moves in and out freely and doesn’t hit any of the metal.
In Fig 2, you can see the front notch which shows the number of stitches between “tucks” or gathers. For tight gathers, set this to 1, so it will “tuck” every stitch. You can also set it to every 6th stitch or every 12th stitch. The smaller the number, the tighter the gathers. You will need less fabric the higher the number.
The fabric will move front to back, just like your regular sewing. The center, middle of the foot has a darker, flat piece of metal. The back end of this piece has a zig zag type edge, which will grab the fabric. As the fabric is tucked, the needle stitches it in place. Your fabric is fed in between the two bars at the front, then under this little metal piece and out the back.
In Fig 1, you can see that the foot has a two layer bottom. The fabric will feed in between these two layer bars at the front, then under the metal piece and needle etc. (Fig 4). Start slowly, and ensure the fabric and the little claw are moving correctly. You will hold/feed the fabric, watching the front guide. If you start to sew, and your fabric doesn’t start to move in under the needle, pull it out and try again.
I sat down with a pile of cotton strips (I used the ugly parts of a quilter’s jelly roll, but you can use anything that is similar to the fabric you will gather the most. You can even ruffle a strip, measure it, pull the stitches out, and ruffle it again using the same strip more than once.) The jelly roll strips were all 42 inches long (and 2.5 inches wide), which is more or less the width of fabric when you buy it off the bolt. I sat down and set my ruffler to ruffle every stitch, (the little holes front and center) and my stitch length to 2.5. I ruffled the strip. The next one I ruffled with the stitch length set at 3.0 and kept moving up to 5.0 which is as long as my machine will let me set. (No idea what a jelly roll is? Click AD: to see at the Fat Quarter Shop HERE. Jelly rolls (also called Bali Pops, Rolie Polies etc) are a type of precut cotton fabric, designed for quilters, but also great for doll clothes!)
Once I ruffled each strip, I measured it and started making a chart. I entered the original length of fabric, the stitch length (2.5-5.0), the ruffler stitch count setting (every stitch, every sixth stitch, etc), and the finished, ruffled length. My goal was to see what stitch length would give me the closest measurements to the skirts in my doll clothes patterns. I add them to a white board or wall chart for quick reference. Look up the skirt measurements of your favorite doll clothes patterns with ruffles or gathered skirts. Cut strips to match, and start with the lowest stitch length setting, to see where you end up. It’s not hard to get right to certain measurements, and as I said, I’m an English teacher, and I didn’t want to do the math. I needed the strips to be 1 or 2 inches LONGER than what I would use on the doll garment. I can trim off the end. 😉 If a measurement is too short, leaving an inch unruffled at either end can work as well. This also makes it a little easier to add the hook and loop tape to a back closing garment.
I found that a strip that measured 42 inches, ruffled at 5.0 stitch length gave me 14-15 inches. This is what I use most of the time for 18 inch dolls. I leave one inch at the beginning, and ruffle all the way to the end. Once it’s pinned to the skirt, I can remove the part I don’t need (perfect for an apron like in Sugar n Spice pattern), remove a few stitches to flatten out the back edge, and attach it to my waistband. Time saver!!!
It’s possible to ruffle and attach your skirt to your waistband at the same time. As long as you know you can trim off the excess at the end, you can do it in one step. Having your handy chart of which stitch length will give you what approximate measurement will really help! I encourage you to ruffle a few strips of fabric and make your own chart. At first I used a notebook, but I’ve since put it into my google drive so it is now sorted by fabric length. I add to it every time I ruffle a skirt or piece of fabric, and I reference it when I sit down to sew a pattern to speed up my doll clothes constructions.
How to Use a Ruffler to Gather Doll Skirts when Sewing
A ruffler foot can also be used to make your own gathered trim (think eyelet lace) and ruffles for any and every project. Have fun with this new tool!!
Use the ruffler foot to make the quick to sew Party Time Peasant Dress even quicker!! Find the pattern here.
Does your doll need a new dress? Which doll doesn’t am I right? Oh Sew Kat! has a new value pattern bundle with three styles of dresses for your doll, in four doll sizes.
Best Dresses Doll Dress Pattern Bundle of Three by Oh Sew Kat!
Save 15% by purchasing this value bundle of three print at home PDF patterns that have full color photos for every step in the detailed directions. Each pattern also includes full size pattern pieces that fit your home printer paper (US 8.5 x 11 inches).
3 Doll Dress Pattern Value Bundle from Oh Sew Kat!
This Best Dressed bundle is offered in 3 doll sizes: 18 inch dolls, 16 inch Animators’ and 14.5 inch Welliewishers. There is a similar bundle (one dress is different) for 15 inch Bitty Baby dolls. Each pattern is also available individually. See them all HERE.
Sugar n Spice and Everything Nice: This pattern includes a short sleeve dress with fitted bodice and gathered skirt. Also included are patterns for a no sew tutu, reversible corset, apron, overskirt, and hooded cape so you can make your full imagination’s worth of outfits.
Here are some samples of the Sugar n Spice Pattern. Find a list of Sugar n Spice pattern hacks HERE.
Party Time Peasant Dress: Simple and quick to sew, with an elastic neckline, and contrasting waistband, the Party Time Peasant Dress is perfect for every season. You can make it with long sleeves with THIS HACK for even more options.
Here are a few samples of the Party Time Peasant Dress. Instructions are included for both the solid skirt and the 3 tiered prairie skirt. See more dresses in the Inspiration Gallery.
Easy to Sew Doll Dresses for 18 inch Dolls and other Sizes by Oh Sew Kat!
Sunshine Dress: This a-line dress is simple to sew with three variations to the front: Straight lined center, princess seams, or solid. Use THIS HACK to make it without sleeves for even more options.
Here are a few samples of the Sunshine Dress. You can find more ideas in the Inspiration Gallery.
Create your perfect doll dress with these three dress patterns, bundled together to save 15%. Happy Sewing!!
Sewing o the green this month? Be inspired by these doll outfits for St Patrick’s Day and see more in the Oh Sew Kat! St Patrick’s Day Inspiration Gallery.
Riley and Maryellen are wearing simple to sew Party Time Peasant Dresses. See THIS POST for instructions to make it with long sleeves and find the pattern sized for 6 dolls HERE.
St Patrick’s Day Dresses for 18 inch Dolls
Emily’s simple green dress takes on a new look for St Patrick’s Day with a simple rainbow ribbon and shamrock button. Find the pattern for the Sugar n Spice Dress in four doll sizes HERE.
Oh Sew Kat! 