Oh guys, it’s been a journey, I must say. More about that later. At the moment I’m *grateful* that I still have technology enough to produce a reasonably decent printable pattern. We have moved off grid, kind of feels like we fell off the world computer-wise. I have Android and a little solar battery and…
By request! I seem to have moved back to the 1840s. At least I have my hard drive and a folding solar panel. So I used the lovely Ivy Draw, cool vector editor for Android that I’ve talked about here, to trace the photo I took of the pattern, and here you are. Printing to…
From back in May 2009 I’m putting it back because it is still one of my favorite stories! I went to the free swap at the library, bringing my bags of old junk and expecting some other, fresher and thus more fun junk in return. I did not expect a Pfaff sewing machine to be…
I see a real need for this. It’s a simple, quick dress to fit any Barbie shape. We have a pile of naked Barbies. They need clothes quick, and they should be able to share. Let’s go. Here’s a simple shift dress that pulls on, with a tie in the back. The other, a basic…
It’s about as simple, basic and easy as a sewing pattern can get. Free pdf to print at home. Free pinafore dress pattern with modest neckline and long armholes. Adult woman/misses size. This is a multi-size pattern I made up several years ago. Nowadays I think I made the sizing more generous than it needs…
I love Miss Blue’s beautiful space princess hair. Of course my first dress for her had to be a princess seams sundress. Princess seams are not a very easy design to create. I set out to do a strapless at first, but it didn’t happen and this did. Might be because I can identify with…
Here’s another dress pattern to make your own outfits for Best Fashion Friend Barbie. NOTE this is NOT the regular height Barbie, this is the big 28 inch super sized one! But not 36 inch My Size Barbie either. I don’t have clothes for the 36″ one. For the regular size 11.5 inch tall Barbie…
I realize this is Thanksgiving week and there are a lot of grandmas out there who need some 28″ Barbie clothing in a hurry, so I’m sharing this pattern for you, in its unfinished state. I’m planning to do more work on it later. Here is a dress I made from this draft back in…
Here’s a great project from a reader named Susan. She wanted to sew a sushi pillow as a gift for her grandson, and happened across my spirals page while looking for ideas. I had no idea “sushi pillow” was a thing, but when I googled for it, it looks like many people have made one….
Dramatic black, white and red music-themed fabric chosen by a musician. I only have a couple photos while it was in progress. Hopefully one day I’ll have a photo of it being worn! This was made from the patterns on the spirals page.
Here’s a full length spiral dress for a grown-up! …with wolves on it. When I was a teenager, I found a spiral dress at a second hand shop. It was too small for me, but I was so fascinated with those seams going round and round that I bought it anyway. Eventually I decided it…
Ruffles! A huge, swirly overload of fluttering spiral. How to do this? We need volume of fabric. As usual, I started moderate before going more extreme. The first attempt with a 4″ curved gore produced a conservative A-line skirt shape. Simple. Just add more stripes. The delightful “Peppermint Swirl” gave me the idea of gathering…
Free pattern for a basic strapless dress that can be made any length. Note this is for the LARGE 28-inch Barbie doll, not the regular size 11.5″ ones. Those patterns are elsewhere. Download and print the PDF pattern here — FREE for personal use Lay out the pages like this. Butt the edges of the…
Easy and quick homemade scrapwork potholders make great DIY gifts! You don’t need a pattern and they’re FREE to make out of fabric scraps. Most of the instructions I found for quilted potholders use bias binding, like commercial potholders. But it’s so hard to sew bias binding on straight. Why not cut the backing larger…
Free printable peasant dress pattern for adult females. “Women” means grown up girls. Unmarried “Misses” are not guaranteed to be thin, neither do maturity or marital status doom one to be overweight. That’s my opinion. Simple pattern in PDF format for 8.5 x 11 letter size paper. NOTE – CUT THE SKIRT LONGER – I’m…
I made a bunch of outfits all at once when I needed them for gifts, and here I’m going to share the patterns. These are for the 16″ Tyler Wentworth along with Brenda Starr and many other Tonner dolls. The white tops are the strapless bodice with lace added. Here’s the basic bodice sloper and…
All patterns are Adobe pdf for free download and printing. They print out onto sheets of 8.5 x 11 printer paper which you tape together then cut out. Be sure they print out at 100% size not “scale to fit” the paper. The skirts can be made any size you need by using whatever number…
Free printable sewing pattern for a cute halter top dress. Instructions: Fold over sides of both top pieces and topstitchLay one top piece over the other to the place where the arrow points, pin them together then gather the lower edges of both Pull gathering threads until the top pieces fit between the two arrows…
Free Printable Pattern. Someone requested an off-the-shoulder dress. I only glanced at the email and suddenly had a great idea how to do that, and in a flash of creativity, produced this. No, no, she had said “off the shoulder”. Oops. Well, I guess it was time for me to make Barbie a one shoulder…