Either shortly before or shortly after Astrid arrived - at this point I don't actually remember which - I found a roll of very cute striped flannel on clearance in the remnants section of my local Fabricland. (I love remnants and clearance sections of fabric stores. I think this roll cost me around $4, and I still have plenty left over after what I used for this project.) The scale of the print was a bit large for most of the 1/6 dolls I had at home - but would be pretty perfect to make a cute 1/4 scale pajama set.
This is a project that I technically started before this blog was more than an offhand thought, though it got picked up and set down many, many times before I actually finished it. I'm actually going to be splitting it up between two posts, one for the shirt and one for the pants. We're going to end up jumping around in time a bit, but I'm starting with the top because even though I started it last, I finished it first. Listen, the ADHD meds only do so much.
There are a few existing doll patterns for a classic pajama set like this floating around the internet, but I chose to draft mine myself, partly because Astrid has somewhat unusual measurements for a doll her size. Most "slim MSD" dolls have narrower proportions, so their clothes would be too small. I did reference this free pattern from Undead Threads to get the shape of the collar right for the shirt, but beyond that I made all of the patterns myself. This, as we will see, had mixed results.
The pattern itself went through several iterations, mostly refining the shape of the collar and the lapels. Because it's a lot more complex than the pants and I still wasn't 100% confident sewing and patterning in this scale, I did make a mockup first to make sure some of the pieces would fit together properly.
I cut the pieces out of a mockup I made last year for a human-sized costume, which had itself been cut out of an old bedsheet. Reduce, reuse, recycle, you know how it is.
I didn't put a ton of effort into this test piece, and I probably would have been served better if I had actually, you know, bothered to press any of the seams for a more accurate fit, or tested the sleeve patterns... at all, but I was excited to move on and figured it would be good enough.
I put a lot more effort into matching the stripes on the pattern pieces for the shirt than I did when I made the pants, which I think will probably show when we get to them.
The first thing I did was prepare the collar. I cut the bottom of the collar out as two separate pieces (roughly) on the bias as you would for a full-size collar like this, which was probably not necessary in this scale, but I think sometimes it's nice to include little details like that.
I also applied the same medium-weight interfacing I'd used on the dress form, which I almost immediately regretted, but not enough to start over. It ultimately turned out okay, but I think the collar would've benefited from being slightly less stiff. Even at this scale interfacing is also probably not necessary in most cases, but I was excited about working at a larger scale than I usually do and wanted to try to include some full-scale garment sewing techniques.
Once the collar was sewn together and pressed, I basted the neck edge shut to keep it in place more easily.
It was at roughly this point that my work area was, apparently, due for an unscheduled inspection courtesy of my ever-helpful feline supervisor.
Once he was satisfied, I was able to sew the front and back pieces of the shirt together at the shoulders.
I actually debated for a while whether or not I wanted to topstitch around the edge of the collar, which is wild to me because I'm usually a huge fan of topstitching as a detail. I don't know what made me doubt so much this time. In the end, I did, in fact, end up doing the topstitching, though I didn't take any pictures of it specifically.
Next, I prepared the front and back facings. I found a much lighter weight interfacing and applied it to the front facings, to lend a bit more support to the lapels. Again, probably not necessary, but I liked it. Then I sewed the pieces together at the shoulders, pressed the raw edges to the wrong side, and stitched along them with a zigzag stitch. I did later straight stitch around the edge again, because some of the seam allowance where I'd clipped the curves wasn't very securely sewn down.
Now it was time to put the collar in. First, I pinned the collar to the neck opening of the shirt and basted it in place.
Once that was done, I pinned the facing to the other side, sandwiching the collar between the two layers, and sewed all the way around the front and neck edges of the shirt.
Turned inside out and pressed out nicely, it looked like this:
I planned to include topstitching here as well, to match the collar and to help keep the seam allowances around the neck opening in place, but I wanted to wait until I'd finished the hem for that, so I moved on. The next step would be the sleeves.
I did not test the sleeve patterns I'd made in any way before cutting them out of the actual shirt material, so I was making adjustments on the fly. I don't have photos, but I trimmed down the original width of the sleeves quite a bit before adding them to the shirt.
The dress form I'd made had actually been really helpful so far, and I got a lot of use out of it testing the fit when I was working on the patterns. The dress form does not, however, have any arms, so when the time came to work on the sleeves I did have to get Astrid herself out for some fittings. Here I've sewn the sleeves to the shoulder openings of the shirt, but haven't closed the side seams.
I'd been very generous with the seam allowances for the hem of the sleeves, so I had to trim them down quite a bit. That was particularly true given that while I hadn't been sure before, at this point I decided I wanted to put cuffs on the sleeves instead of just hemming them.
This was also around the time I started to think that the neck opening and collar were a bit too big, but I also did not want to go through all of it again, so I decided I was going to have to live with it.
I cut out two pieces of fabric for the cuffs and sewed them to the ends of the sleeves, pressing the seam allowances toward the cuff.
I thought I might have enough wiggle room to finish the cuffs the way you would on a human-sized garment, so I left the ends open and only pressed the seam allowances down. This would come back to bite me.
After that, I sewed up the side seams.
Once the shirt was right side out, I could hem it and finally do that topstitching around the front edges and neckline.
Which leads us directly to the part where the sleeves come back to bite me. If you're not familiar, here's a basic explanation of how to sew simple, closed cuffs onto garments for, like, people:
Sew one edge of your cuff to the bottom edge of your sleeve (or whatever) and press the seam allowance towards the cuff. Close the side seams, if they aren't already. Fold your cuff in half to the inside of the garment, so that the raw edge is close to the seam allowances where you stitched the other edge to the bottom of the sleeve. Fold the seam allowance of the raw edge to the wrong side of the fabric and press. Then you sew through the whole thing a couple of millimeters from the seam, so that all of the raw edges and seam allowances are kept neatly on the inside of the cuff where they can't be seen and are less likely to fray.
That may not have been a great explanation. I apologize. I did my best. My point is, that was what I planned to do with the cuffs on this shirt, but on this scale I just could not make it work. I probably should have clued in when I realized the circumference of the sleeves were so narrow that I couldn't sew them on the machine, but I spent ages stubbornly trying to force it all together to no avail. It was just too many layers of fabric in too small a space.
I ultimately ended up trimming the seam allowances off of the ends of the cuffs, treating them with fray check, and finishing them with a blanket stitch for good measure.
Then I just hand sewed around with the raw edges free, rather than folding the seam allowance to the inside. Honestly, it's not a bad way to do it, all told, but I just spent so long wrestling with the fabric trying to do it the "right" way.
Here's the thing: while I do like to include actual garment sewing techniques sometimes, to add detail or just because it's how I'm used to doing it, there are some things that you can and should cheat. Not everything works well in miniature!
I did another test fitting on Astrid, along with the pants.
As you can see, they were close to being done as well by now. They had been for a while, honestly, but as I'm sitting there writing this I can't say I've made much more progress on them since this photo was taken. That's why you're getting this post first!
With the bulk of the construction finished on the shirt, all that was left to do was to add closures and some handsewn details. The dress form came in very handy here, too. I used it to position a little breast pocket on one side, which I'd prepared earlier and sewed on by hand.
I added five little buttons I had lying around to the front. The shade of green doesn't exactly match the stripes in the fabric, but I thought they would be a lot cuter than just plain white buttons.
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| The pins are helping me position the snaps in place. |
Then I sewed four snaps onto the front edges as closures (I didn't think it would be necessary to match the amount of snaps to the buttons exactly, and also I only had four snaps left in this size). With that, the shirt was done!
Here's how it looks on Astrid:
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| Forgive the harsh lighting. |
Well... it's definitely not perfect. I always intended for this to be a comfortable, loose-fitting top, so some of the bagginess is forgivable. But I definitely overestimated how big to make the neck opening, collar, and lapels, all of which could been improved if I put more work into modifying and refining the pattern before getting into it - I also think the collar and lapels would be more willing to lay flat if I hadn't used any interfacing. I just let myself get overconfident. I think it's still cute enough, and I don't really want to put all of the effort into starting over and making a new one, so I'll live with it for now.
I'm sorry all of my posts so far seem to end on a note of dissatisfaction! Unfortunately I am my own worst critic and always have been. On the other hand, I think articulating the things I don't like about the finished project and the mistakes I made helps me to learn and improve in the future, so maybe it's not all negative.
With Astrid's pajama shirt finished, we can call the set halfway done. I'll be back (hopefully) soon with another post, which will probably be the matching pants. I have something like half a dozen other projects on the go for this doll right now, though, and I might get swept away by my enthusiasm for one of them, so -- no promises.
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