Learn to Sew for Your Doll: A Beginner's Guide to Sewing for an 18" Doll

If you would like to teach a special child how to sew, this book presents a series of skills in a learning sequence that takes the new seamstress from the first use of a sewing machine through making an attractive wardrobe for a doll. The book gives the student a place to start and then builds on the initial skills.

• This book includes instructions and full size patterns for 18" doll clothes.
• Measurements are given in both US and metric units.
• Stitching bookmarks introduces machine sewing and zigzagging.
• Beginning fabric skills are taught with simple projects to sew bed clothes for a doll. While sewing a doll bed cover, pillow, and pillow case the student learns to recognize the right and wrong sides of fabric, and to find the straight of grain, cross grain and bias of fabric. Skills in tearing fabric and cutting along a pulled thread are taught.
• The student then moves on to sew an attractive wardrobe for an 18" doll
  • Sundress
  • A-line skirt
  • Shorts
  • Two-tiered skirt
  • Smock top
  • Nightgown
• Skills taught include
  • Pattern reading and cutting
  • Machine stitching
  • Finishing seams
  • Gathering
  • Sewing casings
  • Topstitching
  • Hemming
  • Attaching closures

Sherralyn St. Clair taught herself dollmaking by reading pattern guides, books, and magazines. When she began designing patterns, she found that her MA in Curriculum and Instruction helped her write pattern instructions. Her book "Easy to Make Storybook Dolls" was published in 2009. "Soft Dolls and Animals" has published her patterns and articles.