How to make a Doll dress with matching purse for beginners

Hey hey hey there! So my journey with sewing has BEGUN! LOL . Taught myself how to use my new fancy Brother Project runway Sewing Machine and now I'm ready to get busy. Today I made a doll dress. Remember this is my very first time too so stayed tuned and learn with me!

Now this dress I really did start off with a tutorial from YouTube but like most all of my projects I quickly veer-off into my own idea.
Supplies:
Fabric of your choice, at least a quarter to work with
Thread
stick pins
Sewing machine
needle
Coordinating ribbon
Any other coordinating extra's you want to add on.
Iron

Got ahead and turn on your iron so it's getting hot. Now I cut a square that was 10x20. You can make it shorter if you want. I'm measuring it to fit an Our Generation doll. Which is about the same size as a American Doll. Now the width wise will give you extra so you can either measure around your doll and cut or use my measurements and you can use the left over for a cute purse like I did! :-).

 

Now you need to iron your seems down. Put your fabric wrong side up and fold in your fabric on both of the longer sides. I folded twice to make it look a little nicer and iron down flat. Then put your pins in to hold your fold in place.

Time to sew baby! Leave your regular setting on your machine, nothing needs to be changed. You can use a simple straight stitch. Sew the top fold, cut your thread. Then place your fabric back on your machine and sew the bottom fold.

OK now here is where I decided to add a little "extra". I am still getting this "dew in a straight line" thing down so in order to cover up my little "learning curves" LOL I added a strip of lace. So I pinned my lace where I wanted it then it was back to the sewing machine. And you can see Emily waiting for her dress to be finished ;-).

Place your fabric around your doll and put a pin where you want to sew your dress together. Make sure it's not too tight so your little one can slip it off and on. You will need to turn your fabric wrong side out and begin to sew your seem. Again very simple straight stitch is all that is needed. Once you sew your seem then cut off the excess fabric and put it to the side. Grab your ribbon you want to use for your dress straps, your needle and thread. I chose to sew the straps on by hand since it's such small ribbon I'm using.

I put the dress back on Miss Emily and put pins where I wanted my straps to be. Slipped it off of her and hand stitched the ribbon. Try to stitch along your seem line so you can't see the extra thread. Now put your cute new dress back on your doll and tie her straps WA-LA!

Here's what I did with my scrap piece. I folded it over to be an even line, letting y lace stick out a little for the front of the purse. Then I folded in my sides and ironed flat and pinned. It should look like a little pouch. Turn it wrong side out and sew the sides. Then I again hand stitched the ribbon to each side for the strap. So now Emily doll has a cute bag to match her cute dress! My princess will be so surprised when she gets home! Who wants to bet she asks me to make HER a matching dress and bag LOL!

XOXO,
Jess