Little Girl's Dress Coat Tutorial...and a Coat for Dollie too!!

 

Happy 2016 everyone!  Are you starting to plan out your projects for 2016?  I've been making a list of things that I'd like to make this year.  I'm so excited to get started!  

The projects I'm sharing with you today are actually 2015 projects.  Today I'm over at Make It and Love It showing how to make this sweet little girl's dress coat.  I think what I love the most about it is that Lu wore it for Christmas...but I think it's equally suited for a spring jacket as well.  I imagine that she'll wear it for Easter too!

  

That's not the only coat though that I've made recently!  For Christmas I offered to make Lu an outfit for her doll.  She picked a doll coat from the American Girl's catalog, and on New Year's Eve we did our best to replicate it.  Can you guess how it's made?  That's right!  I used the same principles as when I made the dress coat for Make It Love It!  It's funny because when I originally designed the coat for Lu I didn't even remember this doll coat, but Lu was quick to point out their similarities...mainly the bow on the front!

I changed a few things from my tutorial on Make It and Love It when I made the doll version, so I'm going to guide you through a few of the changes here on my blog today.  Don't forget though to jump on over to Make It and Love It for the full, detailed tutorial for making a little girl's dress coat though!  I think it might be one of my favorite projects to date...and it makes me want to make more little girl clothes! 

 

Here's an up close look at the doll coat that I made for Lu's doll Grace. 

My grandmother used to make doll clothes with me when I was little (In fact it's the main reason I learned how to sew!!).  I hope that Lu will have fond memories of sewing with me just as I have fond memories of sewing with my grandmother.

 Here are the pieces for the doll coat.  I cut them in duplicate, since the coat is entirely lined. I modified some 18 inch doll clothes pattern pieces to come up with these pieces, but you could easily draft them from clothes you already have...just like I did for Lu's coat! The bodice of the coat came together pretty similarly to how you'd expect from the instructions for Lu's coat. 

 Once I had a complete outer (and lining coat), I decided to add velcro to the lining on the left side of the coat (This is the right side of the lining, since it will be placed inside of the left side of the jacket.) I didn't want to add the velcro at the end.  If I had, my seams would have shown through where the buttons are located.

I placed the lining inside of the outer part of the jacket and sewed, just like I did for Lu's coat.  After that, I turned the jacket right side out.  For Lu's coat I just left the layers (the lining and the outer jacket bottom) separate, but for the doll's version I decided to top stitch the two layers of the bottom of the jacket skirt together. 

 After that, all that was left was to add the velcro to the right hand side of the jacket, 

 and hem up the sleeves.  I tucked in the raw edges of the sleeves and sewed the hem by hand with a whip stitch, since the doll sleeve was much too small to fit under my machine!

 All in all, two coats that I couldn't be more pleased with!  Don't forget to jump on over to Make It and Love It for the full little girl coat tutorial!

I shared this post on Sew Can She's Show-off Saturday.  Click on over to check out the other great entries!