January 19, 2014

Upcycle Sewing Tutorial: pants to doll skirts

A sewing tutorial for adorable skirts for your 18 inch dolls, like American Girl dolls, from re-purposed pants. I may have just found a new way to motivate myself to get my hemming done sooner.

An easy upcycle project came to me as I was hemming pants…

I looked at all these

and thought–skirts!

Of course! My day of hemming turned into a fun afternoon of sewing doll skirts. My girls couldn’t be more thrilled 🙂

I measured and trimmed the pant legs to hem my pants (and my daughter’s as well), using a rotary cutter. Most trimmings were the perfect size–about 5 inches long. They all varied in width and fabrics, which was cool for a fun wardrobe builder — dolly style.

For the skirts:

Add about 8-9 inches of elastic to the top edge for an American Girl doll or Gotz doll. I sewed the elastic to the wrong side of the fabric with a zigzag stitch, keeping the elastic stretched as much as it would stretch.

Or you could use this fantastic little presser foot, which makes this project even more effortless. I love this foot.

Then flip the top edge toward the wrong side (to the inside of the skirt), so the elastic is now covered on both sides with fabric. Sew again using a zigzag stitch or twin needle.

That’s all there is to it.

Add a ruffle

I had some left over trim from a sweater upcycle that I did last week. And since I have 2 pant leg of each color, I thought I should make some with a little embellishment. Get creative and give our dolls some variety. You know? I added the knit lettuce edge ruffle to the bottom of some lounge pant legs. Since they are both knit I used a twin needle to sew the ruffle to the hem. You could also just sew it on with a zigzag stitch.