Doll Days! Modern Jumper Pattern Sew Along

The Doll Days! Doll Sewing Challenges is going on and this week’s theme is School Days Challenge, using the Modern Jumper Clothes Pattern from the book Doll Days! Sew an Everyday Wardrobe for 18″ Dolls, like American Girl Dolls.

I adore this design and would love to see everyone give it a try. It has such great details: fitted bodice that slopes downward in the back, a slightly gathered skirt, a nice silhouette, and crisscrossed straps. Another fun detail is the center inset.

I believe a sew along may be helpful and help convince people to give this sweet little jumper a try.

First step, and sometimes the step that is the hardest, is to choose fabric. Here are the fabrics that I’m interviewing. All have a small scale print and/or are suitable for this design. In Doll Days!, I used linen, fine-wale corduroy, and a light-weight wool. That’s just the tip of the ice burg. It would look fabulous in a seersucker or chambray for a summertime dress, or quilting cotton, which comes in so many great prints.

When looking into fabric choices, don’t forget to think of how to use the fabrics to highlight a designs feature, such as the center inset. This grey print is a bias plaid print and would be great as the center inset. I’m thinking it would be great to fussy cut a flower onto the upper portion of the inset. You could also cut a regular plaid or gingham on the bias to create the same look. Just be certain to use starch alternative to keep it stable as you work through the pattern.

The view B is embellished with velvet and jacquard ribbons, as well as micro trims. That gets me thinking of all the possibilities, which adds to the list of things to decide. The striped fabric in the photo above would make a fun choice, because it could take the place of adding ribbons and trims, highlighting the inset design feature nicely without doing a lot of work.

So as I interview all these fabrics and trims, please make choices for your Modern Jumper and cut out your fabric pieces. In the next post, I will have my fabric chosen, pattern pieces cut out, and show many photos of the first sewing steps. We will move slower than the book and I show addition photos to help explain each step.

I hope you sew along!