Barbie love:)

        Ah Barbie! One of my fondest childhood memories is with my cousin Alicia, as we used to say, "playing Barbies" . She had a lot of cool Barbie stuff, like Coke bottles (my favourite!) and shoes, accessories etc. So much fun! One of my nieces is into Barbies right now, so I thought it would be fun to sew a few dresses for her. I found some simple & free patterns on janelwashere.com.

       

 
      Here is a link to the bodice pattern. Also available is the halter dress pattern. I cut a rectangle of fabric about 12" wide by 6"long and gathered it to fit the the bodice (gather 12" to fit bodice).

I couldn't help but reminisce while making these! I even bought a thrifted Barbie (blonde) to help with the fitting!:) Poor Barbie had a chunk of hair cut off. That also brought back memories of when I cut a piece of gum out of my hair!:) Seems like a lot of kids cut their own hair at some point!

P.S, hot melted margarine (or butter) will take gum out of hair easily!

The brunette Barbie I gave to my niece:)

The floral print I used for my "mermaid" dress:)

I would totally wear dresses like these if they were me-sized!:)

I especially like the peacock print dress!:)

Not the neatest back, but its functional!:)

       All the dresses close with velcro. Don't make the mistake of using sticky-back velcro! Even if it says "sew-in/adhesive velcro", don't try sewing with it! I did and it does not work:( I bought some non-adhesive velcro and that worked great. I later found a tip though, that soaking sticky back velcro in rubbing alcohol for 20 minutes helps to remove the adhesive. I haven't tried it, but I'm going to before buying more velcro.


     Thanks for reading! And thanks Janel, for generously providing the free patterns! I'm sure I'll be using these again in the future:)