Making Barbie Doll Clothes

As a little girl in school I once had a sewing project for beginners in one of my classes. The sewing project for the beginners was to sew an apron. I thought this was silly because I was not interested in wearing an apron.

One of the more advanced projects was to make Barbie doll clothes. I was very excited about this project because I had seen many great patterns for Barbie doll clothes and I wanted to make them for myself and my friends to play with. I was only ten years old at the time.

My mother tried to change my mind, but she seen that I was very set in doing this. My mother pointed out that the small seams and patterns would be very difficult to sew well.

I still insisted that I would be able to make the Barbie doll clothes and that it would be inexpensive because I did not need very much fabric to make the small items. Finally, my mother gave in and let me have my way. I think she knew that I was about to learn a lesson.

I traced the small tissue patterns for the Barbie doll clothes on to the fabric. I then cut out the small detailed pieces. The pieces were so small that it was impossible to pin the pieces together. At ten years old I did not have the skill to sew without pinning the pieces together, so this meant that I needed to hand baste the pieces.

I wanted to just hand sew the Barbie doll clothes, but my mother pointed out that this would disqualify the project because the guidelines stated that seventy percent of the project needed to be completed on a sewing machine. The remaining thirty percent could be hand sewing on the details such as buttons, lace, ribbons and other embellishments.

After several attempts and failures I decided I just couldn't do it. I would have to go back to sewing an apron for my project after all. Then my mother pulled a rabbit out the hat by sewing the Barbie doll clothes for me. I was shocked and so happy! She said she did it for a birthday present for me. I was never so happy. Her work was so beautiful and detailed. After that day we went on to sew a whole wardrobe of Barbie doll clothes.