Because I'm an Over-Achiever

I can't remember when my daughter started asking for a school uniform for her Journey Girl but I always intend to make one.  This is my daughter's school dress:

My previously mention problems with patterns for the dolls meant I'd been putting this off. I had a blue check cotton in my stash which I'd intended to use even though it wasn't really similar, but then I was op-shopping and found a cotton that was almost exactly the right check pattern!!

Left is fabric from my stash I'd planned to use, right is my excellent op-shop find!

After watching the How to Make Dolls Clothes Class on Craftsy, I decided to attack the school dress project, with the help if this book that I bought ages ago:

In the Craftsy class, Joan teaches you how to make a sloper for your doll.  With this as a base, I used the A-line dress pattern included in the book, merging sizes to get the best fit. To work out the pleats and yoke etc, I traced off a copy if the front and back and then worked on measurements based on  the same ratio as the real uniform.  I just worked rough ratios such as 1/3 full length measurement etc.  I drafted mock cuffs on the sleeves, and a collar.  A quick google search showed me how to make the front placket (I used the 2 piece placket instructions). The sleeve pattern ended up a little smaller than the armscye, so I just made it a bit bigger and gathered rather trying to make it fit perfectly.

This is the basic A-line dress front piece with markings for front placket size and front pleat location and size

To make the black trim on the collar, I cut bias binding in half and top stitched it along the folded edge, with the raw edge against the raw edge of the white. This was then enclosed when I attached the collar facing and bagged out.  For the cuffs I attached it the same, but then folded over and top stitched to the sleeve.

Black trim attached to the (ill-fitting) collar piece

After that effort, my collar piece didn't fit the dress!! So I grabbed the collar from the lab coat I was making at the same time (blog post coming here!), and it seemed to fit better, so I cut new collar and off we went again.

I decided on snaps with decorative buttons, rather than buttons and buttonholes, basically because I got lazy.  I also made her "school knickers" to match the ones I made my daughter.

Unfortunately once I'd got it together, I hadn't made the front opening quite big enough and it's very snug getting on and off, but my daughter got it off without help so it can't be too bad.

This is one of these projects where I even impressed myself with how awesome it came out. Of course when she took her doll to school the next day, I noticed the error I had made by not cutting the front placket and back belt on the bias. Oh well, "next time"....

I guess now I have to knit her a school cardigan in the right colour.  Here, she's wearing a cardigan my Nanna knitted for my Cabbage Patch Kid in my school uniform colour (over 30 years ago).