Heirloom Dressmaking Series

Just like last year, my patrons requested yet another instalment of an heirloom doll dress. This time, instead of making it to fit one of my Mannikin dolls, we made it for Miss Teacup, a doll I teach via my in-person workshops.

If I loved the previous dress, I can honestly say I love this one even more. I got to try a couple of techniques I haven’t used before and being that much smaller took the pressure off of completing this dress fast. I could take my time doing things by hand outside, as I spent most of the summer back in Canada.

For this incarnation, just like last time, I used handkerchief-weight linen. Except on this occasion, I went for a damaged little tablecloth, that I repurposed for the dress.

If you haven’t used old and well-used linen for your doll clothes, you’re bound to have a pleasant surprise. The linen is aged, it has acquired the most lovely “hand” and it is very strong.

The way to work with it without losing hope and driving yourself insane, is to use spray starch to achieve some manner of stiffness and be able to trace things, cut on grain, etc. Highly recommend both repurposing old linen and using spray starch as you work with it.

An Ostheimer lamb on my oak sewing room table in my Portuguese doll studio. Surrounded by hand made melton wool acorns and my copy of The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady. A fitting book for this dress.

Now, choosing laces and placement was in all honesty the hardest part. For such a tiny dress, you have to be very discerning of which laces go where, due to their stiffness, width and purpose. But once we got over that hump, the actual execution of the dress was a veritable breeze.

We did many things by hand, like felling seams, pulling threads on the linen to cut it straight and also to mark the apex of the pin tucks; we gathered edging lace by hand to entredeux and sewed it to the bottom of the sleeves.

So many cute and thoughtful details, that add so much charm and interest to the doll dress, at least in my opinion.

Heirloom doll dress with insertion lace, entredeux and gathered lace at cuffs. By Fig and Me.

A wooden donkey observing my hand work: a linen doll dress made with heirloom sewing techniques. By Fig and Me.

So now our dressmaking series is over and you can watch the whole thing on Patreon. You have to be a member of the Dressmaking tier to have access to those tutorials.

The PDFs of the bodice and sleeve are available via separate purchase (they were included with the tutorial the month it was published).

So please, go forth and enjoy sewing tiny things for your little dolls.

Heirloom doll dress in linen and lace, by Fig and Me.

Heirloom Linen Doll Dress by Fig and me.