The Accidental Kimono

When leaving my friend's house, I happened to pass a box of hand-me-down toys for when her baby girl gets older. I noticed a naked babydoll and said, "Oh, I can make a dress for her."

Poor naked baby. 

I started with this fabric leftover from an old dress. I accidentally stained the dress with a pen, so I cut off the bottom of the dress to make it into a tunic instead. I always save fabric like that for times like these.

The cute remaining fabric. 

I started with the skirt, which I don't have a picture of, but it was pretty basic.

Here's the first idea for the top:

But that was WAY too difficult. 

I couldn't figure out how I was going to get it over her head after I sewed the other side to it. I also didn't like to think about adding itty bitty sleeves, and the doll definitely needed sleeves. It had half-cloth/half-plastic arms.

So I went with the same concept that I used when making Rufio clothes: baseball cut:

Sleeves.

New top. 

My sewing machine has been doing this lame thing called creating really ugly stitches. I need to troubleshoot that, but I don't like to troubleshoot in the middle of a project, so I just hand-sewed some eyelet trim to the neckline to cover the ugly stitches.

The back of the shirt attaches with bows, and the skirt just slides on and off.

When I put it all together, I stepped back and said, "Hm. I guess I made a kimono."

So I put a bow on the front. 

There you have it. My first doll dress - an accidental kimono for a baby girl who will grow up in Africa.