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Grecian-Style

Dress

You may find a source for this fabric, but I found these blouses at a charity shop.  It was really easy to cut them up because they are rather out of fashion. The collar decorations were tacky-looking glued blobs, and the apricot one had shoulder pads. These blouses are cheap and plentiful in British chairty shops and I've often wondered what it would be like to work with this fabric since the tiny pleats seemed the appropriate scale.

The reason the colours may be a bit different from one photo to the next is because I shot them during different times of the day or evening, and under different lighting conditions.

Deconstruct your blouse. This dress takes the entire front or back of the the blouse. I cut one large rectangle and two long, skinny rectangles from the ecru blouse to make the body of the dress. I cut a vertical strip from the apricot blouse for the contrasting waistband and shoulder accents.

You may decide to make your dress differently, so I've included the steps I took to decide how I was going to make my dress. These instructions can be used for any fabric, although the accordion pleats lend themselves perfectly to this style.

If you don't have a doll body or a doll who is bald or has short hair, you'll have to get those luscious locks out of the way. I find a hairnet and several hairpins work fine. This doesn't do any damage to curls or her existing style.

Next I slide a tube up the doll's body so I'll have a pinning surface. I have used a tubular stretch bandage (which is a bit thick) or you can try a small, thin sock or even a section cut out of the leg of a pair of tights.

Put the doll in a pair of shoes because this helps her stand, and it helps you decide the length.

Next I strap the doll to a saddle stand by the knees and the ankles. This keeps her from sliding around or buckling at the knees as you drape fabric on her. You can use all the pins you'd like as long as you are careful not to impale your doll. ;o)

I tucked the long strips that go over her breasts and over her shoulders into the bandage, then pinned the skirt at a height that gave me the length of hem I desired.

I played around with the back - wishing I'd made the bodice strips much longer. I tried a few different things with the shoulders and tried out a several variations of the waistband, and finally decided on the apricot waistband for a dash of colour..

The solid colour would look very elegant, especially on a high-fashion resin doll. I liked the flash of gold, but it looked fussy and I didn't want it to interfere with the necklace I had planned. I like the possibilities of the idea in the far right photo as well.

You can make this dress for any doll - See dress on other dolls here:

CLICK