Silkspike Dolls Wrap Dress

Buying shirts at charity shops is a great way to find interesting cloth that isn't available at our local fabric shops. I found this rather uh... ugly shirt for £1. Nice! The print on the fabric (and how I envisioned it scaled down) made me think of trying to make my doll a Diane Von Furstenberg style wrap dress (very popular and revolutionary dress design in the 1970's).

I looked online and all I could find was a wrap dress pattern for Ellowyne - and it was over in the USA. Nope - I wanted it NOW! So I looked at lots of pictures of wrap dresses and got a pretty good idea in my head of the construction. I ended up getting a good dress out of my first try at making the pattern - and face it... hacking up this shirt wasn't breaking my heart

All in all, it's a really workable pattern already, and I can make it longer, shorter, omit the collar and do countless things with the sleeves. I'm a happy camper, and so is 'Winter Whisper' Sydney since she conned me into making her a matching necklace to go with the dress. She's not the least bit shy about showing you how she works her new wrap dress.

The Wrap Dress

The matching necklace was strung with jeweler's thread. I like the way thread makes the necklace hang rather than using wire or plastic thread (the type that looks like fishing line). Sometimes I choose to use stretch thread. These necklaces will go over the dolls head, and are especially good for children's dolls, as long as you put a really good knot in them. ;)

The necklace in the picture to the left was made with a magnetic clasp. I like these, but they are heavy and you have to counterweight with heavy beads on the front of the necklace or it tends to pull the whole necklace backwards, 'choking' the doll. The magnetic clasp is less fiddly than a hook, and there is no worry that your doll will lose her necklace while she's walking down the street. :)