Drawers, pantalettes or bloomers. They are a necessity for dolls to have under their historical dresses. Back in November 2019, I set out to find a pattern that I really liked for the dolls. What a search.
I sewed up 2 patterns and wasn't happy with both of them. I kept 1 set of bloomers to use on the skinnier American Girl dolls. They do not fit the fatter dolls well as they are tight. (I am going to enlarge the pattern to 103%)
These are fairly historically correct which is nice but my question over the past 2 years has been "Do they need to be historically correct?" Yes, if you are selling historical clothing, no if they are for my dolls.
I set aside making bloomers for the dolls for all of 2020 and 2021. I wasn't consciously thinking about them though I was keeping my eye out for what others were making. Nothing came up on the radar until Jan. 2, 2022.
I looked at Oh Sew Kat's blog and there was a post about a hack for bloomers to wear under historical outfits. The pattern she uses is the Boardwalk Boutique which is modern. I carefully read the information and put it aside with a note in my book to look at it again in February, which I did. I was ready.
I knew I had some fine light weight linen for the bloomers and I found about 25-26" of eyelet lace in the lace trims bin. I had purchased the pattern on sale to make the bloomers plus the top and pants.
I spent a day having fun making these bloomers. I followed the hack, drew lines to help me out for cutting out the bloomers the correct length. I did serge all the seams which is not historical. When I tried them on the chunky doll, they fit her perfectly.
Even the back fits perfectly.
I did a couple of things when doing the bloomers.
* I cut the eyelet trim back so it was 1/2" from the top of the last eyelet. I didn't want excess fabric that had no eyelet on it.
* When I went to trim the excess eyelet after sewing it onto the bottom of each leg piece, I laid the pattern back on and cut according to the pattern lines.
I need to find more fabric and eyelet trim to make more bloomers.
Remember Oh Sew Kat's patterns come in 4 different sizes.
Happy Doll Sewing..............................................................................
