Babs Gets Casual & Then Fancy

To add to the collection of clothes we started last year, I made a few more outfits for my niece's birthday this year.

I patterned some of the outfits after the clothes I played with as a kid. Some turned out great and a few failed. I didn't finish one because I kept getting frustrated about this:

What does this represent? Notice the empty needle. Dozens and dozens of times I didn't leave a long enough tail on my top thread and it would pull out of the needle. I'd have to thread and re-thread and well, really, other than unpicking, that is my least favorite part about sewing. On to the clothes...

This was supposed to be a cute t-shirt to go with the skirt below. I failed on that, but managed to make a cute casual skirt instead. The fabric comes from the sleeve of an old t-shirt (part of a skirt project for me I've yet to post). I decided it needed a little more flair, so I added the design with some black fabric paint.

My absolute favorite cargo pants bit the dust. Well, truthfully I got too fat for them. I had them for a decade and not caring whether they were in style or not I hung on to them hoping I'd fit in them once more. Nope. I decided to make my son some pants out of them, but made a huge cutting error and left that an impossibility. So, why not Barbie clothes? I think of this as a sort of rugged kind of hippie type of skirt. Something that should be work in a field of flowers or something. I liked the rough edge, but wanted to make it look at little cuter, so I added the zig zag stitching in a contrasting thread color. And the pocket is useless because it is glued on, but still cute.

Here's where the doll can get fancy. This fabric was just from my scraps stash. I once again made a cutting error (just eyeballing is not always a good idea), and that is where the red piece came in. I think it was a good mistake to make.

And in case she gets cold, Barbie can throw this red shawl on that brings out the red, but keeps the polka dots along the trim. The unfinished outfit also will go well with the shawl when it gets done...someday when I can keep the thread in the stinkin' machine!