Here’s a great project from a reader named Susan. She wanted to sew a sushi pillow as a gift for her grandson, and happened across my spirals page while looking for ideas. I had no idea “sushi pillow” was a thing, but when I googled for it, it looks like many people have made one….
Dramatic black, white and red music-themed fabric chosen by a musician. I only have a couple photos while it was in progress. Hopefully one day I’ll have a photo of it being worn! This was made from the patterns on the spirals page.
Here’s a full length spiral dress for a grown-up woman! …with wolves on it. Long ago, I found a spiral dress at a second hand shop. It was too small for me, but I was so fascinated with those seams going round and round that I bought it anyway. Eventually I decided it was silly…
To my delight, I was gifted a Paradise Kids 18″ doll that needed some clothing. I got right to work making her something. Here we are with a basic peasant dress, but this is only the beginning. I have something else in mind, something VERY cool, you’ll see! It might be ten years from now…
Yarn is a very good thing for PTSD symptoms 🙂 Here’s my latest scrapghan project. No, that’s the old one! I started that long ago, at the other place, and had worked on it in little bits for so many years that it had acquired a feeling of should. “I’ve worked on it for so…
I found lots of ideas that were cool and artistic, but they seem to be more complex, more work and less “granny”. The beauty of the granny square is its utter simplicity. I wanted that same classic shape, only in four colors. Only the first round needs to be modified, to attach and spin the…
Ruffles! A huge, swirly overload of fluttering spiral. How to do this? We need volume of fabric. As usual, I started moderate before going more extreme. The first attempt with a 4″ curved gore produced a conservative A-line skirt shape. Simple. Just add more stripes. The delightful “Peppermint Swirl” gave me the idea of gathering…
Free pattern for a basic strapless dress that can be made any length. Note this is for the LARGE 28-inch Barbie doll, not the regular size 11.5″ ones. Those patterns are elsewhere. Download and print the PDF pattern here — FREE for personal use Lay out the pages like this. Butt the edges of the…
Summary of all the different Barbie body types up to 2008 (when I made this page). It was after that when they came out with the Fashionistas tall, petite, curvy etc. Classic / Vintage / Original / Traditional shape – 1966 Has a barrel chest, tiny waist and 1966 stamped on her back. It’s really…
Easy and quick homemade scrapwork potholders make great DIY gifts! You don’t need a pattern and they’re FREE to make out of fabric scraps. Most of the instructions I found for quilted potholders use bias binding, like commercial potholders. But it’s so hard to sew bias binding on straight. Why not cut the backing larger…
Free printable peasant dress pattern for adult females. (The word for grown up girls is “women”. I dislike equating “women = fat” and “misses = thin”. Unmarried women come in all sizes, and neither maturity nor marital status doom one to be overweight. There’s a big fat opinion.) Simple pattern in PDF format for 8.5…
When I first searched for instructions there were many, of course, but none of them worked out for me. Finally I found this one little image that was detailed enough to see what was going on, so I followed it. I don’t know whose photo this was (found it in an internet collection) but THANKS…
Cool round doily style cotton dishrag or mat, written out to be ultra simple for non-knitters like me I saw someone making one of these and got stars in my eyes. She was kind enough to write down the instructions from memory. They may have been good instructions, but they didn’t work for me. Neither…
I made a bunch of outfits all at once when I needed them for gifts, and here I’m going to share the patterns. These are for the 16″ Tyler Wentworth along with Brenda Starr and many other Tonner dolls. The white tops are the strapless bodice with lace added. Here’s the basic bodice sloper and…
All patterns are Adobe pdf for free download and printing. They print out onto sheets of 8.5 x 11 printer paper which you tape together then cut out. Be sure they print out at 100% size not “scale to fit” the paper. The skirts can be made any size you need by using whatever number…
Free printable sewing pattern for a cute halter top dress. Instructions: Fold over sides of both top pieces and topstitchLay one top piece over the other to the place where the arrow points, pin them together then gather the lower edges of both Pull gathering threads until the top pieces fit between the two arrows…
Free Printable Pattern. Someone requested an off-the-shoulder dress. I only glanced at the email and suddenly had a great idea how to do that, and in a flash of creativity, produced this. No, no, she had said “off the shoulder”. Oops. Well, I guess it was time for me to make Barbie a one shoulder…
Here’s a free pattern in pdf format to print. This one can be a bodice to add a skirt to, or lengthen the lines to make a flattering princess seams dress. I appreciate a pattern that doesn’t involve shoulder seams. Every fiddly step eliminated makes it that much easier. It has a simple, modest neckline…
Printable sewing pattern to download in pdf form. There’s one for the old 1966 vintage Mattel shape, one for 1999 Bellybutton shape (which I think is most common nowadays), one for skinny Barbie Basics and one for the 2006 shorter body which is only 11″ tall. Barbie strapless bodice pattern for 1966 / original Barbie…