Short Sleeve Ruffled Bodysuit and Circle Skirt Patterns
to Fit American Girl 18 Inch and Similar Dolls

Ideas for Christmas
by Susan Kramer

18 inch American Girl doll Gwen with mascots Floppy and Fluffy

Clothes Patterns for 18 Inch Dolls and Bitty Baby

Contents:

1. Ruffled Bodysuit

2. Circle Skirt

3. Ebook Patterns

1. Ruffled Bodysuit:

Here are instructions for making a one piece bodysuit to fit 18inch (45cm) American Girl, Gotz Precious Day, and other 18 inch full body dolls with similar body types.

The bodysuit can be used as underwear to keep the doll's cloth skin clean as it covers the cloth parts of the doll.

Also it can be made up in print or flowered fabric as light weight summer wear outdoors.

Supplies needed:

You’ll need one quarter yard (one quarter meter) of material.

Two sticky dots for front shirt and back shirt closing, (no buttons for kids doll clothes, please).

Bodysuit Sewing Directions:

This is a very easy to make bodysuit pattern with just 1 piece. The pattern piece is below. Cut 4 pieces of the pattern. 2 for front and 2 for back.

Sew center front seams together beginning 2 inches below bottom tip of diagonal neckline.
Description: front opening of bodysuit

Sew center back seams together beginning 2 inches below bottom tip of diagonal neckline.
Description: back view of body suit
Place good side of front and back toward each other and sew underarms all the way to bottom hem on both sides.

Sew front to back at shoulders.

For all hems roll edges in 1/8 inch twice and blind seam: Lower legs, lower sleeves and all the way around front center up to neck, around neck, down to back center, up to neck around to front and back to starting place.

Lastly, sew front to back inseam.

To finish sew lace around neck opening, and sew a sticky dot on center of front and back opening.

Having openings in front and back makes the body suit easy to put on and take off.

Pattern Piece:

The pattern is traced onto 1 inch (2.5cm) squares of graph paper.

Pattern piece includes 1/4 inch seam allowance unless noted differently..

This pattern is my copyright but you may use it for personal use and gifts but not commercially.

Cap Sleeve Body Suit Pattern: (to make sleeveless version cut the sleeve length back an inch at shoulder in a straight line down to existing curve at underarm)

2. Circle Skirt Construction:

You’ll need 20 inches (50cm), or nearly 2/3 yard (meter) of material for the skirt.

To cut out circle skirt like on the skirt above, fold a 20 inch length of fabric cross wise - the cross wise fold is shown at top edge in the photo below.

circle skirt detail

From the center point along the folded edge, carefully drawn a line 10 inches out in a semicircle then cut out semicircle. (If you opened out the cut skirt you'd have a big circle 20 inches in diameter.)

But you need to cut-out a small semicircle to make the waist. The circumference of this waist cut-out should be 14 inches. Try first cutting out a circle 1.5 inches from the center of the fold, if this is not quite long enough to match the lower edge of the bodice make the cut-out a bit bigger.

circle skirt with waist cut out

When you open out the fabric it will look like a donut shape.

To form the back seam of the skirt cut down 2 inches on one of the folded edges from the waist edge and blind stitch raw edges.

Turn in waist seam ¼ inch and sew on stretch seam binding and then tack to inside.

Sew on 1 inch wide pre-ruffled lace ¼ inch from top of waist as in photo above. Sew on 2 layers of wider pre-ruffled lace near lower edge of skirt in a pattern similar to photo if you wish and attach a bow at top as I did.

To hem skirt, roll a narrow hem which means turning in one eighth seam twice as you move along the hem. Use a sticky dot for overlapping waist closure instead of hook and eye, or button (safer for kids).

Email: susan@susankramer.com

3. Ebook Doll Patterns by Susan Kramer:

Royal Smocked Dress Pattern for 18 Inch Dolls

18 page Ebook of full size pattern pieces and instructions

inspired by dresses of Princess Charlotte of the UK