I've said it a few times, I love Instagram. It's where I find incredible and inspiring makers. Like Alexandra Yount of Ally Sews.
Alexandra, who goes by Ally, sews gorgeous vibrant doll clothes. She currently sews and sells a lot of American Girl dresses, but she only recently added the American Girl line.
How sweet are those little tote bags?
Ally opened her store two years ago and began by making and selling Waldorf doll clothes.
"I opened my store at the very end of 2014 when I was 16, I didn't have that much fabric, just a few different prints, I liked cutting up clearance clothing from stores and using them for fabrics. I had shopped on Etsy for a while and researched selling handmade on there, I wanted to try opening a shop because I didn't have a job yet, I struggled finding one because I left school earlier than most.
"I made 20 or so Waldorf doll outfits to start and sat down one day and listed them all, I was so excited. I waited 2 months for my first sale which was a long time for me, then I started making Barbie clothes and that's when it all went crazy.
"Two months with no sales and then 12 months with over 700.
Ally now sells both on Etsy and on her website.
"Earlier this year I started making American girl doll clothes and that was a whole new craziness because there's such a huge fandom around that doll. It's been so fun, sewing and designing is my life now.
"I started out sewing for Waldorf and Barbie dolls, but I've made clothes for American Girl, Skipper, Chelsea, Stacie, Lammily, Lalaloopsy, Gotz dolls and a few others. The smaller the doll, the more difficult it is but I think the difficulty is just how fiddly it gets when you're trying to maneuver something so tiny around the sewing machine!
"I read and follow a lot of children's/baby clothing blogs and I love the styles little girl's clothes are made in, its so hard to find patterns that are like that so I started trying to make the patterns that I loved in doll size. It took quite a few tries but it gets easier, it helps to have a model right next to you to measure and make adjustments with :)
My favorite things to sew are dresses! I love dresses. My least favorite is anything made out of knit fabric, I prefer working with non-stretchy materials....too bad, I love t-shirts, so I have to cope.
Three tips for sewing doll clothes. Can be for beginners. My top 3 tips would be:
1. Use pinking shears to clip curves, it saves time rather than snipping little triangles out by hand. I use them for trimming Peter Pan collar seams!
2. Buy a mini iron for ironing hard to reach places, especially for Barbie clothes. My normal sized iron is so much bigger than the things I make so it's hard to only iron part of it without squashing it.
3. Get a serger that has a narrow over locking stitch for finishing seam edges, it'll save so much time!
You can find Ally her doll clothes:
On Instagram
On Etsy
And at allysews.com
