The Katie Dress Pattern
October 7, 2010
My oldest niece turned 7 in August and decided that for her birthday she wanted an American Girl doll. I wanted to help celebrate her great new doll and thought clothes would be the perfect gift. What does a girl love more than clothes? Well, after looking around at the price of American Girl doll clothes, I decided to make my own.
An Internet search for patterns left me empty handed. Nearly everything I found was for knit or crochet and I don’t do either. So I bought my own AG knock-off doll, got out a tape measure and some paper and got to work. Before I knew it I was sewing dress after dress! I have a gazillion more ideas for clothes and I can’t wait to turn them into patterns to share!
So to honor my sweet niece, I named my first dress pattern after her. This is The Katie Dress!
As a kid, I hated that my doll clothes closed with velcro. After a few weeks they were always gunked up with cat hair, doll hair, fuzz, and whatever else found its way to the velcro. So I wanted to create clothes that had real world methods of closure. So, The Katie Dress has a zipper back!
And sweet rick rack details.
Or, if you prefer, piping!
These dresses are amazingly simple to construct. Each one took me about an hour and used leftover scraps of fabric! I hope you’ll enjoy making them as much as I do!
To print the pattern pieces correctly, set your margins to 0 and print. There is a 1″ by 1″ square on each piece to verify your pages printed at the correct size for an 18″ doll.
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October 7th, 2010 at 12:13 PM
This is just in time! My friend JUST asked me last week if I’d be willing to make her daughters sme AG clothes from Christmas. I told her I would get back to her if I found anything online. Now I can say yes. You’re fantastic! Thanks! DO you plan on posting anymore patterns??
October 7th, 2010 at 12:22 PM
I do, Katie! I’m going to email you about it to see if you’d be interested in helping me with them!
October 7th, 2010 at 7:20 PM
Please include me in your future A.G. Doll clothes making. My mother and I plan on making oodles of clothes and accessories for Christmas this year.
October 8th, 2010 at 12:02 AM
YES! YES! YES! Thank you so much for doing this and posting the pattern for us. I am also making AG doll clothes for my niece for Christmas but am having a hard time finding patterns online. I can’t wait to see what other things you will post!!!
October 8th, 2010 at 12:03 AM
I love this dress. I would love to see more, I would also like to see patterns for AG Bitty Baby. (They are hard to find too)
October 8th, 2010 at 7:42 AM
I love the idea of the zipper! Easy for little hands and no velcro. Your pattern is beautifully drawn and written, I’ll definitely be making some of these for Christmas. How exciting that you plan on sharing more! Thank you!!
October 8th, 2010 at 11:15 AM
This is one of the best explained tutorials for a doll dress I have seen! Thanks! Now I have to dig out my stash and start on one.
October 8th, 2010 at 11:30 AM
Yaaayyy, thanks so much. this tutorial is beyond awesome. Please feel free to email me if you need any more testers. thanks again.
October 8th, 2010 at 12:35 PM
I am super excited to try this pattern! Thanks so much for sharing, my little one has been begging for new doll clothes!
October 8th, 2010 at 12:42 PM
[...] The Katie Dress Pattern at Sew Like My Mom [...]
October 8th, 2010 at 10:23 PM
This is SOOOO CUTE!!!!! Thank you so much! My girls will love this.
October 9th, 2010 at 5:52 PM
Yay! So happy to find this. My daughter has an AG doll and I just got a sewing machine. Been looking for patterns too. Thanks for sharing!
October 24th, 2010 at 9:34 AM
It’s brilliant, thanks a lot! I agree that zip closures are much nicer, I also use them for dolls’ dresses instead of velcro.
December 19th, 2010 at 11:03 AM
I just made this one as a Christmas gift for my niece, It was such a great tutorial! I went to your Etsy shop to buy your other dress pattern as well.
Thanks!
December 23rd, 2010 at 8:15 PM
LOVE this!!! I’ve been looking for dress patterns online and couldn’t find many! This is beautiful and I would love to see more patterns like it!!
December 27th, 2010 at 11:43 PM
Hello,
Nice dress, People will so happy to get online shopping of these dresses. about doll are celebrate her great new doll and thought clothes would be the perfect gift. Thanks…..
January 16th, 2011 at 9:51 AM
I have to admire anyone who can just get their tape measure out and “wing it.” Bonus points for putting in a zipper too (I myself have a zipper phobia). These came out very cute. Sticky velcro can be a problem, especially around doll hair. That’s why Emily Rose @Home doll clothes all have a patented velcro that is designed to not stick to anything other than itself.
February 24th, 2011 at 9:48 PM
This is so cute! I’m definitely using this for my daughter’s dolls. So far I’ve only made p.j.s, but they sure are cute1
April 27th, 2011 at 1:12 AM
i am having a hard time printing to scale. mine printed a little smaller than 1″. You say to set your margins to 0, but how do you do that with a pdf?
June 3rd, 2011 at 2:51 PM
[...] August, my oldest niece decided she wanted an American Girl doll for her birthday. I made the Katie Dress for Katelyn, and gave her 2 dresses in different styles. She was in heaven. Her sisters anxiously [...]
June 27th, 2011 at 4:29 AM
[...] Puppenkleid [...]
July 10th, 2011 at 6:18 PM
I love this little dress! I wish I could make it in my daughter’s size, too!
October 16th, 2011 at 9:31 PM
Very cute! I wish I had a pattern for little girls as well! What a great present to make for my neice and her doll for Christmas!
November 14th, 2011 at 10:09 AM
Thank you for this! I will make this x2 for my 2 daughters for Christmas presents. I am thankful you are kind enough to share this…there are no free patterns out there for 18 inch dolls! Thank you and will you post more? Best Regards, Julie
November 14th, 2011 at 11:36 AM
I found another cute 18 inch doll dress – free pattern!
http://www.oliverands.com/blog/2010/08/popover-doll-dress-free-downloadable-pattern.html
December 13th, 2011 at 4:37 PM
I love the pattern. However the pattern is in blue ink. I only have a black and white printer and am not able to print the pattern out. Is there a way to change the ink color on the pattern to make it easier to print. Thank you
December 13th, 2011 at 9:54 PM
You can choose to print in black and white (or gray scale) in MS word under the Print menu. That should print the image for you. Let me know if it doesn’t and I’ll see what I can do!
January 3rd, 2012 at 7:28 PM
I tried to make this dress, and I am wondering if the seam allowance is included in the pattern? Or do I have to add that myself? Not sure what I did wrong, but the side seams are more to the front than the sides.
January 5th, 2012 at 3:10 PM
This is so adorable! I would LOVE to make a matching one for my little girls (2,4). Any chance you have made a big girl pattern??
January 16th, 2012 at 12:57 PM
The zipper is a great idea. I have a hard time finding velcro that is the same quality the AG store would use. What I find is always stiff and doesn’t look great on the finished product.
January 18th, 2012 at 12:09 PM
We have decided to do the same for Christmas 2012. Would love some additional AG doll patterns for the nieces. Thanks, love your blog!!!
February 17th, 2012 at 9:27 AM
What a cute simple dress. I like how you can change the looks just by piping it.