I made a little jumper so Glendora the Cabbage Patch Girl can match Z at her birthday party. Glendora is hard to get away secretly for a fitting, but I managed to be sneaky when Arena the teddy bear was sleeping with Z instead of Glendora. You will have to wait until after the party to see pictures of the models actually wearing their new attire though.
I thought I would document how I put the waistbands together in case I ever decide to make a flat front, elasticized waistband again. I've seen tutorials for flat front pants, but I haven't looked enough to find a tutorial for a gathered skirt...so here's what I did. These pictures are from the doll's jumper (on the big girl jumper, I did a better finish than just pinking the edges).
I took the waist measurement...lets call it "w". The front piece is w/2, the back piece is w/2+5". Make sure to make the pieces tall enough to allow for your cassing relative to your elastic width, and still allow about 1/2" below to attach your skirt. Sew your cassing in place on both pieces (on the short piece this is mostly for looks). The top stitching along the fold is optional, but I like the way it looks and I think it might keep the elastic from twisting as much.
Insert your elastic in the long back piece and gather the material so that the front and back are now the same length. Pin elastic in place and trim excess elastic if you haven't already.
With right sides together, sew front to back along sides. (Gives a new meaning to nice threads, huh?)
Now you are ready for the rest of your skirt!
I can't wait to show you my soon to be 4 year old and her baby doll in their new duds, but it will have to wait a couple weeks.
