Do You Color Outside the Lines?

 Here is the first nightie I made for the little girls "Bitty Baby" Christmas gift. I HATE it!! First off I'm not crazy about the fabric choice but Karsyn was set on this leftover fabric from my stash. Second the pattern calls for the opening to be in the front. Not only does this seem dumb to me but its ugly! The more I tried to dress it up and cover up the ugliness with decorative stitching the worse it got :(

 The other ugly to me instruction was to use pre packaged double fold bias tape. Not here to knock ladies who like packaged bias tape as it does have it's place sometimes but .....I think it can make some things look hoky poky if you know what I mean. Sew that's another change I made to the pattern.  It doesn't take any time at all to make your own bias tape from fabric scraps. The pattern also wanted you to use ribbon ties for the closure :( Anybody who has had more than one DD at a time can tell you Mommy is the one who gets stuck helping dress baby dolls with tie closures. That defeats the goal of having the kiddo's play so mommy can get the real house work, cooking, laundry, and everything else done. I made Sew many changes to this pattern

 Once I figured what all needed to be improved I tried again. Now I am happy. The front looks pretty, nice, and neat.

 I made my own bias tape to match the gowns, the closure is now in the back using Velcro, much easier for little hands to do their own changing of clothes. I did buy some pre-gathered lace as I had none in my stash

I found a pattern for a bib and a few other baby doll items but the cost was a crazy $18.00!! Besides the fact the other items were ugly.  Sew.. I made a pattern on my own. Hard to see from this photo but I dug into my scrapbooking stash to come up with a cute lace flower then added a pink button on top.

I have been sewing like a mad lady for the past two days making doll clothes for the grands. That is after I figured out how to make all the changes to the pattern. This seems to be what I do to sew many patterns. I think I can't color between the LINES!

Why is it that some companies make patterns so darn hard to follow and the results are so darn crappy? I have found the newer designers are much better with pattern design and instructions but I really wanted the more old fashion traditionalclothes for our new Christmas doll babies.

I Hate, Hate, Hate that companies, people, mommies think it's OK to dress their DD and baby dolls in all this hip, stylish, trashy stuff. Little girls and babies should look like little girls and babies. Take it from a Mother of three DD's the time will come soon enough that you will be fighting your DD's to not wear that trashy stuff on the racks!!!!

The first of our "Bitty Baby" dolls arrived yesterday along with her accessory kit and a crib for Nanny's house. I had forgotten I bought the crib, oops. I have to say the American doll companies quality is still TOP notch after all these years! Of course they have a price tag that matches that quality, ouch. I was telling a friend (love you Jackie) that even the boxes everything came in was over the top nice. I felt like a kid at Christmas who only want to play with the box the gift came in, it was so nice Ha

I can't say we won't ever purchase any outfits for the baby dolls but the majority will have to be hand made by this Nanny! Off now to shower and give the kitchen (factory) another once over to make sure I have all the scissors, needles, and pins safely put away as I have Kara for the next 4 days, she is a rascal for sure, into everything.

Do any of you get aggravated with patterns? Do you end up remaking just about everything you do with them or just give up and think you can't sew?