My Barbie Dress Pattern

I made this dress in 2 different fabrics; a cheaper denim from a large fabric chain and an absolutely gorgeous Ella Chambray  linen/vicose blend from Lady McElroy range.   

Barbie Dress - Denim

Barbie Dress Linen/Viscose Blend

Fashion Flat

 Description of the Barbie Dress

• Semi-fitted bodice with Empire line
• Cross-over front neckline
• Armhole Princess Line in Bodice that follows through the skirt
• Sleeve  with ease extra in sleevehead and bicep; the sleeve is shortened a little, it does not reach the wrist
• 6 Panel flared skirt
• Pleat in CB bodice

Pattern Pieces to be drafted

There are at total of 9 pattern pieces that need to be drafted, shaded in green.

Block/s Used

I always use my Sleeveless Bodice Block, despite the fact that this dress has sleeves.  The ease added in the CB in the form of a pleat and the ease added to the Sleeve bicep compensates for the reduced ease in the Sleeveless Block.  I don't use a Skirt Block for the skirt.

Bodice Pattern Pieces

The four bodice pattern pieces* are shown superimposed on the Sleeveless Block.  These bodice pattern pieces are my Amaranth Bodice.

I require significant contouring when lowering necklines; I always have a big gape dart in the neckline and that was manipulated into the armhole Princess line.

My desired Empire Line measurement was 85cm, which allows for 5cm or 2 inches ease in the (Empire) waist.

Here are the Amaranth Bodice Pattern Pieces with seam allowance.

Sleeve Pattern Pieces

The Simone sleeve has added fullness added evenly throughout the length of the sleeve; basically the block shape is cut and spread as shown.  The sleeve is also shortened and the elbow dart removed.

Here is the final Simone Sleeve pattern with seam allowance.

Skirt Pattern Pieces

 The skirt is a 6 panel skirt.  The waist measurements of the panels are the same as the Bodice pieces (remembering to exclude the CB pleat on the bodice).  The skirt is then drafted by working out the width I want at the hip (which is 140% of the hip measurement), then drawing the side seam lines to go from the waist measurement to that hip measurement, then continue to the length of skirt that I want. (In this case 59cm | 23.23 inches from the Empire Line).

Final Barbie Dress Pattern Pieces with seam allowance

Here are all the final pattern pieces which I create to layout on the fabric. 

I always cut on one layer (not on fold) so I create full pattern pieces and all pattern pieces in vilene to layout on the fabric.

Meterage

Of course I need to work out how much fabric I need to make the dress.  In the example below I am showing you the amount of fabric that I needed for my denim version of the Barbie dress (not the Lady McElroy linen viscose blend).

The denim fabric was 150cm wide (59 inches) and 1.9 metres in length (2.08 yards).

Because I don't like wrangling long lengths of fabric on my cutting table, I tend to lay it out in sections (as shown by the shaded colors), so that I can work with smaller pieces of fabric.  In this case I cut out 3 pieces of fabric: 69cm, 69cm and 52cm. (27.17 inches, 27.17 inches, 20.47 inches).

While there may be some fabric wastage I find that it saves me a lot of backache and headache.  I a;sp save some fabric by cutting on one layer.

Cost/Price

This is the meterage that I needed for my figure/size and for the fabric that I used.  The cost/prices I am giving is rough estimate of the fabric, not including thread, interfacing or any other notions. Remembering that I am Australian, and prices here are signifanctly higher than places like the USA or the UK.

Denim fabric was about $12 a metre on sale, so the fabric for this dress cost me approx Aust $24.00. 

The Lady McElroy fabric was significantly more expensive at approx Aust $75 in total  (2.5 metres x 135cm wide).

Both dresses were finished off with bias strips; with the Barbie dress I didn't have enough denim for bias so it actually used  the Lady McElroy fabric bias on the hem, sleeves and back neckline.