Our tops and dresses close at the back with hook-and-loop tape (often sold as Velcro®). Pants, shorts, capris and the gathered skirt have an elastic waist, and overalls have elastic across the back of the waist. Hook-and-loop tape, elastic, snaps and hooks are bought separately: none of them come with the fabric panel. Craft and fabric stores sell them all.
Everything here works for small dolls and 18-inch dolls alike, sewn by hand or on a machine.
1What to buy
Narrow sew-on hook-and-loop tape. Skip the sticky-back kind: the glue gums up the needle. For waists, narrow elastic: about 1/4 inch wide on an 18-inch doll, 1/8 inch on smaller dolls. It has to fit comfortably inside the casing, with room to slide through without bunching. On the very smallest dolls even 1/8 inch can be too wide: use the narrowest elastic you can find that suits the pattern. The PDF pattern names a width for your doll.
2Hook-and-loop tape on a back opening
Hem the back edges first. Cut two strips as long as the opening. Sew the soft side to the inside of the edge that goes on top, and the scratchy side to the outside of the edge underneath, so they meet when the edges overlap. Stitch each strip down with small, secure stitches around its edge, by hand or with a short straight stitch on a machine. On a small garment you don’t need a continuous backstitch on all four sides: small stitches hold the tape firmly with less bulk.
If you can only find wide tape, you can cut it in half lengthwise for a small doll, but some kinds fray or shed along the cut edge. Narrow tape is the better choice.
3Snaps or hooks instead
Tiny sew-on snaps, or small hooks and eyes, can close a back opening instead of the tape. Put them where your pattern’s steps put the closure: one near the top of the opening, and more along the overlap only where the opening is meant to close.
4Sew the waist casing
These steps are for a fold-over waist, like the pants, shorts and capris. The gathered skirt’s separate waistband and the overalls’ back-only elastic have their own steps on their pattern pages.
Turn the cut edge at the waist under on the top dotted line. Then fold the casing to the inside on the second dotted line and stitch near the inner folded edge, all the way round. Leave a gap at the back just big enough for the elastic and the safety pin or threading tool you’ll push it through with.
5Measure and cut the elastic
The fabric panel doesn’t print an elastic length (the PDF pattern lists one to buy, as an estimate). Measure around the doll’s waist with a tape measure, or use the waist measurement for your doll on our size chart. That is a starting point, not the length you end up with: a finished elastic waist is usually a little shorter than the doll’s waist, so it holds the skirt or pants up.
How long it ends up depends on how stretchy your elastic is and how snug you want the waist. Cut the elastic a little longer than the waist so you have room to adjust and to overlap the ends for stitching: about 1/2 inch extra on an 18-inch doll, a little less on small dolls. Don’t join the ends yet. You fit it on the doll first, and the finished waist should be snug without being too tight.
6Thread the elastic
Fasten a small safety pin to one end of the elastic and push it through the casing, holding the other end so it doesn’t disappear inside. Keep the elastic flat as it goes, so it doesn’t twist inside the casing.
7Fit it and close it
Try the pants on the doll and pull the elastic until the waist is snug but not tight. Before you join or trim the elastic, check that the waist stretches enough to pull the garment over the doll’s hips and bottom, then comes back to a snug fit at the waist. Take the garment off the doll before you sew.
Run your fingers around the casing to check the elastic lies flat with no twist, and spread the fabric so the gathers are even all the way round. Overlap the ends, stitch them together firmly and trim. Let the joined part slide inside the casing, then close the gap along the casing’s stitching line, without catching the elastic.