Papercrafts and other fun things: A STEM Project: Making an Embroidered Poodle Skirt for an 18 Inch Doll Like an American Girl Doll

An Embroidered Poodle Skirt for an American Girl Doll with directions to make a bow headband at the end of the post.

In a previous blog posting, https://papercraftetc.blogspot.com/2021/05/a-stem-project-converting-png-or-jpeg.html I showed how to make an embroidered poodle from a PNG or JPEG file and digitize it to an embroidery file that your embroidery machine would recognize.

In this posting, I will show how to use this design to make a poodle skirt for an 18 inch doll like an American Girl doll.

How I Designed the Skirt Pattern

I designed the skirt pattern using the Silhouette software. I created a circle within a circle using the arc tool in Flexishapes. I cut the design in half. The result is a semicircle. This semicircular design when sewn, will create a skirt which is very full with a nice flare. I had to cut the semicircle into quarters so that the pattern would fit on an 8 1/2 in x 11 in piece of paper as you can see in the photo above. This is the reason that the pattern needs to be taped together to make the skirt pattern. This taped skirt pattern is then placed on a fold of felt and cut, to create the semicircular skirt.

Materials Needed to make the poodle skirt

Skirt pattern from PDF below

1/4 yard of felt with a poodle embroidered on it (alternatively you can purchase an iron on poodle patch at Joanns)

14 inches of 3/8 inch wide ribbon for the waist band

Sew-on snap

How to Make the Poodle Skirt

Here is the PDF of the skirt pattern with directions on how to cut the pattern.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WBoPTGStSei3tejLBwQXUNOeE6y9-ZhF/view?usp=sharing

1. Print the PDF two times.
2. Cut out both pattern pieces.
3. Tape the pattern pieces together by butting the adjoining edges.
4. Fold the felt fabric in half and place the pattern on the fold.
5. Cut the felt fabric using the pattern as the template.

Once the semicircular felt skirt is cut, place the embroidery hoop in the area where you want the poodle to be embroidered. I used double sided tape to prevent slipping between the felt and the tear away stabilizer as the size of my 5x7inch hoop was a little too big. I would suggest using a smaller 4x4 inch hoop which I did not have.

Embroider the poodle design. I embroidered my poodle on a Brother PE800 machine.

A close up view of my poodle design. Here is the PES file if you would like to download my design for your embroidery machine if it accepts PES files. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uggOUdNi9huim7TmHmn8Nbz6XC7h6p6z/view?usp=sharing

Cut a 14 inch length of 3/8 in ribbon. Pin the ribbon to the topside of the skirt by folding the edge of the ribbon to the backside of the felt by 3/8 inch. (Backside of skirt shown)

Continue pinning the ribbon on the top edge of the skirt until you get to the other edge and pin the remaining ribbon under the felt. Sew two seams on the ribbon, one seam at the very top and other seam at the very bottom of the ribbon.

Completed top edge of skirt

Fold the skirt in half with right sides together. Sew a 4 1/2 inch seam, with a 3/8 inch seam allowance, starting at the bottom of the skirt.

This seam will be open at the top of the skirt. I hand sewed the top of the skirt so that the pink ribbon would lie flat because this is the area where the sew-on snaps will be placed.

Sew-on Snaps that I used.

Make sure that the snap side is correctly oriented before sewing the snap onto the skirt. There are four holes on each snap. I sewed each area three times before moving to the the next hole. Repeat for the opposite snap. Again, make sure the snap side is correctly oriented. Test the snap before sewing.

Tape on the sequin ribbon t determine where you would like it placed on the skirt. The sequin ribbon can be glued or sewn on. I chose to sew it on.

Tie a knot in the sequin ribbon to prevent fraying.

I added a pink pompom to the tail and a pink yarn bow to complete the poodle skirt.

I think Samantha looks very pretty in her pink poodle skirt. She is wearing Minnie Mouse ears that I designed.

I love the Silhouette software as it is very versatile. Since I explained how I designed the Poodle skirt for an American Girl doll, try to make one for another size doll like a Barbie doll.

Here are two more versions of the poodle skirt made with embroidery patches from Joanns.