Everyone loves a new, fancy dress to celebrate the Winter Holidays, including your favorite dolls. This dress was easy to make with some left over fabric from another Christmas project and some scraps of pretty trims. This dress is especially nice for Holiday parties because it is a "floor length" gown. This pattern is free for your personal use but you may not use it commercially.

Materials Needed
1/3 yard Christmas print cotton fabric (or Holiday print of your choice)
1/2 yard solid cotton fabric to coordinate with print fabric (I used pink)
1/2 yard pre-gathered lace for collar
1/2 yard flat, fancy lace trim for waistband
matching thread
1 hook and eye, snap or hook and loop dot to close back of dress
2 six inc pieces of 1/4 inch wide elastic
For the dress pattern look here. For the skirt you will need to cut the solid color fabric 12 inches long and 36 inches wide.

Start by sewing the bodice back to front at the shoulders, right sides together. Press the seams open.

Pin and stitch the pre-gathered lace to the neck edge of the dress, lining up the straight edge of the lace with the raw edge of the fabric, and the finished edge of the lace pointing down. To see a picture of how it should look at this stage look here.

Turn under hem edge of sleeves 1/8 inch, twice and sew the hems in place. You may either use the elastic to gather the sleeves, 1 inch up from the hem; or pleat the sleeves to gather them.

Using a long basting stitch, gather the top of both sleeves and pin the sleeves to the bodice, right sides facing, easing to fit. Stitch the shoulder seams. Stitch bodice side seams and sleeve seams. Leave the back of the bodice open.

Baste the waist of the skirt and gather it. Pin the skirt to the bodice at the waist, right sides facing, easing the skirt to fit the bodice around the waist. Stitch the skirt to the bodice.

Stitch the flat lace in place all the way around the dress, at the waist seam as in the picture at right.
Pin the center back seam with he waist seams matching. Start stitching the center back seam 1 inch above the waist and stitch down to the bottom.

At the top end of the center back seam turn under the seam allowance on both sides 1/4 inch, twice, and tack it down. Attach the snap at neck edge. Hem the dress by turning under the bottom edge 1/4 inch, twice, and stitch in place.

Making and Dressing Cloth Dolls
Ebook with patterns and instructions to make 5 cloth dolls as well as chapters on general doll making techniques.The book includes 21 inch Lalena Doll, 21 inch David Doll, Bear Dolls, 9 inch Destiny Doll and 15 inch Annie Doll, all together in one handy book. 53 pages.Making and Dressing Cloth Dolls.