by Laura Fleming

Created on: July 27, 2010

Whether you have limited or advanced sewing skills making a cute Raggedy Ann costume for a little girl can be adventurous and fun. Short of going to the fabric store, purchasing a pattern, cutting everything out and sewing it, the following will help you accomplish your mission with very little sewing skills and using some basic items you may already have at home.

A Raggedy Ann costume consists of blue printed long sleeved dress, bloomers, apron, black shoes and red hair.

Blue Long Sleeved Dress

Take a long sleeve cotton dress, preferably a little larger than you need and one you can modify to create the look needed. If it has a formal cuff on the end, remove where it is joined to the sleeve. If you do have to modify the sleeve hem the bottom edge to give it a finished look. Take ¼” elastic and wrap it around your child’s wrist so that it’s comfortable, and cut two pieces. Turn the shirt inside out and with a white fabric pencil measure and mark 2” from the bottom of the finished sleeve edge all the way around. Take one of your elastic pieces and fold it in half and place a pencil mark at the halfway point.

Place the cut piece of elastic at the sleeve seam at your 2” mark and attach it with a zig zag stitch that is the same width as the elastic to secure in place. Before continuing pull the elastic toward you and evenly stitch from the beginning to the half way point of your sleeve, matching the center of your elastic to that point. Then continue to the beginning stretching the other half of the elastic to fit the remaining sleeve section and secure your end by back tacking.  Repeat the process with the other sleeve. If the dress is long, trim some of the excess fabric off the bottom so it sits just below your child’s knee will help create the appropriate length, hem accordingly.

Bloomers

Take a pair of white loose fitting cotton or Capri pants, depending on the length of the pants you may need to trim some off the bottom and hem them.

Prepare the bottom of each leg like you did for the dress sleeves except for the elastic. For the bloomers, you will want to measure and mark 3” from the leg bottom.

Apron

Measure the waste of your child; times it by 2, this will be your width. Then measure from the child's underarm to where it would be appropriate to end the apron for the child’s height. Add 2” to that height. 

Purchase a piece of white material enough to cut your width and length plus 1/4

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