Trudi the sailor girl

My elder daughter recently sorted through her wardrobe when moving flat and gave me some of her old shirts she no longer wanted. Most of them went to Oxfam but I kept two of them because the fabric inspired me to sew a new outfit for Trudi, my Sasha studio doll. This conveniently coincided with Janet selling some Studio doll sized vintage patterns and one of them was for a sailor outfit, though with bloomers rather than a skirt.

I realised Trudi would need shoes to go with her outfit. So far she had her original summer farm girl boots and a pair of brown sandals made by Lisa. A search online resulted in me finding a shoemaker based in Ukraine who made serie Sasha sized shoes in some lovely styles in real leather, she also makes other sizes so after corresponding with her we decided the shoes she makes for Ardyn/Masha Meadow dolls would fit Trudi, with a little bit of space at the toes, so room for her socks. I bought two different styles, one pair of white shoes and one pair of royal blue shoes, plus a pair of red shoes for our serie Sasha dolls.

I made a few adjustments to the pattern as I soon realised that the pop over sailor top would have to go over Trudi's head and I didn't want to struggle with getting it over her head. So I split the back of the top and added button fastening. It meant the sailor collar had to be detachable, which ultimately I did with snap fasteners at the front.

I made a white skirt with pleats at the front and gathers at the back to go with the top, using the same fabric as I used for the collar and cuffs, which were trimmed with royal blue ribbon. The skirt pattern was also in the collection of patterns from Janet, though it wasn't originally designed to have pleats, they were easy to add.

Trudi already had the socks I had knitted previously. I made her plain white combinations from the patterns Janet had sent as the white combinations from the Sasha Celebration weekend would have shown round the neck of the top, which I wanted to avoid.

Edmund was inspired to change back into his original Gotz Sailor outfit to join Trudi in her nautical theme. I think she has an air of the youngest child in the film of The Sound of Music, though the outfit is not a direct copy of any of those film costumes.

Trudi the sailor girl

Back view of Trudi's sailor outfit, showing the collar

Trudi and Edmund the Sasha sailors!