If you haven’t made dolly any dresses before, a simple yoked pattern like the one she has on in her picture will be an easy pattern to start with.

You will want about a yard of some pretty soft material. A fancy delaine or creponne with a pretty floral design on it would look well, or you may prefer to have a plain material. A yard of lace and two yards of bÉbÉ ribbon will also be required if you are going to trim your frock exactly like the one in the picture.

Carefully cut out all the pieces you want to make the frock. You will find out how to do this on page 83. When you have all the pieces cut out in the material, take the yoke portions of the pattern and cut them out again from a little piece of nainsook or something that will do to make a lining.

Join the side seams of the skirt with French seams, then cut a placket two inches long in the centre of the back part of the skirt, and finish it as you were told how in the article on making dolly’s underwear.

Now take the dress yoke portions, and join the shoulder seam. Just an ordinary little run together seam on the wrong side will do for these, as you will remember we are going to line the yoke.

Gather the top of the front of the skirt, and draw it up to the size of the lower edge of the front of the yoke. Place the edge of the yoke and the edge you have gathered together just as if you were going to make a seam (be sure you put the right sides of the material inside) and backstitch along firmly.

Turn in a quarter-inch single turning, from the neck down to the lower edge of each of the backs of the yoke, then gather the backs of the skirt and join them to the yoke as you did the front.

Join the lining yoke portions together, turn your dress on the wrong side, and place the lining yoke over the dress yoke, so that the edges of the seams come inside. Turn the lower edges of the lining yoke in and hem them along to the back of the gathers, making it all neat inside, and in the same way turn in the straight edges of the backs of the lining to meet the single turnings you made on the dress yoke; oversew these edges together.

You will notice that the top edge of your sleeve portion is curved up much higher one side than the other; the high side has to come on the shoulder, and the lower side underneath the arm. You will have to be careful in joining up the sleeves, that in the second sleeve the high side comes the opposite side of the sleeve to what it does in the first sleeve, so that you have one sleeve for the left and one for the right arm.

Join up the sleeves with French seams. Take your little cuff band, fold it in half and join up one side with a single seam, so that it is joined in a circle. Gather the bottom of the sleeve, until it is the same size as the cuff. Place the cuff over the bottom of the sleeve (with the right side of the material inside), and backstitch the gathered edge to the edge of the cuff. Fold the cuff piece in half over the gathers right round, then turn your sleeve on the wrong side, and hem the other edge of the cuff to the back of the gathers. Make the other sleeve in the same way.

To put the sleeves into the dress, first gather the tops, until they are the size of the armhole of the frock.

Place the short part of the sleeve over the skirt seam, so that it will come under dolly’s arm, and place the sleeve seam to the seam joining the yoke to the skirt at the front. Make a seam of the armhole and the gathered edge of the sleeve. To neaten the armhole seams, bind them with narrow tape or ribbon.

Now you are ready to turn up the bottom of the frock. Measure dolly from her neck to where you want the bottom of the frock to come. Then measure the same distance down from the neck of the frock in front, and turn up a nice wide hem evenly all round.

If dolly’s frock is of plain material, instead of just hemming the hem, you might like to finish it with French knots along. You must work these with embroidery thread, and you have a picture showing how the knots are made.

Bring your needle up through the double hem on the right side, hold the thread down with the left hand thumb, and pick up a tiny stitch along the hem, just where the thread comes out; now, with the right hand, wind the thread round the needle (just as it is in the picture), pull your needle out, and you will find you have made a little twisted knot. Put your needle down through the hem again close to the knot, and bring it up a little further along the hem, ready for the next knot. Make your knots equal distances apart all round. This is a very good way of finishing any hem, where you do not want a row of hemming stitches showing on the right side.

Bind the neck of the frock with a narrow strip of the material.

Divide the lace into two equal lengths, then cut one length in half again. Pleat the longest piece into the neck of the dress, and one short piece into each cuff. Loop your ribbon up into a little rosette, leaving one or two long loops hanging, and place this on the left side of the yoke. Fasten the frock with buttons and buttonholes at the back.

Serge would be a good material to use. Half a yard would be sufficient to make it for an 18-inch doll, the size of the one in the picture. Two yards of a tiny white braid were used to trim the coat.

When you have carefully cut out your coat pattern, join up the under-arm and shoulder seams. To join coat seams you must just place the two edges to be joined together evenly, and backstitch them together on the wrong side. To neaten the seams inside the coat, open them out flat and bind each of the raw edges separately. To get them quite flat you will have to press them with a hot iron.

The coat sleeve has two pieces, so you will have two seams to join for each sleeve; join them just as you did the shoulder and under-arm seams, and be careful to get one sleeve the reverse way to the other one.

Now take the front facings, lay them on to the right side of the fronts of the coat (you will see they are just the same shape as the fronts at the outer edges). Backstitch these pieces on to the fronts all round where the edges meet the coat edges, then turn the facings inside the coat. Bind the straight raw edges of the facings that come inside the coat. Turn back the top of each front to form a rever.

Turn a single turning half an inch wide round the bottom of the coat, and backstitch along about a quarter of an inch in from the fold; bind the raw edge of the turning inside the coat. Finish the wrist edges of the sleeves in the same way, and put them into the coat as you put in the dress sleeves; they will need very little gathering.

Cut a second collar out of a piece of soft sateen or lining, place the two pieces together and backstitch round three of the edges, leaving the curved neck edge open. Turn the collar inside out, pushing out the corners carefully. To join the collar to the coat, seam the neck of the coat to the neck edge of the lining of the collar, then turn the neck edge of the collar in over this seam and hem it along neatly.

Put the braid round all the edges of the coat as shown. Using white cotton, hold the braid along the work, and sew it on with small running stitches along the centre of the braid.

Make three buttonholes on the right front of the coat, and sew buttons on the left front to correspond.