Free 3T - 4T and Doll Dress Sewing Pattern

Enjoy this free easy dress pattern and tutorial! This pattern is fast and easy to make, and there’s a matching doll dress pattern included, too!

I made this dress for my daughter, with a matching one for her doll.

Today, I’m happy to be sharing with you these dress patterns as a free printable PDF sewing pattern plus tutorial!

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. I only recommend what I truly like/use!

The girl’s dress pattern is size 3T-4T.

The doll’s dress is meant to go with the doll I made for my daughter. You can get the free printable pattern for this doll by clicking THIS LINK. If you have a different doll in mind you’d like to make the doll’s dress for, simply adjust the elastic around the neckline, and the length of the ruffle (or emit the ruffle enirely) according to your needs. This style dress is very forgiving when it comes to sizing!

I love this dress because it is simple enough for the home sewist to accomplish, is roomy enough to add comfort for the child and forgiveness to the creator, and with minimum steps — it’s a quick project to finish!

Need the dress to be longer or shorter than the suggested length? It’s so easy to adjust the ruffle on the bottom of the dress to add or take away length as needed!

Another reason I love this dress is because it doesn’t require any buttons, zippers, or velcro. Instead, it has a very simple elastic design so the dress can simply be pulled over your child (and doll’s) head! This makes it so easy for your child to dress themselves and their doll, and it really simplifies your job while sewing this dress!

Supply list (to make one girl’s dress and one doll’s dress):

2 yards of fabric (I used a strawberry print)
2 yards of lining fabric (I used a pink fabric)
1/4″ wide elastic (I love to buy mine in bulk. It’s so cheap that way, and lasts me for many years!)
Lace (optional, but adds such a feminine flair!)
Scissors
Thread
Sewing machine (you can also sew this dress by hand!)

Print your free pattern HERE

Have your PDF pattern sent straight to your email inbox below!

This will open up a PDF file that’s instantly ready to be printed on your home printer!

The PDF will include TWO patterns — one for your child and one for their doll.

No ruffle is included in the pattern. It would just eat an excess amount of your printer paper and ink, when it’s so easy to just draw this part out yourself (it’s a simple rectangle, and very forgiving to make up).

You’ll notice that both the girl’s dress and doll’s dress are printed out in pieces. This makes it possible for you to be able to print out this pattern on our own home printer.

Once you’ve printed out your pattern, simply line up the peppers on your pattern pieces in the correct order. Each piece of the pattern is numbered, and you’ll line them up.

For the “big girl” pattern, 1 and 2 will be on the top half of the pattern, and 3 and 4 will be on the bottom pattern. The doll pattern only has two pieces to fit together. Tape your pattern pieces together so you have one solid “big” pattern piece for the big girl pattern and for the doll pattern.

Important note: Since both the girl’s dress and the doll’s dress are the same dress pattern in different sizes, the tutorial will be how you assemble both dresses. Any differences in how to make the girl’s dress and the doll’s dress will be noted througout the pattern.

Creating the dress

First, cut out 2 fabric pieces and 2 lining pieces on the fold.

You’ll do this for both the girl’s dress and the doll’s dress.

For both the fabric and for the lining, I used a cotton woven fabric (stiff, not a stretchy knit fabric). It might be a bit more difficult to make this dress with a stretchy knit fabric, and I don’t reccomend it — if you do decide to attempt it anyway, make sure you use a zig zag stitch for this project.

For both the big girl dress and the doll dress, you will have two identical pieces cut out that look like the piece above.

Cut out two more additional pieces of the fabric you will be using as the lining. They’ll be cut from the same pattern piece.

With one piece of your main fabric and one piece of your lining fabric, place the pieces right sides together and sew along the neckline.

You’ll get to use a hefty 1/2″ seam allowance for this project — an easy seam allowance to manage, and very forgiving, too! (on most sewing machines, a 1/2″ seam allowance is simply guiding the edge of your fabric against the edge of your presser foot)

Flip your fabric and lining right side out, so that the “pretty sides” are showing, and the raw edges are hidden.

On the right side of the fabric, sew a straight line across the top of the neck line, about 1/2″ down. This will create a “tunnel” or casing for you to pull elastic through, creating a nice stretchy neckline to easily pull this dress over your child/doll’s head.

For the doll’s dress, cut two 4 1/2″ pieces of elastic. The elastic should be 1/4″ wide. I buy my elastic in bulk — it’s so inexpensive and lasts forever!

For the big girl’s dress, cut two 9″ pieces of elastic. Again, this elastic should also be 1/4″ wide. No need to buy two separate types of elastic if you’re making both the doll and the big girl dress!

Remember to cut two pieces of elastic — you’ll use one piece for the front of the dress and one piece when you repeat the same process for the back of the dress!

Take a safety pin and attach it to one end of a piece of elastic. Use the safety pin to guide the elastic through your fabric “tunnel” or casing.

Hold onto the other end of your elastic. If you need to, you can use a second safety pin to attach the elastic to the other end of your “tunnel.”

Once you have guided the elastic all the way through, secure the elastic on each end by sewing several strong stitches through both fabric layers and through your elastic.

This will make a nice, stretchy, gathered neckline.

Next, you will turn your main fabric/lining fabric back to right sides together (elastic on the inside) and sew down each the armholes and each side of the dress, leaving the bottom OPEN. Turn the dress panel right side out again through the bottom opening.

Repeat this process for both the front and the back of the dress so that you have two identical dress pieces.

Once you have completed two identical front/back pieces for your dress, place the right sides of the dress together (on the main fabric side, not your lining) and sew the sides of the dress, and about an inch from the top of the armholes to the top of the neckline (to create one gathered and even opening for the neck hole).

Creating the ruffle

Next, we’ll create the bottom ruffle on the dress.

For the doll dress, you may choose to omit or shorten the suggested ruffle length if you are creating this dress for a smaller doll. If you omit the ruffle, just make a double fold along the bottom edge of the dress to hide the raw edges, and sew a bottom hem. From there you can choose to attach some lace at the bottom, or choose to be finished with the dress altogether!

The doll dress is intended to fit the 20″ tall doll I made for my daughter. You can get the pattern for this doll here if you’d like — this pattern is also totally free and printable!

The ruffle is made by making a super long rectangle, then gathering it at the top and attaching it to the bottom of the dress.

For the big girl dress, your ruffle rectangle should be 100″ long and 7″ wide.

For the doll dress, your ruffle rectangle should be 60″ long and 5″ wide. Again, the doll dress is made for a taller than average doll, so adjust to your preference!

You may need to cut multiple pieces of fabric to obtain this length for the ruffle. That’s totally fine — just sew your pieces together, right sides together, until you achieve your desired length. It’s okay if you’re off by a couple inches when sewing your pieces together. Just getting the length close to the correct measurements will be good enough.

Once you have achieved the desired length, gather the top edge of your ruffle. You can do this by creating two lines of a basting stitch on the top edge of your ruffle, then pulling the threads of your two lines of basting stitches together to create a gathered effect.

Play around with your gathered ruffle until it is the same length as your bottom edge of your dress (you can just line it up with the bottom of the dress instead of measuring). Then, add 1″ to your ruffle length.

With right sides together, sew the ends of the ruffle with a 1/2″ seam allowance to create a long ruffle loop.

Next, attach your ruffle loop to the bottom of the dress using a French seam. To do this, first sew the top gathered portion of the ruffle of the bottom of the dress with the WRONG sides together, using a 1/4″ seam allowance. Then, fold the right sides of the top of the ruffle and the bottom of the dress together and sew a 1/2″ seam allowance. Doing this will completely hide the raw edges on the inside of your fabric.

Lastly, fold the very bottom of the ruffle over twice and hem the bottom of the dress. This will conceal all of your raw edges on the dress.

I chose to attach lace right at the seam where the top of the ruffle meets the bottom of the dress.

Here’s what the finished big girl dress will look like: