I was scrolling through Pinterest one day and came across a picture of the American Girl Doll, Molly (the one I received when I was 9 years old) dressed in clergy apparel. Alas, no link for patterns. I called my mom and we decided we could make it work with the patterns she still had at home. She purchased the patterns in the early 90s and I couldn’t find them on the American Girl website again or I would have linked them here for you. I did a quick google search and found American Girl Doll Patterns and Free American Girl Doll Patterns that seem to be helpful if you have to start without any patterns from your mother’s basement.
We went through the patterns and decided we wanted something that was a straight and plain as possible. Starting with Molly’s slip (front and back pieces) to get the fit we wanted. Then we used Molly’s rain slicker back to get the length we wanted. We cut the fabric narrow like the slip. Molly’s pajama sleeve was the smoothest sleeve (apparently gathered, puffy shoulders were Molly’s style). Mom cut down the “hump” part of the top of the sleeve, so it would not need to be gathered (making it puffy) before being attached to the slip top. She cut without measuring so you’ll have to eyeball it too. My Molly doll had been wearing her pinafore prior to this adventure which is what gave us the idea to use the pinafore waistband to make the collar. It ended up being the right width, but we had to make take some tucks (in the back) to make it fit as close as we wanted it to. You will have to make that decision too, it wasn’t an exact measurement. We decided the white tab should be about an inch. It was handstitched onto the collar.
I thought my fellow young clergy women (YCM) might also want to give this idea a try so the pictures I snapped are below.
I’m planning to bring the doll to church and do a children’s sermon on playing with dolls. I recently did a children’s sermon about playing dress up and related it to my work at the church and with Days for Girls (sometimes we dress differently for the work that God needs us to do was the basic idea). I have a few little girls in the congregation that loved talking about playing dress up. I matched my nail polish (OPI Aloha) to my DFG shirt and that was a big hit. They also enjoyed the children’s sermon where I brought out all of my stoles and talked about the liturgical year. That was an idea that I found on the YCW’s Facebook group.
Please comment below other ideas for what my Molly Doll (and hopefully your doll) will do while dressed as a pastor. I would love to see what you do!!!
Period Pastor Pad 