Patsy: A 1930s composition toddler doll

Effanbee Dolls started production of dolls in 1912, right at the beginning of the era of composition dolls. Effanbee was founded by Bernard Fleischaker and Hugo Baum (the “F” and “B” of Effanbee). The company had great success with its composition creations, most notably Patsy and her family of dolls. Later dolls were made in hard plastic and vinyl.  The company has had a series of owners since the 1930s and is currently owned by Tonner Dolls.  

Effanbee’s greatest success was the Patsy family of dolls, which began with the 13-inch tall Patsy.  Patsy was one of the first dolls to have a manufactured wardrobe just for her. Patsy was made of all composition. She portrayed a three year old girl with short bobbed red hair with a molded headband, painted side glancing eyes, pouty mouth and bent right arm.  She wore simple classic dresses closed with a safety pin. Patsy was so popular she soon had several sisters in sizes from 5¾ inches to 29 inches, many factory variations and even a boyfriend, Skippy.  

My Patsy has all the characteristics described above.  Her eyes are a light brown or hazel.  My doll came to me in a yellow print dress with matching hat that appears to be factory-made, although there is no identifying tag.  The dress has a white lace-trimmed collar and the hat has a matching brim.  From the color and print of the fabric and from the style of the garments, the outfit appears to be from the 1930s. She is marked on her back:

I researched the marking and learned that EffanBee used it between 1927 and 1933.  

EffanBee produced clothing to be bought to dress their Patsy dolls.  In addition, pattern companies, like Simplicity and McCalls, sold patterns with which to make a wardrobe for the Patsy dolls and their look-alikes, of which there were many.  The pattern to the left, Simplicity 3879, is a reissue of a pattern published in the 1930’s.  I made three of the garments from this pattern:

The first garment that I I made is called a combination.  Originally, little girls were dressed in a chemise (like an undershirt) and pantaloons (like underpants), but beginning in the 1920s, these two undergarments were combined into one, thus a combination.  This one for Patsy is very simple, the only trimming being lace around the neck, arms, and leg openings.  There is a bound slit in the upper back, with a snap closure at the top.

From the same Simplicity pattern, this is Patsy’s slip.  It is a simple A-line garment, much like the slips worn by real girls in the 1930’s.  It is trimmed around the neck and arm openings with the same lace as used for the combination, and the back opening and closure are also the same

Garment A in the Simplicity pattern is this little yoke dress.  I mentioned above that I only used three of the designs in this pattern set, the combination, the slip, and this yoke dress.  However, I did make several versions of the yoke dress.  In all of its variations, the yoke dress was by far the most popular garment for the Patsy dolls.  In the blue version shown below, the front yoke extends down to form a box pleat in the center of the skirt and then the skirt itself is gathered to the sides of the front yoke, and all the way across the back to the back yoke.  The dress has a little white Peter Pan collar and puffed sleeves, which are gathered into narrow white cuffs.  The material for this dress was part of a set of miniatures designs for quilting fabric, based on old-time fabrics from the 1930s.  The pattern came with a cloche-style hat to accompany the dress, which I made out of the same fabric and trimmed with a white silk ribbon.

The use of a Peter Pan collar in a contrasting color (often white) was very common in the Patsy yoke dresses, as were the puffed sleeves.  I adapted Simplicity 3879 design A to create the light green dress at the left.  This dress has a front and back yoke, to which is attached a pleated skirt.  The dress has the same white Peter Pan collar as the blue dress above, as well as puff sleeves.  For this dress, the sleeve bands are the same fabric as the rest of the dress, rather than contrast.  I almost always line the bodices of doll dresses, as I did for this, as the lining covers and protects the seam allowances for the neckline, armholes, and lower yoke front and back all in one fell swoop.

This is another yoke dress adapted from the Simplicity 3879 pattern.  The fabric in this dress is a red check.  The Peter Pan collar and the sleeve cuffs both have red piping.  (Note that most of the Patsy dresses, both patterns and ready-made, have collars with piping around the outer edges.)  

I knitted a little green sweater to go with this dress.  I found directions in McCalls 2270 pattern for a cardigan to fit a 17” young girl doll.  I made a sample sweater following those directions with some spare yarn that I had.  I found that I needed to decrease the length and increase the breadth to fit my Patsy.  It took three tries to get a sweater that actually fit her.  The yarn I used was Knit Picks wool fingering yarn.  I used size 3 knitting needles for the body of the sweater and size 1 for the ribbing.  I also knitted a little hat with the leftover yarn.

Below is another of the Patsy yoke dresses.  This one, like the red check above, has the skirt gathered onto the yoke.  The fabric here is another of the quilting-weight fabrics with doll-size patterns from the 1930’s.  I like these fabrics not only because of the patterns, but also because the colors are appropriate to that era.  The little Peter Pan collar is edged here with lace rather than piping.  BTW, Peter Pan collars have the rounded edges, rather than points or corners in the center front and back.  They got their name from the costume of Maud Adams, one of the women in the early 1900s who played the role of Peter Pan.

I knitted a sweater to go with this dress, too.  The yarn is also Knit Picks wool fingering yarn, this time in a pink color that matches the flowers in the dress print.  The sweater is a classic cardigan, with ribbing at the bottom of the sweater body, at the wrists, and at the neckline.  The front edges have a sort of ribbing made of garter stitch, with knit-in buttonholes on the right side and little pearl buttons on the left side.

We are now leaving Simplicity, and moving on to McCalls 1919.  This pattern has two dresses, a coat and bonnet, a gym suit, and a bathrobe, as well as the classic underwear pieces.  All of the clothing is in the style common to the Patsy dolls.  I made clothing with all of these patterns, except for the underthings.

This dress is a classic Patsy dress.  It is a blue A-line dress, with two insets in the front of white fabric.  For this dress, the insets have little embroideries.  The Peter Pan collar has white piping and also has little embroideries at the front edges.  The dress has the classic Patsy puff sleeves.  McCalls 1919 included a pattern for a cloche hat, which I made in fabric to match the dress.  The hat has a hat band of white silk ribbon, with a bow on the side.

This is the same pattern as the blue dress above.  This time, the main fabric of the dress is a soft pink and white check, while the collar and front insets are of the same pink in a solid color fabric.  The collar has piping made of the check fabric cut on the bias. This is another very classic Patsy look.  I made the cloche hat from the pink and white check fabric, lining the inside of the brim with the solid pink fabric, and adding a hat band of the same fabric.

Here is the little gym suit from McCalls 1919.  Sailor outfits became very popular for both boys and girls in the early 1900s.  They retained their popularity as gym suits for most of the first half of the 20^th century.  Patsy’s gym suit is a classic example.  The collar, cuffs, and inset are the same royal blue fabrics as the bloomers.  The blouse closes in the front with snaps.  The collar, cuffs, and inset are all trimmed with white soutache.  The blouse has a red silk ribbon for a tie.  The bloomers have elastic at the waist and legs.

The pink dress is the second ress pattern from McCalls 1919 and it also is a very classic style for Patsy.  It is difficult to see under the large collar, but there is a yoke in the front and back, to which the skirt is gathered.  The main fabric for this dress is a flowered dimity.  There are two collars, one atop the other.  The upper collar is made from the flowered dimity and the lower collar is a solid light pink.  Then both collars are piped with a darker pink, which is also used for a bow at the front neck.  The dress is sleeveless.  I made a bonnet, copying the one that came with my doll.  The bonnet is trimmed with a band of the darker pink fabric and edged with lace.

 

This coat and bonnet from McCalls 1919 are a classic 1930’s style.  The outfit is made from red cotton.  The coat has long sleeves, which were a bit difficult to fit over the right arm, which is bent at the elbow on all of the Patsy dolls.  The coat has a capelike under collar with a little straight collar on top.  There are three pearl buttons on the front of the coat, with snaps underneath doing the actual closing.  The bonnet is made of the same fabric as the coat, and has a hat band of white silk ribbon.

Here is my Patsy in her bathrobe from McCalls 1919, which I made from pink flannel.  All of the trimming on the robe is from a piece of blue batiste.  All of the outer edges of the robe are bounded with bias from that blue batiste, and it also makes the sash.  There are two little pockets on the front of the robe, which have pieces of blue bias binding the tops.  Then each pocket has a blue applique shaped like a Scottie dog, which were very popular in the 1930’s.

McCalls 243 is the last pattern that I used that actually came from the 1930’s.  I only made one of the dresses from this pattern, the one on the lower right, with smocking, which is next.  

I made this dress from one of the pieces of 1930’s reproduction quilting fabric with a doll-size print.  The fabric has little blue and white flowers scattered on a light yellow background.  I did the smocking with a matching blue embroidery thread.  The smocking itself is the same pattern as on McCalls 243.  I also used blue piping between the yoke and skirt, as well as on the bonnet.   

The next three patterns are all from Vogue, and are clothes designed for an 18” tall Patsy doll by Teresa Layman.  While the designs of these clothes for Patsy look appropriate to the 1930’s, the sewing methods involved in construction are much more intricated and complicated than 20th century doll clothes patterns tend to be.  Nonetheless, I thought they were charming, and I made several of them.  I did have to modify the patterns from the published size for an 18” doll down to my Patsy size of 14”.  I found if I reduced the patterns to 80% of their original size, they fit perfectly.

From the first pattern on the left above, Vogue 621, here is my Patsy in her footsie pajamas.  These pajamas have a drop seat in the back.  The front opening and the drop seat are closed by snaps.  The sleeves have a strap around the wrist to gather in the sleeve end.  These straps attach around with a snap.  There is elastic at the ankles and self binding at the neck.

I only made the overall outfit from the middle Vogue pattern, Vogue 7365.  Here is my Patsy in her blue corduroy overalls.  I made the bib a little higher than in the original pattern, as I liked the bib to come up higher on Patsy chest.  I made the blouse from tan checked gingham, with a white batiste collar with a piped edge.  The blouse has buttons down the front, with hidden snaps underneath to do the closing.

This is the third and final sweater that I knitted for my Patsy.  I picked the Knit Picks tan fingering yarn to match the tan in the blouse.  The shape of this sweater is the same as the other two previously seen.

 The pattern on the right, Vogue 7565, has three dresses.  I made them all.  The first one that I made is the one on the right on the pattern cover.  Making it presented a lot more problems than I thought it would initially.  The dress on the pattern cover was made of a striped fabric, but I couldn’t find a striped fabric that I liked, so I chose a windowpane check in red.  The pattern is a series of pleats from shoulders to hem across the front and back.  I didn’t like how uneven my check pattern came out, so I redrafted the pattern to eliminate the pleats and then stitched full-length pleats into the fabric, following the grid of the checks, before I cut the pattern pieces out.  The collar had little embroideries on each piece in the front.  I’m not sure how difficult those would have been to do for the original 18” doll, but reducing their size to fit my 14” doll made them impossibly tiny.  Also, the collar has red piping around the outer edge,and then gathered lace is stitched to the piping. Stitching the gathered lace to the piping was incredibly convoluted.  Eventually, all of the problems got resolved, and I think the little dress turned out well.

Vogue 7565 Dress B is on the left side of the cover photo.  This is a dress with a cover-up or pinafore over it.  The dress is the only one I made for Patsy that has a actual separate bodice.  The bodice is set a little higher than it would be on an adult’s dress, but is fairly normal on the dress of a three-year-old.  I used a piece of calico from my stash that had the same colors as the dress on the pattern cover.  The dress has a simple gathered skirt and a shirt collar that comes points in the front and back and that has its edges bound with red bias (in fact, the same bias fabric used for Dress A).

.  I made some alterations to the pinafore.  First, the pattern called for embroidery at the top center of the pinafore and also in the lower right corner (from Patsy’s point of view).  After the collar embroidery in making Dress A, I opted out of any additional embroidery.  So I simply put on two pockets on the pinafore.  I also lengthened the pinafore a little bit, just the make the outfit look a little more balanced.  There are straps that go over the shoulders, cross in the middle of the back, and then are buttoned to the front under the arms.  Sewing on all of the bias that goes around the front and then around each the straps in back took a good bit of time.

  The third and final dress in Vogue 7565 is what I think of as a party dress.  The pattern photo showed this dress with a blue-on-white polka dot fabric. I happened to have a very nice piece of pink-on-white polka dot fabric that I think did very well.  The dress has a fitted bodice with a square neckline that has some little white lace stitched around it.  Patsy apparently really likes puffed sleeves, because this dress, as so many that went before, has them.  The skirt on this dress literally began as a circle which was bound on the outer edge with pink batiste bias.  The waistline of the skirt piece is cut out of the inside of the circle, and is slightly gathered to fit the waist of the bodice.

This is the only outfit for which I took a picture of the back view.  The pattern directions were to have a sash around the high waist and then to add a large bow on the doll’s left front.  I tried that, but on my 14” doll it seemed like a bit much, so I opted to use a length of pink silk ribbon for the sash, and then tied the ends in a bow in the back.  It reminded of the years I spent tying bows in the back of my daughter’s dresses (as she usually was squirming) and then later for my granddaughter’s dresses.