Recently I used some scraps to make little baby doll dresses based on this pattern by Susan Kramer. They made great gifts for those little mamas in my life. Many more doll clothing patterns by Susan can be found here.
The original pattern calls for sleeves and lace, but I just used the bodice part and folded and hemmed the edges, then added the bottom ruffle. It was easy to make the sleeveless version, and I think sleeveless is also easier for a toddler to put on her/his doll. For the closure I used a tiny bit of Touch Tape, which is an awesome Velcro-like-but-stronger-better fastener. You can purchase it from cloth diaper materials suppliers.
Here’s another version of the dress, made from a recycled men’s shirt:
Emily Smith Pearce 
where is the pattern for this dress
Hi Gayle–In the body of the text, you will find a link to the original pattern, which I used without sleeves—more details in the text as well. It’s a hyperlink if you click on the word “pattern.” Thanks for stopping by.