Over the past few weeks I've run across something that really irks me as both an Industrial Designer as well as someone who makes their own dolls. If you go on Ebay and look up doll clothing or homemade dolls, you'll find tons of stuff, and when you go to check out the profile pages of these seamstresses you'll find pompous talk about them being designers, meticulously creating their fashions with a keen eye for detail and a flare for color. 99% of these women are full of BS. If you look up the stuff they buy, they buy patterns.

Designing means getting inspired by something you see, creating a few variations, then making prototypes to make sure that your idea looks good in 3-D. Then fixing the mistakes with the first prototype, making another version until you have a well fitting outfit, good looking doll or cute accessory.

Using someone else's pattern is not design.
Modifying someone's pattern is not design.
Combining 2 or more patterns made by different people is not design.
Changing colors or print is not design.
Changing a bow to a buckle, adding a hat or an accessory is not design.

In short, if you base your outfit on anybody else's previous pattern, tutorial, character or outfit, you are not a designer. You are a seamstress.

It takes me days to make a good pattern for a doll, and even then I am only designing the pattern, not the outfit. I didn't design Vincent Valentine's costume, Nomura Testuya did. So don't claim you design anything just because you made a red dress blue, added a bow or made the skirt a little shorter.

because that makes you nothing more than a dirty dishonest art thief.