Friday 23 November 2012

On my table Friday

After spending all day yesterday at the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show this is what is on my table today....





Lots of Liberty of London goodies, some gorgeous plain Oakshott fabrics and a couple of bias bindings with picot trim.

Had a lovely day but would recommend taking some big strong lackeys to help carry the bags!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Scraps

I use a lot of Liberty of London Tana Lawn in my dolls dresses.  I also like buying the fabric for my own use too, this means I end up with lots of little scraps and off cuts that I just can't bring myself to throw away.

However, one only has so much space to keep such things!

I have started an English paper hexagon quilt top for my daughter but realistically that project is way down on my To-Do list.

hmm not enough to cover a single bed I think!

So I was very pleased to see some quick and easy projects from the Liberty blog.

Source

Doesn't this look lovely?  And not too time consuming at this busy time of the year!


Had a little go, not too bad and only took a couple of minutes, will need to make more of these I think.



The Dolls Dressmaker







Thursday 15 November 2012

Capes...because it's cold for Dolls too!

Busy sewing this morning in the grey November light.

Beautiful Liberty lining

The Models!

Showing the Liberty lining
Colder weather has prompted me to think of warm clothing options for the Dolls.  What with my inspirational Pinterest board and some gorgeous grey felt that I bought many years ago in Edinburgh, this is what I have come up with.

Still in production as I am not happy with the lining but coming soon to the shop!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Friday 9 November 2012

On my desk Friday

Trying to do a little bit of sewing whilst littlest is at school.  A grey and rainy November day has inspired this...


Lovely buttons and a bit of grey linen, seems appropriate!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Thursday 8 November 2012

Christmas Dresses


A grey November day meant some slightly shadowy photographs but I have finally uploaded my final Christmas dolls dress.



A lovely Liberty of London print, "Emilias Flowers" with East of India "Merry christmas" ribbon.

The Dolls Dressmaker

Friday 2 November 2012

A shop update

Long overdue but I finally managed a little shop update today!


A lovely warm looking tartan in purple

Liberty of London "Lodden"

Liberty of London "Capel"

A favourite, Liberty of London "Eloise"

Hopefully will be able to add some more in the coming days and then get started on the huge pile of delicious fabrics that are just waiting to be made into dolls dresses!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Thursday 18 October 2012

A dilema

We collect all sorts of things in this house.  One of which is this old toy sailing boat.  It's a perfectly good sailing boat but the sails have seen better days.



An old edition of Country Living magazine has a tiny feature on such a dilemma as mine.

 

So now all I have to do is decide which fabric to use...hmm may not see some sailing action for a while then!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Tuesday 16 October 2012

Oh dear....

How cute is this?



A gorgeous simple little deer pattern in  Cross Stitcher  magazine.  Loving the deer craze right now and haven't done any cross stitch for such a long time.  Thought it would make a lovely cushion with my daughter's name and some Leicien fabric.

The Dolls Dressmaker


Monday 15 October 2012

Moving

Well, so much has happened since I last typed a blog post that I wouldn't know where to begin!  So instead of going over it all I will resume from today! 

First things first, I have moved!

Not really just my craft space, I now occupy a lovely little room all of my own!  So much craft stuff, so many hobbies meant I needed a dedicated space where I could leave things out without finding some felt tip marks everywhere when I got back from a five second break!



I have been very lucky to get a room of my own, but it is taking so much longer than I thought to get organised and I am missing creating rather than sorting!



The room already looks better than this and once it is all sorted I will post new pics.

Now just need some decent light and get some more dresses loaded onto the shop too.

The Dolls Dressmaker

Friday 31 August 2012

On my desk Friday

In an attempt to get back into blogging, a peek at my craft table each Friday.  Also maybe an attempt to get me to finish something over the weekend!



Another Kiki in the Meadow doll (this time a boy), more Blythe customising, pine cone making (Pinterest has a lot to answer for) dolls clothes designing and general making and Liberty fabric scraps being turned into patchwork hexagons (a very long term project!)

The Dolls Dressmaker

Tuesday 12 June 2012

Busy, busy

Well now that half term is over I can feel peace and calm returning to my little craft room!  Lots happening and most of it is creating stock for Christmas.  Other good news the overlocker is fixed, well more in the regions of, I had it threaded incorrectly, oops!

Then yesterday I received a lovely e-mail to say I had been featured on someones blog!  How lovely, never happened to me before so I am very pleased!  Do head over to my handcrafted home as she featured some other lovely Etsy sellers too!

Back to the grindstone!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Monday 4 June 2012

A mini cardigan

I'm not much of a knitter, I can knit but I just find I run out of enthusiasm for big projects. So this is where this little cardi comes in great. Takes a day or two, no stitching of seams and it looks great!


The site is a French knitting pattern site but there are a few patterns in English and some, like this one are free. 

I have knitted this in child size and the pattern is almost exactly the same, only bigger.




We have several of these dolls cardi's in various colours but this is my latest.

The Dolls Dressmaker

Saturday 2 June 2012

The Queen's Jubilee

Celebrating the Jubilee, The Dolls Wardobe way...



I hope you have a wonderful weekend wherever you are and whatever you are doing.

The Dolls Dressmaker

Tuesday 29 May 2012

Playing in the garden

Not many words today, just pictures!






Playing in the apple tree and with PicMonkey.

Oh and yes the grass does need cutting ;-)

The Dolls Dressmaker

Wednesday 23 May 2012

Posh Frocks

At the moment I am busy playing around with my usual dress design, trying to make it just a little bit better.


The dress I make is designed with small children in mind, following frustrating attempts on my daughters part to dress and undress her dolls herself, I decided a wrap around dress with velcro just might do the job.

However for older children or adults velcro isn't really necessary.  Following on this train of thought led me to think about making all of the dress just that bit fancier!

So using some wonderful Liberty of London fabric, this time a tana lawn called "Mitsi", which is really stunning and has bright, vibrant colours, I set about making a "posh frock".

The next step was to line the dress with plain Liberty fabric, giving a very delicate drapey feel to the dress.


For a bit of elegant detail I have added some lace and hand sewn some small, glass beads to the front.


As there isn't any velcro I am adding metal poppers and some fabric covered buttons to the reverse, which is my next step.  

It's been fun and I intend to make some more "fancy" versions of my dress!

In other news, if you are in need of some small/craft business tips head over to Cupcakes for Clara blog.  Laura is spending this week talking about "getting down to business" and I have really enjoyed her posts so far.  Lots of inspiration and helpful tips!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Friday 18 May 2012

On my sewing table


Last November I attended the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show and bought a couple of things from the Clothkits stand.  Sorting through things recently, I realised that I better hurry up and make this dress before my daughter is too big!

Human sized sewing takes so much longer, heaven help me when I make this skirt!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Tuesday 15 May 2012

Designing


It takes a lot of my brain power to come up with new designs, mostly because I fit The Dolls Wardrobe in around so many other activities leaving me with very little quality time to devote to dolls and their attire!

I love the dress pattern that I currently make but would like to try different styles however I have two major obstacles, one there is something wrong with my overlocker and two the above mentioned lack of time.

However I did manage to find some time before a dreadful family cold hit and came up with a simple empire style design.



So now I have to get my overlocker sorted and secondly remember which way round the pieces go!

Can you see the hem is on the outside?  Duh! silly me...
The Dolls Dressmaker

Sunday 13 May 2012

Possibly zero willpower...


Not very long ago I wrote a little post about Blythe dolls and how I wasn't going to shell out on one of those pricey dolls. In my defence I still haven't but I did find out about clone Blythe dolls (via Pinterest) and found a seller in the UK selling Basaak dolls, which are copies, I suppose, of the Blythe doll. Now as I understand it there are some very contentious issues about these dolls but what appealed to me about the "proper" Blythes was their DIY appeal. However there was no way was I about to spend well over £100 on a doll that I was going to take to bits and very possibly not be able to put back together!

So I caved and bought a Basaak from a UK seller on Ebay,




Work very quickly started, so much so I forgot to take a picture of her before I took her to bits! She was very easy to deconstruct and again I forgot to take note so I wouldn't have problems putting her back together!

I started by sand matting her face using Oakley contour sanding pads, extra and super fine.





I then removed her eyelashes and replaced them with fake lashes bought at Boots. Next I repainted her face with artists chalks and paints and then sealed her face with matt spray varnish.

Her hair and her eyes are still in progress. I have removed one pair of chips, using an awl and a pair of tweezers (and ended up with a sore arm!) and am waiting for some new chips to arrive. Her hair is the biggest issue, I wasn't that pleased with her strawberry blonde wig and would prefer darker hair. As my daughter quickly wanted in on the act I bought another doll (see how my willpower is useless in the face of toys?) and so bought one with dark hair.




The second doll arrived quickly too but her hair is worse than the first.  As I wanted to give the second doll pink (eek) hair I will need to re-root one scalp but now I might have to re-root two?  Hmm maybe not. 



I have however made dolls clothes, three dresses in fact.  Very satisfying using up Liberty scraps and they make up so quickly.



The dolls bodies are another issue and I am looking into getting a different body for the second doll. 

The dolls were easy to take apart and so far easy to put back together, the second doll has a problem with her eyelids refusing to stay open but I am sure with some research I will be able to fix that.

The internet is a very wonderful thing and I couldn't have done all this with out some amazing tutorials mostly this one and of course Pinterest which inspired me!

I can't imagine that work will progress quickly now as I am taking a looong time to work out which colour hair to order!  But I have had a lot of fun with these dolls!

The Dolls Dressmaker

Wednesday 2 May 2012

But it's not a dolls dress?

It's been a while, a lot longer than I like to remember but I made a little crafty something last weekend that had nothing to do with dolls.

A cacti pincushion, to be found in Issue Ten of Mollie Makes magazine

It was fun and easy and the receipent liked it!  I mean who wouldn't want a cacti pincushion?

The Dolls Dressmaker

Tuesday 1 May 2012

Happy

I have been very busy over this past, rainy weekend but just look at these photo's!



My lovely little dolls wardrobe all full of Liberty of London fabric dolls dresses!

Some of these are already in the shop and some will go in this week.

Having this wardrobe at the end of my craft table makes me happy! And maybe a bit more productive???

The Dolls Dressmaker

LPS Blythe dress 1

Oh my!  Sewing dolls clothes on such a small scale is hard! Especially when you don't have a pattern!

However I have made a start,


I thought this lovely blue Liberty fabric matched her eyes.

Since making this I have found patterns on the internet for Littlest Pet Shop Blythe sized clothes so will have a go with them for the next two.

I also made a 36cm/14inch sized dolls dress out of the same fabric,


This will be going into the shop very soon.

And here is a picture for size comparison,


The Dolls Dressmaker

Friday 27 April 2012

Plastic

As a child I loved toys. Not a shocking statement I agree but I enjoyed collecting little figures, stationery, stickers you name it. As an adult one tends to move away from these things, having much bigger and more expensive necessities to spend ones money on.

Then children come along and you are allowed back into the world of toys! When my children were small I ralied against plastic toys, most obviously the loud noisy battery eating ones, but as the children got older their toys got smaller and are usually exclusively made of plastic.

Some I detest, some I love but only in their proper place, i.e. not on the floor for me to stand on, I'm talking about you Lego! and some I buy for myself and pretend they are for the children...




Littlest Pet Shop Blythes! Bright, garish colours, tiny plastic pieces and yet I love them. Perhaps because I wouldn't mind a real Blythe but can't justify the expense. However these little ladies are getting a Liberty makeover, much to my daughters disgust....

The Dolls Dressmaker

Tired of waiting

One of the downsides to selling dolls dresses, is that every dress I make I want to put in my Etsy shop and try and sell it!  Which is fine until your daughter wants a new dress for HER dolly!

As I have been promising for a while, perhaps the dolls decided to take things into their own hands...



This cabinet is very old, I believe my Great Grandfather brought it back from America and has been played with many times.  As with a lot of old toys I can't really let my children play with it as there are sharp nails etc and it is very fragile now.  The little toy sewing machine is also vintage but is a recent addition to our household, much more robust than the dresser this does get played with!

I am planning on getting some stickers made with some of my images so have been playing around with the camera and doll related items.  This dresser however was very difficult to photgraph properly, being so dark it seems to drain all the light and make the pictures look grainy.  What with all the rainy grey days we have had, it's taken me a while to get a picture I liked!

The Dolls Dressmaker






Tuesday 24 April 2012

"A" cushion

Some time ago I ordered these wonderful patterns with a view to having a go at freestyle quilting.

As with so many craft projects, I get all inspired by the beautiful items people make and then I have a go and get a bit wobbly and put the half finished item to one side! 

However I have finally finished!



It was fun to do and I am really pleased with the result but I think it will take me a little while longer before I could build up the courage to do another one!

The Dolls Dressmaker