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