Anatomy of an Outfit: Picnic Set

So!  Today in vintage Barbie clothes, we have... half an outfit.  The Picnic Set from 1961!

The bundle of clothes I purchased did not include the jeans.  (Nor, for any of the outfits, the accessories.)  But I had another pair of Barbie jeans to hand, so this is my approximation.  All that I got was the blouse:

Which, for the record, isn't actually a blouse!  I'm not sure exactly what one should call this, in fact.  A leotard?  A bodysuit?  Overall, it really is an excellent way of making sure a doll's blouse stays tucked in, so I'm going to have to see if any of my patterns has something similar that I can adapt for non-knit fabrics.

It has some gathering into the two-piece yoke on the back.  The folded-over collar is a separate finished piece.

And a snap hidden under that single button on the front.  As you can see, only one side of it is actually bodysuit-ish.  The front facings are simply folded over and their interior edges finished by topstitching.

The interior of the yoke.  The facing is free-floating, and folds down like so:

And, finally, the hem is simply folded over and topstitched down, as are the armholes.  The side seam is unfinished.

Simplicity 5785

Another day, another doll dress.  I'm not too happy with this one.

Pictured here on Morticia, my Model Muse body type.  Because she was one of only two dolls this would fit, the other being Petite.  And the bodice was too big on Petite - the neckline hunched up toward her chin.  So this dress is Morticia's, I guess.

(She's named Morticia because she was wearing a Halloween dress when I bought her, and because between her expression and blood-red lips and nails, I'm 100% sure she's killed someone.)

This dress is pattern E, illustrated up in the upper left corner of the pattern cover.  (This pattern is still available, apparently, and still under the same pattern number)  I opted not to do the "belt" on it simply because I didn't have any black ribbon to hand.

Fitting-wise, the problem is that the dress simply won't close on any of my other dolls.  They're either too broad around the waist (Vintage and Bellybutton bodies) or around the ribcage (Twist'N'Turn bodies).  And the problem with it on Morticia, actually, is that it's loose in the bust.  So this pattern manages to fit precisely none of my Barbies well.

Construction-wise, I do not like the armscye.  It's very shallow; the side seam meets a "V" rather than a "U" shape.

Things I do like, however, very much include the skirt!  It is actually a true circle skirt, and does fit with the bodice like hand in glove.  No finagling or finessing of seam lengths; they're a perfect match.

If I make this dress again, I will be narrowing the shoulders, to try to make them proper sundress straps, and altering the armscye to make it less, hmm, argumentative to deal with.

Identity of a Doll

When I saw a listing on shopgoodwill for a "Porcelain Barbie," I thought they must mean a Silkstone Barbie, and, on a whim, put in the minimum bid.  The doll was pretty enough, after all, and I was curious.  And then I forgot about the auction until I got an e-mail telling me, surprise!  I'd won.

Well, now I have a doll that sure as heck feels like she's made out of porcelain.  Which is what Silkstone Barbies are supposed to be like, the internet informed me.  Except, when I was trying to ID her, by the color of her hair and eyes, by her earrings, by the style of her hair... I kept running into the road block of she's a smiling doll, while the Silkstones, with their heads allegedly modeled on the original, vintage Barbie's... well, to me they all look like they've just smelled something bad.

After running into roadblocks in several Google image searches, I finally took to eBay and did a search for "porcelain Barbie."  And there, a hundred and some auctions down, I found her.  Vintage 1996 Holiday Caroler Barbie!  She's been stripped of her dress and hat, and came to me in nothing but a lace-edged pair of drawers, but she's lovely, and, apparently, actually made of porcelain.  Since she's a caroler, I've decided to name her Noelle.

She's also about 3/4" taller than Solo!  Some of it in her swan-like neck, some of it in her leg length, since their torsos seem about the same.  Though she's just a touch broader in the chest; Solo's suburban Shopper dress doesn't zip quite closed on her.

Anatomy of a Dress: Garden Party

This one arrived as a mess.  Garden Party was the first garment that really needed stain remediation.

There was a huge blotch of... mildew? something?... right on the edge of the lace panel.  I soaked the dress in Retro Clean for a day, which got rid of the worst of it, followed by a spray of OxyClean Max Force and a vigorous hand washing in the sink with dish soap.  The stain isn't 100% gone... but maybe 90%?

It looks much better now, certainly!  (Also, weep for me: my stand has broken, making these pictures trickier because Barbies were not made to balance standing.)

And the back view.  This dress fastens with two snaps, one at the top of the overlap, the other at the waist.

Inside the gown, we see that the entire bodice is lined with a single piece of netting, including the darts, which are clipped open and pressed flat.

The skirt is narrower than the others we've seen, measuring 16.5" at the hem.

The five tiers of lace are sewn onto a backing of white muslin, which is hemmed just slightly wider than 1/8".  There are two lines of stitching down either side of the panel.  The first, presumably, was to catch down the lace edges so they didn't go all cattywampus during the second set of stitches, which attached the lace panel to the dress fabric.  Please note the rest of the skirt was hemmed later, and wider: the hem is 1/2" deep, with the foldover inside about 3/8" deep.  The edges of the lace panel are hidden inside the skirt hem.

The center back skirt seam is 1/2" wide, and the foldover-and-stitch-down hemming goes to just below where the tag is sewn on and the seam opens.  As you can see by the couple loose threads, the center back seam has started coming loose, so I'm going to take a needle and some white thread right now, and mend that.