One Plane To Another

We spent a month with family and friends in England!  I took some handwork with me and promptly got it done, leading me to pivot to writing.  I ended up writing 30,000 words while on vacation!  Four of the last five chapters of my magnum opus that is going to end up being 205 chapters long.  I start posting those chapters next Friday.  Because we got back Thursday of last week, and Thursday of this week (ie, tomorrow), I hop on another plane to fly down to Los Angeles for Costume College!  So, I'm going to be busy on this Friday....

That said, one of the projects I took with me was this!

You may recognize the fabric from the Fiesta dress I made my Josefina doll, and the pattern from the green dress I made for Addy, both last year.  Truthfully, I've had this dress cut out and half finished for a long time, but what was stymieing me was applying the soutache braid.  My main sewing machine is a Singer 15 from the 1950s, and I was trying to find a foot that would allow me to machine sew the soutache trim on.

Such a thing does exist.  It's rare and costs over $150 when one comes up on the market.

So I finally accepted defeat and sewed all the skirt trim on by hand while in England.  It actually wasn't as bad as I'd been expecting, just slow.  Doing it on a doll size dress is... acceptable.  Backstitch works much better than running stitch.  But if I ever wanted to decorate something for myself with soutache, however, I would buy another, newer, machine that has a foot that can handle it, and dedicate it to that purpose.

Anyhow, the pattern is the Cape Island Dress by Kindred Threads, and while I have two tweaks to it (take some width out of the center of the front collar piece, and less foldback on one side of the skirt) it sews up very nicely.  I will probably use it again, as I have six yards of pink soutache to use up at some point....

But for now I need to go start packing for Costume College.

In and Out the Door

So at Jazzy's school I run Popcorn Fridays.  Which are apparently a modest but steady moneymaker for the PTA - I attended this month's meeting and saw the budget and it's a profit in the $400-500 range annually.  And there are some other parents (mostly moms, TBH) who are regular volunteers.  One of them, Jessica, expressed a wish for a Kirsten doll for her daughter before she ages out of such things, but she was having trouble finding one that wasn't too expensive.  I kept an eye out on Facebook Marketplace for a while and spotted a rather run-down Kirsten in a lot with five other dolls for $165.  (A brand-new Kirsten from American Girl right now runs $175.)  I checked with Jessica, bought the lot and got to rehabbing her.

I didn't get any before pictures, but she was covered in red and black marks, including a big black smudge right on her nose.  Her torso was stained.  Her hair was... let's say not great and leave it at that.

Final result:

I made her a set of underthings (chemise, pantalettes, and a tucked petticoat) as well as her birthday dress and apron.  I also made her school dress complete with shawl and some satin hair ribbons:

I dearly wish I had enough of that red to make another school dress because I now have two Kirstens of my own and only one school dress between them and this turned out rather well.  I am a bit proud of the shawl because the pattern called for a 16" square, halved diagonally, and the piece of fabric I found was only 13" wide.  So I cut it in half, matched the plaid, and hand-stitched it together to keep it perfectly on grain.  I still have the other half of the square to hem into a shawl for one of my girls.

I gave Kirsten to Jessica yesterday, when we were at the school making cotton candy for Field Day, and she seemed very happy with her.  Including the AG case I found at the thrift store for $10 the other week, she owes me $100.  Which is definitely not me pricing my labor for what it's worth, but I enjoyed the doll rehab and sewing work, and part of this was me doing a favor for a friend.  And it defrays the cost of the rest of that doll lot, which I haven't even really looked at yet.

Run as fast as you can, just to stay in place

Post title borrowed from Alice in Wonderland.

It has been... a busy six months.  I am not quite burning out but I am definitely feeling like I have too many balls in the air.  Thus I have told the Quilters By The Bay guild that I will not stand for re-election as secretary in July.  I've done it for six years; someone else can have a turn.  I have also stopped doing the Block of the Month for them, since routinely one person participated.  And who that person was varied from month to month.

I haven't done much too much sewing since my last post.  Only a pair of pajama bottoms for Wonderful Husband, and these two doll dresses.  I ended up using a glue stick on all the rick-rack for the blue dress, to get it to stay in place while I sewed it on.  My fingers got so sticky!

I have been volunteering a fair amount at the elementary school, being one of the docents for Hands On Art for Jazzy's class, and running Popcorn Friday for the whole school every week.

Costume College is coming up and I haven't sewn anything new for it this year.  Not that I'm ever the most creative and dedicated of attendees.  I go more to learn than to show off.

And I'm struggling to finish off my eight novels' worth of Tales of Arcadia epic fanfic.  I'm so close, but it feels like the nearer I get to the end, the slower I write.  I've got chapter 200 three-quarters done.  And I promised myself I wouldn't end up with another abandoned story.  I need to finish it, then I can pivot back to original writing.

Just got to find my mojo...

November Block Party

Apparently the Spools block was not a winner.  I had one person turn in one block.  Someone else told me that she loves that I do this for the guild.  (But she still doesn't participate....)

Anyhow, this month's block is another one that I pulled out of my archives and spruced (haha) up for sewing in the winter holiday season.

9 1/2” Tree Block

All seams are 1/4”.

For each block, cut:

• From a strip of 1 1/2” wide green fabric: a 1 1/2” square, a 2 1/2” strip, a 3 1/2” strip, a 4 1/2” strip, a 5 ½” strip, and a 6 1/2” strip
• From a strip of 1 1/2” wide light background fabric, cut TWO each: 1” strips, 1 1/2” squares, 2” strips, 2 1/2” strips, 6 1/2” strips. Also cut FOUR 3” strips
• From the background fabric, cut two 2” x 9 1/2” strips
• Cut one 1 1/2” square, of brown fabric

To make the block: Sew the 1 1/2” x 3” light strips to either side of the brown and green squares; the 1 1/2” x 2 1/2” light strips to either side of the 1 1/2” x 2 1/2” green strip; the 1 1/2” x 2” light strips to either side of the 1 1/2” x 3 1/2” green strip; the 1 1/2” light squares to either side of the 1 1/2” x 4 1/2” green strip; and the 1” x 1 1/2” light strips to either side of the 1 1/2” x 5 1/2” green strip.

Assemble these strips with the green sequentially growing wider, as pictured. Sew the 6 1/2” green strip to the bottom, then the strip with the brown “trunk” beneath that. Sew one 1 1/2” x 6 1/2” background strip beneath the pieced “trunk” strip, and the other on the top of the tree. Sew the remaining two strips (2” x 9 1/2”) to the sides. Press. Finished block should measure 9 1/2” square.

Bonus difficulty level!

Decorate your tree! Use rickrack or ribbon, embroidery or beads, sequins or buttons, to dress up your block as fancy as you want.

This Is Halloween

The boys wore their black-dragon-with-red-wing-insets and HTTYD Toothless costumes that I had made them in years previous.  With the loss of JoAnn Fabrics, it is a lot harder to browse pattern books and pick up material to make... well, just about anything these days!  Michaels claims to be filling the gap, but they're really, really not, and I refuse to set foot in Hobby Lobby for the same moral reason I will not eat at Chik-Fil-A.

So, because the costumes are hoodie style, I won't be putting pictures of the boys up.  I do not share their images online.  But what I can share are this year's jack-o-lanterns!

Jazzy went for scary!  He drew it; I carved it.

Squiddle also went for spooky vibes.  He carved his himself, though I did clear away some of the extra interior flesh to let the light shine brighter through the openings

My pumpkin ended up looking a bit skull-like, so I followed the contours for the carving and ended up with this goofy fellow.

And Wonderful Husband went for representational art.  Pikachu!

Also, this year it was absolutely downpouring all evening.  We usually get north of forty trick-or-treaters.  This year we eked out a mere thirty.  Needless to say, Wonderful Husband's Candypult did not get used.  Ah well, next year....

October Block Party

6 1/2” x 8 1/2” Spool Block

For each block, cut:

• Two 6 1/2” x 1 1/2” rectangles of brown or tan fabric
• Two 6 1/2” x 1 1/2” rectangles of white or cream background fabric
• Four 1 1/2” squares of white or cream background fabric
• Six 4 1/2” x 1 1/2” rectangles of the color of your choice

To make the block:

Place the 1 1/2” squares on the ends of the brown/tan rectangles. Sew diagonally, making sure to sew each seam in an opposite direction. You want trapezoids, not parallelograms! Trim the seams 1/4” beyond the seamline, and press. Sew the six colored rectangles together, making the “thread” on the spool. Press. Sew a white/cream rectangle to either side of the “thread”. Stitch the spool ends to either end of the block. Finished block should measure 6 1/2” x 8 1/2”.

Variation 1: To make the block simpler, instead of the six colored rectangles, use a 4 1/2” x 6 1/2” rectangle.

Variation: To make the block more complex, instead of the six colored rectangles, try string-piecing a 4 1/2” x 6 1/2” rectangle.

Steamer Trunk

So, "totes out in the garage" is not an ideal form of doll clothing storage.  This summer at Costume College I took a wonderful class by Heather Dill-Tullo about how to customize the interior of a wheeled steamer trunk to be proper costumer's luggage, and I've been on a lookout at thrift stores ever since.  I'm not paying $90 at Home Depot for a trunk!  And a month or so ago I found one, in good condition, for $15.  A half-inch dowel was about $3, and a packet of 3/4" #7 screws was $2.  Which turned into this:

I have some adhesive hooks coming so I can hang a few more things on the interior of the lid, and some luggage feet since currently the back of the trunk, due to having wheels, is not flush on the ground, but the lid is.

And I'll keep my eyes open for another trunk or two since this is by all means not all my doll clothes....

September Block Party

Last month no one turned in blocks.  This month one person turned in blocks.  I am going to give Block Party until the end of the year, but if it keeps up like this, I'm just going to drop it. :/

Meanwhile, here's the block I did for the guild for this month!  I'm very much cribbing from my old work this time, as I copied it from the block party I did for the Orange County Quilt Guild in October of 2016.

9 1/2” Framed Pumpkin

For each block, cut:

• Four 1 1/2” squares, two 1 1/2” x 3” strips, two 1 1/2” x 6 1/2” strips, and two 2” x 9 1/2” strips, all of black fabric
• One 1 1/2” square, of either green or brown fabric
• One 6 1/2” square, of orange fabric or Halloween novelty fabric

To make the block:

Using the stitch-and-flip method, sew the four black squares diagonally to the corners of the orange square, making a Snowball block. Trim excess fabric 1/4” from the seamline and press the triangles outward , making a 6 1/2” square.

Sew the 1 1/2” x 3” strips to either side of the 1 1/2” green or brown square. Attach this strip to one side of the orange-and-black octagon.

Sew one 1 1/2” x 6 1/2” black strip atop the pieced “stem” strip, and the other on the bottom of the pumpkin. Sew the remaining two strips (2” x 9 1/2”) to the sides of the pumpkin block. Press. Finished block should measure 9 1/2” square.

Bonus difficulty level!

If you wish to challenge yourself, try piecing the 6 1/2” orange square! Use a Nine-Patch made of 2 1/2” squares, strip piece the pumpkin with 1 1/2” strips, or build “made fabric” using crumb piecing.

In Sickness and Sewing

Ugh.  All the malefolk in the family had a head cold and I caught it last, starting on Thursday.  Kind of putting a damper on Wonderful Husband's birthday on Friday.  He will be getting a rain check for cake and nice dinner later this week.  Last night I thought I actually felt human again - only to have that myth dispelled overnight.  Ah well.  Sleep is for the weak, or something.

I am still trying to get a functional braiding foot and connector set for my very basic low shank Singer sewing machine, so the second dress from the roses fabric remains on hold until that arrives.  However, I did manage to cut out the gathered variant of that dress in a different fabric and spent pretty much all of yesterday sewing it.

This was a third of a yard of quilting cotton I got at the CTA sale; there's enough left that I might be able to eke out a little handbag for Addy to carry her things in.  When sewing for dolls, the scale of the print you're using is important!  The pattern is, once again, Kindred Threads' Cape Island Dress.

The neckline of this dress is a touch wider than I like; I have to arrange it carefully on my Addy doll to keep her shoulder joints from showing.  I might try making it again and stay-stitching the neck pieces first thing, so that handling them doesn't stretch the bias any.  The pleats in the waistband make stitching it to the skirt a bit tricky, and I dislike the second row of gathering stitches in the skirt and bodice pieces being outside of the seam allowance.  I know it's period, and that often the visible gathering stitches were left in (I've seen, memorably, a First Lady's dress that still had them in), but I don't like it, and taking them out after everything was sewn was annoying.

That said, the pattern went together well, and will probably go together faster the next time I make it.  When I'm not 90% made of mucus.  And I'm very happy that I live in a US state that isn't willfully stupid about science, because I've made our family appointments to get our flu and covid shots next weekend, to help minimize future illnesses.

Folklorico

I finally finished the Fiesta dress!

In hindsight perhaps it's a bit plain and could have used a few more rows of trim?  I think it looks slightly better in person than in the photo, however.

The pattern is well-written.  My only arguments with constructing this dress were the moments when the fabric decided to pleat itself horizontally into a horizontal seam and I had to rip out a section and resew it.  Other than that (and running out of ribbon halfway through), I've absolutely no complaints.  I will probably make another version of this in the future.

I have also survived Cake Week!  Squiddle and Jazzy have birthdays three days apart, so a cake for each of them, plus a bigger cake for the family party yesterday.  All three cakes ended up looking more or less like this, except differently shaped (one square, one star, one circle):

And I went to the CTA sewing room sale where I might have spent $42 on the $2/lb fabric and $19 on notions, a couple embroidery frames, and a finished embroidery piece.... ^_^;;  Oh well.  More stuff to sew!

Since the braiding foot has finally arrived, I'd better get to it, and work more on that Cape Island dress, made out of the same fabric as the Fiesta dress.  Onward!

Swimming Upstream

Sometimes projects feel like they've unionized against you.  First I ran out of the ribbon I was using for the Fiesta dress.  Okay, I found a likely match and ordered it and moved to cutting out and sewing the Cape Island dress.  Only to discover that the vintage Singer underbraider and quilting foot that were supposed to work for applying soutache braid... for some reason don't.

So I sighed and ordered a modern braiding foot.  Or thought I did.  I hand-stitched the soutache to the short bodice seams and the sleeve hems.  Two days later realized I hadn't actually hit the "confirm order" button on the website.  So the foot won't be here for another week.

But!  The replacement ribbon for the Fiesta dress has arrived today, and it's a match, so I can continue on with that dress, and after it's finished, cut something else out of this floral (I'm hoping to get four distinct dresses out of this bit of yardage) to move on with in the meantime.

In real life news, Squiddle is twelve today!  One of the two best things I've ever made.  And for his birthday, the school district gave him (and the two other boys in his grade that live in our housing tract) a bus stop he can actually walk to!  So between that and Jazzy being literally picked up and dropped off from our house, I am practically a lady of leisure once I've got them off to school each day.  That said, the early mornings to get them to school are still doing me in.  I've had to take a nap every day so far....

August's Block Party

It's the first day of school, and the house is so... quiet.  (Bar the Roomba whirring away downstairs.)  I am 1.5 loads of laundry into today's 4.5 loads and have been up since stupid o'clock because sometimes your body needs to use the facilities in the middle of the night and won't let you get back to sleep and finally, half an hour before your alarm, you decide "F--- it, I might as well get some work done."

That being said, I am planning on skipping today's meeting of the Gig Harbor Quilt Guild.  I haven't been all summer because children at home, but (a) I haven't completed the blocks for today's meeting activity, and (b) Squiddle now starts and ends school 45 minutes earlier and his bus stop is NOT one he can safely walk home from.  (It involves crossing the highway twice.  I am not pleased with the school transportation district over this.)  So I don't want to risk being late.

Instead, I plan to cut out another doll dress (I ran out of ribbon for the Fiesta dress I was making, and must wait for more to arrive), possibly vacuum, possibly scrub a bathroom clean, and/or possibly finish the newest chapter of my fanfic.  In the meantime, here is the Block Party pattern I gave the Quilters by the Bay for this month:

10 1/2” Framed Ohio Star

For each block, cut:

• Four 2 1/2” squares white or white-base background fabric
• Six 2 7/8” squares white or white-base background fabric, cut once diagonally
• Four 2 7/8” squares green fabric, cut once diagonally
• Two 2 7/8” squares of yellow fabric, cut once diagonally
• Two 1 1/2” x 8 1/2” rectangles green fabric
• Two 1 1/2” x 10 1/2” rectangles green fabric

(Alternately, the half-square triangles can be cut from 2 1/2” strips using an Easy Angle or equivalent ruler. The star points can also be constructed as Flying Geese, using the same method.)

To make the block:

Sew each green or yellow triangle to a white triangle, stitching along the bias/hypotenuse/long edge. Press the seams toward the colored part of the square and trim all dog ears.

Lay out the squares as in the image above, with the green fabric making the star points, and the yellow fabric making the center of the block. Sew together in rows. Press seams as desired. Tip: pressing each row’s seams in the opposite direction of the row next to it will help them nest better! Stitch the rows together and press the long seams as desired.

Attach the 1 1/2” x 8 1/2” rectangles to opposite sides of the block. Press seams outward. Attach the 1 1/2” x 10 1/2” rectangles to the remaining sides. Press seams outward. Square to 10 1/2”.

Bring up to ten blocks to the guild’s monthly meeting to enter into the Block Party drawing.

July's Block Party

For the past couple years I had been running a Charity Scrap Block thing for my guild, wherein each month I did up a pattern and brought in one of the tubs of scraps that I hold onto for the guild, and the members would bring in blocks the next month, to eventually be made into charity quilts.  But the blocks being made and turned in trickled to... zero.

So I rejiggered, and now it's retooled into a Block Party, where theoretically one or more people walks away with all the blocks being made.  We'll see if avarice is a greater motivator than greed, or something?  I say that, because zero blocks got turned in (again) at this month's meeting.  But it wasn't a very dynamic block, and it was the annual picnic, so... we'll see how next month goes.  But in case anyone's interested, here's July's block:

12 1/2” Neopolitan Pinwheel

For each block, cut:

• Four 3 7/8” squares of pink fabric, cut in half diagonally
• Two 3 7/8” squares of brown fabric, cut in half diagonally
• Two 3 7/8” squares of a different brown fabric, cut in half diagonally
• Eight 3 7/8” squares of cream/off-white background fabric, cut in half diagonally

(Alternately, the half-square triangles can be cut from 3 1/2” strips using an Easy Angle or equivalent ruler.)

To make the block:

Sew each pink or brown triangle to a cream triangle, stitching along the bias/hypotenuse/long edge. Press the seams toward the colored part of the square and trim all dog ears.

Lay out the squares as in the image above, with the pink fabric making the main pinwheel, and the two browns making the half-pinwheel and corners. Sew together in rows. Press seams as desired. Tip: pressing each row’s seams in the opposite direction of the row next to it will help them nest better! Stitch the rows together and press the long seams as desired.

Square to 12 1/2”. Congratulations! You have made a block! Bring up to ten blocks to the guild’s monthly meeting to enter into the Block Party drawing.

The "B" Bag

Some months ago, my mother and I were exploring up in Port Townsend.  Among other stops, we popped into Quilted Strait, a glorious quilt shop.  We browsed and I found a couple pieces of fabric, and she was quite taken by a purse they had.  I saw that they had a kit, and asked her if she would like me to make it for her Mother's Day gift.

(Please note that we are now some months beyond Mother's Day....)

She said yes, I bought the kit, and sourced some Soft & Stable purse stabilizer from one of my quilt guilds.

The purse in question is the "Midi" size of The "B" Bag.

I added two internal patch pockets that the pattern does not include.  Just fuss-cut out a pair of the birds from the exterior and measured it to fit.  They are entirely hand-sewn on.

I figured that way, she won't have to hunt for her phone or keys in the bottom of the purse.

Overall, I like the pattern, and I have enough Soft & Stable to make another one.  But I wish I'd known going in that the two halves are joined by hand-sewing.

In any case, the purse is finished, and ready to very belatedly deliver to my mother when I see her on Friday.

Kirsten's Kerchief

The first of the post-CoCo WIP finishes.  I felt it was ridiculous to pay eBay prices for an AG doll accessory I could make myself.  I asked on one of the Discord servers I'm on if anyone would be willing to give me the dimensions for Kirsten's handkerchief, and then grabbed one of my copious scraps of linen.  I pulled threads to make my outline (3.25" square) and tried to match sewing thread and embroidery floss to the dress it goes with.

I had to pull out and redo the cross stitches three or four times before I found the right spacing (~8mm per X).  On the back, the embroidery stitches are completely covered by the folded hem.  And I went just a touch better than the AG-made handkerchiefs because I mitered the corners and hand-sewed them closed rather than just folding the fabric.  Something about the little demon in the back of my head hissing "Standards," at me. ^_^

CoCo25 Wrap-Up

At the beginning of the month, I attended Costume College!  I had a blast and managed nutritional things somewhat better than last year.  I am even thinking about resuming teaching next year, though it would probably be lectures not hands-on workshops.  OTOH, if I did workshops, I could lug supplies down and the space in my luggage would then be empty for whatever I acquired at college....  Gonna need to think about that, and about what I might want to teach.

Anyhow!  About two weeks before College, I got a bug in my ear to make something new to wear.  About one week before College, I'd gone through my patterns and stash and made a decision: Simplicity 9699.  Which I did have to size up.  But I made my alterations and sewed and sewed and sewed.  The result:

The shoes are Clementines by American Duchess, which I'd bought on pre-order.  The rest of the outfit was made to more-or-less match.  I admit to hand-sewing endless miles of the white daisy trim (added for a touch of that 1950s kitsch look) between the two navy stripes on the skirt in the airport, on the plane, and in the hotel lobby!  And also hand-sewing the buttons and buttonholes of the jacket at the hotel.  But it's very comfy and I'm quite pleased with the result.  I also rewore my two 1920s dresses from last year.  I think I'm losing weight?  Or at least inches?  My '20s corset wasn't as snug as I remember.

And as you may guess from the background of the photo, I did go to the American Girl store in LA.  On Sunday, after College was over, when I was having dinner out with my writing group friends.  We got there about an hour before closing, so the upstairs was closed and I did not get to browse the books section. :(  I did not break the bank, just got a small tiara for my dollies, an AGLA patch to sew onto something, and a packet of doll clothes hangers.  Good thing too, since my luggage was stuffed from the Marketplace, Trunk Show, and Bargain Basement!

At College, I took beginning workshops on tatting and fingerloop braiding.  I also attended a good variety of lectures - everything from eco-dying to mid-century hairstyling to a fascinating class on Scythians.  I'm not sure yet how a good portion of it will be useful, but that's the glory of the creative process: you never know when something will spark something else.

My roommate (Bunny) and I got along well, in a quiet way, despite having never met before, and we've agreed to room together again next year.  I got to talk with a nice array of fellow costumers while hanging out in the Lounge, and a niggling idea or two is fermenting in the back of my skull.  We'll see if anything comes of it.  I did not attend any of the "big" events but I never do.  There's always too much background noise for me to hear what anyone is saying, and my particular brand of social anxiety kills the rest of the enjoyment for me.  But I got my projects finished, and read the three books I'd brought with me, so it's not like I was staring at the walls in the meantime.

And then I got home and spent a day washing and ironing everything and putting it away!  Since then I've been slowly tackling my WIPs.  So many projects to finish, before I start new ones.  Plus blackberry season has just started....

Sweet Molly Silver-Eye

My Molly is a Pleasant Company doll and notably thicker than my AG dolls that were made by Mattel.  It's not just a matter of more stuffing in her body, either.  I tried on her an outfit that I'd made from the "Molly's Pretty Clothes" pattern and it not only did not close in the back, it wouldn't close around her wrists either!  So, she has a different (thicker) arm mold than my other dolls.  I'm not yet certain what style of clothing I want to be making for her.  Most of her "canon" clothes don't appeal to me, stylistically.  But since I still have a bunch of linen scraps, I decided to give the blouse pattern another go, adding a quarter inch to the back and wrists.  I may have made the blouse just a bit twee with the lace and pearlized heart buttons.

The jumper dress was from Butterick 6508, circa 1998.  It came out looking pretty much like I'd envisioned, which is good.  The bit of quilting cotton I made it from didn't have enough material for the facing too, so I got to use up another fabric scrap!  And I learned a new way to apply velcro.

In other "fun" news, our dining table has been having a few small problems...

The table is about 40 years old, and made of oak.  It's been moved from California to Washington back to California and now back to Washington again in that time!  I really don't want to replace it because getting something of equal quality will be exorbitant.  What seems to have happened is that several of the corrugated fasteners (little wiggly metal strips) that hold the eight base sections together have either snapped or worked their way out.  In theory, it should be an easy fix: buy new corrugated fasteners and the gun to apply them.  That will cost about $200 and be a tool we're unlikely to use again.  But $200 will be cheaper than a new table, so....

Second Draft, AG Laura Ashley Dress

A slightly closer-to-illustration version of the dress.  I raised the waistband and lengthened the skirt accordingly.  I also gathered the sleeves into bands and narrowed the collar by 1/4".  I think this is almost ready to cut out of my desired fabric now.  All I need to do is alter the Peter Pan collar into a pointed collar, and I've already drafted out that changed pattern piece.

Of course, what I should be working on is that purse for my mother, and a new dress for Costume College...

Two Projects

In an effort to tame my stack of "washed, ready to be made into projects" fabrics, I pulled out a couple to start with something easy: yet another skirt for Josefina.

These two cotton fabrics came from the treasure table at the Gig Harbor Quilt Guild two months ago.  (I had a dental appointment that conflicted with last month's meeting.)  There was just enough of the darker blue once I straightened it to account for the stripes.  I have a bit more left of the lighter blue.  Together, they remind me of sea glass, which is a pleasing combination.  Her linen camisa was made by me some months ago; her sash is from her Meet outfit, which I am slowly piecemealing together.

I'm using my doll sewing to finally get used to my serger.  I will admit it makes seam finishes so easy!  But for anything which really needs pinning, I'm still sewing the main seam on my Singer then going over it again with the serger, which seems... redundant.  But I still feel more confident that way.  I can't pull out the pins at the last second or sew over them on the serger!  (Plus taking out the seam, if I need to, is a much bigger PITA.)

Project number two is a bit trickier!  A few months ago, I saw this picture on the American Girl Reddit forum I lurk on:

I initially thought the image on the right must be a screencap from a 1980s/1990s TV show, possibly Full House or the like.  But I thrifted Courtney's first book the other week, and apparently it's art from that!  So this is a canon dress for her that American Girl has just... never made.  Ever since I saw the picture, I've been on the hunt for the fabric on the left, as it's a quilting cotton I've seen any number of times over the years.  And a piece of it finally turned up for me at the guild's storage destashing thing a few weeks ago.  But as I only have a limited amount of it, I wanted to get the pattern down before cutting into it.  So I pulled one of the other appropriate 1980s fabrics and set to Frankensteining a pattern.  Mostly I used the blouse from the Molly's Pretty Clothes as this dress is so very 1980s mashup: 1940s sleeves and collar paired with a 1920s dropped waist, etc.  I shortened the sleeves and lengthened the body and added a skirt twice the width of the body, and this is the first draft iteration:

It's not horrible, but it's not just right either.  I need to raise the waistline back up a little and lengthen the skirt accordingly, narrow and reshape the collar, and narrow the sleeves.  And possibly make them a hair shorter!  But the scrunchie turned out well on first try, at least - 3"x11.5" with 4.5" of elastic inside, overlapped by .25".  I have enough of this fabric to do another iteration, possibly two, of the dress.  In the meantime, even though it's not exactly what I wanted, this is a well-made and serviceable garment, and I shall give it and the matching scrunchie to my neighbor girl Violet, who is also into dolls and will be moving away this weekend. 😢

Either before or after I get this pattern working, my next project will be the long-delayed purse I am making my mother for her Mother's Day gift.  But my Uncle Giant's memorial service is this weekend, so I think it's perhaps understandable that I've been sewing on something other than what I should be.  Avoidance tactics are sometimes key to survival, on so many levels.

Fake It

Having a love/hate relationship (as so many do) with American Girl prices, whether brand new or on the secondhand market, I decided to take a stab at sewing Kirsten's birthday dress from her Pretty Clothes pattern.  I had a fat quarter of pink gingham on hand, which wasn't quite wide enough, so I had to piece the skirt, and the whole thing went on hold for a while until I was able to find some 1/8" white ribbon for the sleeve bows, since I was never going to find cording the right size...

But overall, I think it turned out pretty cute!  Even if I did have to hand-sew the baby rick-rack on the sleeves.  In a bit, I might try making another iteration of the dress, since I now** have some yardage of that dusty pink that was popular in the late '80s (when this doll first came out) and I think that might match the ribbon on her flower crown a little better.  (The flower crown was purchased from a Chinese "gray market" eBay seller, and is manufacturer's overstock from when AG rereleased this outfit last year.)  And the apron I sewed some months ago, when I was first starting to sew doll clothing.

**Last weekend I helped one of my quilt guilds do a cleanup of our storage units, preparing to combine the guild's two units into one before the facility hikes prices later this year.  A lot of dated fabric that no one wanted got donated to Value Village.  I got to rummage through it all first and pulled out some pieces that I thought would be good for doll clothes etc. ^_^  Win-win - more space for the guild, and some fabric that I'm excited to play with for me.