Doll Photos

 I am trying to take more pictures of my dolls! I try to spend five minutes a day now changing an outfit or taking a picture in the backyard. It helps. 

I don't have to wait to have enormous amounts of free time to do something with the dolls!

Jess looks gorgeous in everything. She is the Doll Most Likely to Be on Cover OF Vogue and Then Become a Therapist.

I got Gwen's dress at the thrift store for $14! I love it so much!

I am not sure which dress this is that Danielle is wearing, but it's giving me 1920s vibes.

I'm going to put it on Claudie and Phryne Valancy too,

Joss is ready for summer!

I think that the Squishmallow looks like Jip and would be perfect to pair with Samantha's modern dress.

Speaking of which, here is Astrid modeling Felicity's modern dress. I love it. I want all four of them at this point.

I am just concerned about how difficult it will be to repair them when the elastic wears out.

Saige and Sam are modelling Cowboy Cool, as always. 

Pattern Review: Simplicity 9438 Regency Dresses

 I wanted to make some historical doll clothes for my cousin's daughter, but I didn't know what dolls the younger cousin has or what her favorite colors are.

I decided to make two Regency dresses using Simplicity pattern 9438.

One of the dresses is pink, and the other is white and purple.

Caroline is hiding from me currently, so I used Saige and Isabelle to model for me. I think Saige actually resembles Violet Bridgerton a bit.

I didn't change their shoes, haha, but the dresses are so long that you can't see Isabelle's ballet slippers or Saige's gold sandals.

The dresses were VERY easy to sew. It's a pretty basic pattern, but it is easy to make and it looks great!

Pattern Review: Liberty Jane Catalina Pattern

 I found this fabric, purple sparkled with gold, at the thrift store. I thought for a while about what to do with it.

I wanted something modern and classy, but not TOO dressy as it is cotton.

I found the Liberty Jane Catalina Crop Top printed out, and decided to give it a go.

I love the finished product! I  like this better than Saige's official hot pink fancy dress.

The bodice has 14 pieces, so it's a lot for a beginner. But it made sense and it came together easily.

I am glad that I had gold shoes (from Lea's collection) that went well with this dress!

Stockings

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hope that St. Nicolaus soon would be there."

My friend Rose gave the me photo prompt "Stockings."

That led me to sew four stockings from felt, from a pattern by Lee and Pearl.

The resulting pictures are very cute!

Apples

 Here's a nice autumn picture of Saige.

I really love this Irish outfit. It is perfect for autumn and for St. Patrick's Day!

123 Mulberry Street Drop Waist Pocket Tee Dress: Pattern Review

 I wanted to make more cute new clothes in a modern style.

I was happy to try the 123 Mulberry Street Drop Waist Pocket Tee.

The cutest part about this pattern is the pockets set into the skirt. I love realism like this in doll clothes.

For the first dress I made with this pattern, I was using a plain blue T-shirt. I wanted to accentuate the cutest part of the dress, the pockets. So I used scraps in a contrasting pattern for the backs of the pocket, to make them more visible, and to hem the sleeves.

Evette learns to sew and to reuse clothes in her books, so this outfit is perfect for her!

For the next two, I made the sleeves wrist length. My dolls like staying warm in winter too.

I love this dress for Saige because the hot air balloon pattern is so perfect for her. 

This was was more difficult to sew just because the fabric was more slippery. Still cute.

My CYO Danielle is the model here, and I think she looks like a librarian in this outfit.

I really like this pattern.

Product Review: S'more Fun Camping Set

 I found that I could not resist the S'more Fun Camping Set from American Girl.

I was in Girl Scouts, and I really loved it.

Also, in the past long, cold winter with social distancing, the one thing I really wanted to do was to invite some friends over to toast marshmallows, but they lived too far away.

The set comes with a tent, a sleeping bag, a campfire, a s'more, marshmallows on a stick, a camping pie iron, and pie.

Here are pictures of the box. I don't keep boxes, but I take a picture for the blog.

Here is the tent. It can hold two dolls easily. It requires minimal assembly. The tent poles are already in there, you just have to pop them into their sockets.

The fire is pretty cool, you can put batteries in and it lights up and crackles. I don't care about the sound effects, I am too hard of hearing to tell the difference.

You needed a screw driver to put the batteries in to make it light up, so I didn't bother. I also worry about batteries corroding inside of toys.

I love the marshmallows on a stick and the s'more. The paint and size on them is very realistic. The s'more looks different on all four sides, and I love the realism.

If they ever put the s'more in a new series of the food blind bags, I would want at least two more.

And I think that this set would have been better with two s'mores and two marshmallows on sticks.

That would make it more fun to play with a pair of dolls.

A note on Anne: the doll on the right is my childhood doll Anne, A Girl of Today #6. I rarely fix her hair, but it was so hot and humid that I couldn't bear to see her hair loose, so I put it in a ponytail.

This picture shows the pie iron and the pie, which is interesting.

I consider myself a reasonable experienced Scout and camper, and I never saw a pie iron like this.

It seems like it would not be totally user friendly, especially for kids.

It's nicely made, but I would rather have more marshmallow sticks and s'mores in the set.

Or hot dogs.

Something more common and kid-friendly.

Tenney showed up to lead the campfire sing-along.

I never intended to keep Tenney as her book character. I think now that she is going to be Saige's best friend Tessa from the book, who does play the guitar. I am going to have to re-read Saige's books. 

But it fits! Tessa plays the guitar, I think she's blond in the movie, and I wanted to give Tenney a new name that starts with T as homage to her canonical character.

I love this camping set. It's not for year-round usage, at least not where I live, but it's very nicely made and it folds up to be smaller for storage. That's always a plus.

I think I will be using it for more doll shoots for sure!

As you can see, I didn't photograph the sleeping bag in this shoot, so I need to do that as well.

Pattern Review: Liberty Jane Oxford Square Coat

 I made the Liberty Jane Oxford Square coat for the first time.

I was really surprised by how fast and easy this pattern is.

The coat is not lined, only the hood is. You could add lining if you prefer.

I added half an inch to the front pattern piece so that the coat would close in the front. The original pattern is designed to be skintight, and that didn't sound comfy to me.

This coat looks great, is easy to make, and has a hood and pockets. Doll clothes need pockets, too!

It would be easy to add buttons or velcro as a closure.

This dark turquoise color looks great on Saige.

I am really happy with this coat!

Happy Halloween!

We are having an unusual Halloween today. We got a lot of snow!

Naturally, the dolls had to check it out.

Anne looks a little disappointed that it snowed.

Or maybe she is just distracted by that snowflake landing on her nose!

Saige didn't have a coat, but she put on a jacket and headed outside.

This is Danielle, and she has only been here for two days! I will be posting more about her later!

I hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween!

Pattern Review: Farmcookies Doo Wop Days 2

This dress is the second dress I made from the Farmcookies Doo Wop Days pattern.

I was not as pleased with this one, but it is partly my fault.

Okay, in the first place, I think I should have made a more narrow ribbon for the bodice decoration.

Rather than buying ribbon, I cut fabric, sewed it in a tube, turned it inside out, and ironed it.

My calculations were slightly off, it turned out wider than I intended, and I used it anyway.

Since I wasn't using ribbon, I did not make a bow, but that was intentional.

The neckline of the dress is curvy, and that is made by sewing the front fabric of the dress to a lining and turning it inside out.

I almost always have trouble with this coming out right when I made doll clothes, and this was sadly no exception.

However, that turned out to make almost no difference, because the neckline is so close to the doll's neck that it is barely visible in any case.

Still, I think it's not a bad dress at all. It's just one of those things where it frustrates me by not coming out exactly as I wanted it to.

Here are the first three dresses that I made with this fabric. They are all cute and unique!

Pretty Pictures

Here are some pictures I took of what the dolls were wearing before I changed their clothes.

They look so good!

Kit

 Anneliese

 Saige

 Kanani

Zia

 Kaya

Patio Furniture

I am so excited with my new doll patio furniture set!

I have had the table for a couple of years. I got it at Hobby Lobby. It is collapsible and lies flat for storage, which is awesome.

I went to look at the doll stuff at a Wal-Mart in the nearest large town to me, because a friend wants the Wal-Mart exclusive African-American rock climber Barbie.

I did not find the Barbie (no one seems to be able to actually find it in store) but I did find the My Life As Adirondack chairs!

They were $7 each, and a lovely shade of blue that matched the table I already had!
So naturally I had to have them. They had three there, and I bought two. Now I am questioning whether I should have gotten the third as well. They stack for storage, which is great.

The chairs seem very sturdy, and the price is great.

Jess and Saige enjoyed the set up!

Here is a close-up of Saige.

For some reason, I was having more trouble posing Jess than Saige to look natural in the chairs.

I look forward to using this a LOT to get good doll photographs as the weather gets nicer!

Just hanging out

Here are some pictures of Saige and Kanani, just because. They are both wearing purple.

 Saige is wearing the Travel in Style Dress with tights that did not come with it.

 Kanani is wearing the 123 Mulberry Street Baby Doll dress with leggings under it and the headband from the Travel in Style dress.

 They both look super cute.

Saige kept looking up during the photo shoot, whatever I did. Maybe she was looking for hot air balloons.

Pattern Review: 123 Mulberry Street Baby Doll Dress

I wanted to start sewing again, and I wanted a quick and easy project. And as it is December, I wanted a project WITH SLEEVES.

Wanting long sleeves really narrows your choices down.

I decided to go with 123 Mulberry Street's Baby Doll Dress. It has a choice of short sleeves and three quarter length sleeves.

To my eye, at least, it looks like a cute, trendy dress, maybe slightly on the young side of the spectrum.

It would look trendier with leggings underneath the dress, but I didn't have to energy to hunt for any.

It could also easily be used for a 60s dress for Melody.

This dress was a joy to make. It took me two hours total, so I was able to complete it before work.

I did not even have to read the instructions, which I hate.

I was very happy with this for a quick sewing project!

I think it looks cute with Saige's boots.

More swimsuit pictures!

These are just some fun pictures of the dolls in pairings of two or more in the swimsuits that I sewed.

Saige's Day in the Sun

I continue to love Saige's tunic outfit. It looks great on a number of dolls, but Saige gets to wear it sometimes too. I am a sucker for real embroidery on doll clothes.

Pattern Review: Vintique Designs Regency Ensemble

This is a dress I made several years ago, before I had a blog, so now I am featuring it here!

This dress is made from the Vintique Designs Regency Ensemble.

It's a very beautiful dress. From what I remember, it was easy to sew and follow the directions.

This shop only has two doll clothes patterns for American Girls. The other is the Vintique Designs Elegant Outerwear pattern, which includes a pelisse, spencer and bonnet.

They are worth checking out, give them a look!

Girls in white Dresses with blue satin Sashes

Okay, you got me, I am a huge Sound of Music fan.

I saw a dress made by Traci at Isn't She Dovely. It was white with a blue sash, using the Aspen Party Dress by Liberty Jane.