I’ve been sewing clothes for my dolls again recently – I’ll show you when something is done. There’s a lot of handwork on this particular couturier gown! – and went looking for a video I watched a long while ago. I found a trove of videos made by Mattel for Silkstone Barbies which show fantastic dioramas.
This one from 2012 is called Behind the Scenes of the Atelier. It features the five new dolls, but also a really terrific diorama. It’s like a visit to a Paris couturier in the 1950’s. This is a longer video with some behind-the-scenes commentary from the designer, Robert Best.
The 2015 video – again showcasing five new dolls – takes us to a runway show at a Paris couturier. There’s also a quick visit to the atelier again. I love the colour choices, how the backgrounds are all black and cream (hello, Coco Chanel) so that the dolls really contrast.
There are six dolls showcased in the 2013 video (there was a new Ken that year plus five Barbies) on a ship similar to the Titanic. This one has a fashion editor voiceover and is sepia-toned.
The 2011 video showcases five dolls, and the diorama setting is a train station – the train being the Trans Siberian Express. it reminds me of the opening scenes of the movie Murder on the Orient Express, the one with Michael York.
This video from 2014 spotlights one doll (Fiorella) in an Italian town. I like how it starts in black-and-white then changes to colour.
And this is the one I was looking for in the first place! It’s from 2016 and is the reason my girls now have a Vespa. (Who knew such a thing existed in 1/6 scale?) Again, there are five new dolls, photographed this time in a photographer’s loft – but check out the Paris streetscape! That’s a diorama. I would love the opportunity to explore it more closely.
I went hunting about information about the artist(s) who built the dioramas or any sites that show the dioramas in more detail. There is this video showing the artists building the Russian train diarama, which is huge!
I also discovered that the Silkstone Barbie Fashion Model Collection is coming back, according to Robert Best, which is awesome news. I can’t wait to see what he designs for the girls next.
There were four dolls in 2019, of which I bought only Best in Black, and three in 2020. I bought Best to a Tea. The Gala’s Best is usually listed as the last Silkstone Barbie, but she won’t be any longer. These two are also the only two articulated Silkstones in my collection – this body sculpt is thinner than the original Silkstone doll.
2019 Barbie Silkstone Best in Black
2020 Barbie Silkstone Best to a Tea
2020 Barbie Silkstone The Gala’s Best
Here’s a reference website showing an inventory of all Barbies. FYI, clicking on the images takes you to eBay instead of a larger version of the image. Here’s the Silkstone page.
I should have a finished ball gown to show you soon. 🙂
My post is a bit late today, because it took me a bit to get all the pictures taken and edited this morning! But here we go.
McCalls 3701 is another out-of-print pattern for Tyler Wentworth and other 16″ dolls. It includes a straight skirt, a jacket and a blouse that’s actually a bodysuit.
Here’s the line drawing for the jacket, which is the part that interests me.
But argh. It’s another digital download without a scale for reference. This time, I had a plan. I printed, cut and quickly assembled a test jacket from scrap fabric. Actually, I ended up doing this three times – printing the pattern at 100%, at 110% and at 115%. I sewed the samples out of plain cotton and cut off the hems. I also left off the collar since it was the main proportions I wanted to get right.
100%
110%
115%
You can see that the 100% version is just too small. The 110% one is a better fit, even though the shoulders are starting to get wide. (Maybe that was a 90’s thing.) The sleeves are still too short and the center front line can’t be brought together over the bust. At 115%, we have a much better fit over the bust – the CF can be brought together until just below the bust, which might be a design choice. The sleeves are still too short. I sewed a mock-up of the skirt at 115%, which she’s wearing in all three images. It was snug through the hips but otherwise fit okay, so I added 1/8″ to the side seams of each front and back piece for the final garment.
You might remember that in McCalls 3845, the sleeves were too short, too, AND they were too short on the DBDoll raincoat as well. This sent me down a rabbit hole, trying to establish whether the original dolls had slightly shorter arms. These are older patterns, after all, and show the original straight arm (SA) doll modelling the garments. Those dolls did have shorter arms, but not enough to explain this difference. The patterns were 1/4″ too short and the difference between the straight arm Tyler body sculpt (SA) and the bendable elbow Tyler body sculpt (BA) is maybe 1/8″. The bendable wrist Tyler body sculpt (BW) has arms the same length as the BA type. That ball joint at the elbow adds a bit of length but not enough to explain the issue with the patterns.
I still had to manually lengthen the sleeves and went with 3/8″. Here’s Sydney in the final suit:
There are buttons on the cuffs, too, which makes me happy. (I’m even happier that I had buttons of this design and colour in two sizes.)
You can see that it still tugs a little bit over the bust – that snap is visible. I think turn-of-cloth might have emphasized this more over the muslin, as the check fabric is thicker than the cotton used for the muslin—plus this final jacket is lined as well.
The skirt gave me some issues, the same issues as with this skirt for B, with a similar pleat design. The picture on the left is my version on B: the one on the right is the picture from the book. (Here’s the blog post about this suit for B.)
Double Breasted Suit
The pleat in the skirt is a reverse box pleat (on the suit for B, there are two of them), so if you line the skirt and sew the hem, then the center back seam, the lining and fabric will be together for the pleat. This is fine, but both of these patterns want the waistline turned into the inside – you can’t do that if the pleat is sewn from the top of the pleat to the waist. Hmm.
There are several possible solutions. The easiest one would be NOT to line the skirt. The second is to add a waistband to the skirt, which encases the seam allowances at the waist from both the lining and the main fabric. That’s what I did on Sydney’s suit. I cut a piece of fabric 1″ wide and 7″ long, then trimmed the ends. I think it’s a bit wide, finishing out at 1/4″, so would cut it at 7/8″ if I used this solution again.
The third option, which I thought of later, would be to add a facing at the waist, probably cut on the bias of the main fabric, that would be sewn to the top then turned to the inside. I’d have to sew the bottom edge of it to the lining by hand, but it would also make a nice edge and would retain the waistband-less design of the skirt. Next time. 🙂
You can also see a peek of cream silk in the first photo of Sydney and have a better view of the bodice in this one. I decided that she needed something under the jacket, so made a strapless blouse using the basic bodice pattern from the Fashion Doll Clothing book. I cut it of silk, then lined it – it has a pair of snaps on the back. It also fit perfectly the first time, which was awesome. Next time, I’ll make it a smidge longer. Ah, you can see the cuff buttons on this one!
It’s funny that I chose the same black and cream check for both double-breasted suits, but I do like how it finishes out with the black buttons. Sydney also has the perfect shoes. The one for Sydney has a better back closure on the skirt, too, because I added a tab of fabric to one back piece. Hmm. Methinks Sydney needs some black stockings. All the ones I have are nude (although she’s not wearing any in these pics.)
Phew. I have some silk chosen to make this suit again and will show you when that’s done. In the meantime, that bodice pattern – which has princess seams – has me thinking about ballgowns…
Remember this sewing pattern for Tyler Wentworth dolls, McCalls 3845? Well, I didn’t just make the purse from it. 🙂
The outfit on the left is a sleeveless dress with a jacket – they show the jacket with fur or feather trim. I used velveteen on mine.
Here’s the finished dinner suit. Red crepe, lined with black polyester with red polka dots. The collar and cuffs are black velveteen and I used two black rose beads on the fronts. I like a black purse with this one.
There were issues with this little suit. The first jacket I made was too small—the sleeves were too short and the fronts didn’t meet. I redrafted the pattern with longer sleeves and bigger front pieces so that they met up at the center-front. Since the pattern was a digital download, it’s possible that I didn’t print the pattern at the right % size originally. This is a tricky bit with digital downloads that don’t have any scale on them. I printed the pattern at 100% but that wasn’t right. At any rate, it’s mostly right now. (The sleeves are a bit too wide in this version.)
The red crepe wasn’t the best choice of fabric, since it’s pretty thick. That’s why the bolero doesn’t close when she has the dress on. It’s just bulky. (Without the dress, the jacket closes, but it’s a bit of a bold look.) The fabric was also stretchy in the crosswise direction, which made accuracy a challenge. I thought the fabric was the reason why the bodice didn’t fit as well as I would have liked. It’s just too wide at the top.
But no. I realized that there is a teensy mistake in the pattern.
This is the center piece for the bodice front. Usually, the printing on the pattern indicates the top and bottom by its direction – here, it looks like the larger edge should be the top. But the bodice doesn’t fit well into the top of the skirt this way, and the top gapes open on the final dress as you can see on the red dress above. On a whim, I turned it upside down for my second version of the dress and voilà! It’s PERFECT. So, the label on the pattern piece is upside down. Now, it has my handwritten labels on it. 🙂
Here’s the variation of the dress made by flaring the skirt, with the middle bodice piece the other way around. I cut it of the polka-dot polyester, lined with solid black. The plan was to give our girl an easy change of look with the jacket when she’s travelling. (You know how keen dolls are about globetrotting…)
Here’s the finished dress.
It fits MUCH better at the top front. The ruffle at the hem of the flared skirt is actually lingerie elastic trim, so it stretches, but it’s the perfect scale and it won’t be able to stretch now.
Of course, she needs a different purse for this outfit and I like the red one. 🙂
I also added a zipper to the back instead of the dress closing with snaps, which was bulky in the red version. There were a few tweaks to making that change – because the original closure with the snaps overlaps in the back, while the zipper means the back pieces just meet but don’t overlap. We’ll talk about that in a minute.
I ordered doll-sized invisible zippers online. The zipper has to be long enough to open over the widest point of the doll’s body – that’s her bum. 🙂 For a strapless dress for Tyler, I use a 10cm zipper. If the zipper went all the way to the nape, I’d use a 12cm one. Doll zippers tend to not have stops at the top – or maybe it’s just the ones I have – so it’s easy to zip them up with enthusiasm and end up with three pieces that won’t go back together. The first thing I do now before using a doll zipper is overcast a few stitches at the top of the teeth on each tape.
Because the pieces overlap in the original design, the seam allowances need to be reduced for the zipper. If the center back was marked on the pattern, this would be easy—you’d just make a new seam allowance from that. But the CB isn’t marked on this pattern and I didn’t want to guess since tiny increments can make a big difference with doll clothes. There’s a kind of a tab on the right back so I removed that, making both backs the same (mirror images of each other).
For the zippered back, I also changed the order of construction. The pattern instructions are to sew together all of the bodice pieces, then all of the skirt pieces, then sew them together at the waist and end up having only the center back seam open. Instead, I sewed all the front bodice pieces, then the front skirt, then sewed them together to complete the front. I sewed both back bodice pieces to their respective back skirt pieces, then inserted the zipper. It’s an invisible zipper, so it’s easier to set in when the back is flat. Once the zipper was in, I basted the side seams and tried the dress on the doll. I had to take a little bit extra out of the back to make it fit properly (that would be the seam allowance that I hadn’t already reduced), so I took it out of the side seams.
Here are the backs of the two dresses:
And yes, the red one should lap the other way. I realized I’d done it backwards after I’d wrestled the base of the slit into place (to minimize the gap). In fact, this exercise is what pushed me to trying the zipper – getting the overlap in place was frustrating and I don’t love the result. If the doll bends at the waist, the back gapes open, and there’s a lot of bulk at the center back with all those layers. The metal zipper stop on the black dress is still visible, a sign that I need to refine my invisible zipper installation technique.
As far as using the jacket with the flared dress, I ended up with a small problem – the red purse is an orange-red and the jacket is a cherry red. They don’t go together. (Fortunately, I had shoes in the right shade of red to match the purse!) I’ll cut out another jacket to go with the second dress. I finally found some fake fur that has a short enough nap for the dolls, so I’ll use that in black for the collar and cuffs, but am waffling about the fabric. Should it be solid black lined with polka dots, or polka dots lined with black? The polka dot polyester just feels a bit light for a jacket to me. Hmm.
A well-dressed doll needs accessories, but those little finishing details add up. I’ve yet to figure out what to do about shoes for my dolls – other than buying them for $$$ – but something fun happened recently with purses.
I bought a digital edition of this sewing pattern for Tyler Wentworth dolls, McCalls 3845. It’s out of print – I think it’s about 20 years old – so you can hunt down an old print copy or buy a digital download on Etsy which is (alas) unlikely to be a licensed and legal copy. I wish rights holders would make this older content available again but that seems unlikely to happen soon.
You can see that both dolls are carrying purses. You can’t really see the purse carried by the doll on the left in the dinner suit, beyond it being more square than the drawstring one.
Well, lo and behold, it’s kind of a Birkin bag.
Here’s the line drawing from the pattern instructions:
Hmm. You cut the bag from faux leather and add a buckle to the strap across the front that holds the flap closed.
I cut one from a square of fake leather. These came in a package at the dollar store – there are two each of five colours (black, brown, navy, caramel and red) for a couple of dollars. The squares are about 7.5″ x 7.5″. (20cm by 20cm) It took less than half of one to cut out a purse – you can see that I could cut at least one more from the same square. I used a rotary cutter and ruler, btw, to get the straps perfectly straight.
And here’s my first purse:
I think it’s adorable!
It was careful sewing – I slowed down the machine speed – but not that difficult. The toughest part was the corner of each side at the bottom front. I backtacked each stitching line, but I think next time, I’ll pull the theads to the inside of the bag and knot them.
The buckle is one I bought online from China so it’s probably the most expensive element. I ordered 40 more in mixed colours on Etsy for about $16 CA including shipping ($11CA plus $5 for shipping), since I’m using a lot of them. That makes them about 40 cents each. Individually, they’re more like 70 cents each plus shipping. It’s a necessary touch, though.
I’m thinking also that I could use a Sharpie to color the white edges that peek out, or even do one with a contrasting color. Hmm. I put a rolled Kleenex tissue in the bottom to support the shape. Overall, I’m pretty pleased by it.
I’ll be making some more purses from the squares with this pattern since those buckles have arrived. The girls need brown and caramel purses and I’ll try the navy with contrast cream stitching, too.
Next week, I’ll show you the little dinner suit finished. 🙂
I have been AWOL lately and apologize for that. August was insanely busy with a Kickstarter campaign to fulfill and a book to finish and publish—plus the usual August garden and canning to be done. I did some crafting, but didn’t take pictures—until now.
The girls scored some new chairs recently, and today’s the day to share.
I started with this tutorial and free pattern at Resin Rapture (who creates the most amazing dioramas. Go on and look. I’ll wait.) which is for a 1:6 scale chair. I downloaded the pattern and followed the instructions to make the chair and pad it. (It’s a lot harder than you’d think to cut foamboard so the edges are perfectly square.)
There are two options presented for upholstery, gluing the fabric on or making a slipcover. The pattern creator preferred a slipcover. I wasn’t so fussed about having a slipcover as the final finish, though. I don’t like them in real life , so didn’t want them for my dolls—and while it’s removable and washable, I think the chances of my washing a slipcover for a doll chair to be pretty low. (Non-existent, actually.) I watched the video from Bentley House Miniatures linked in the tutorial (it’s right here) for making and upholstering a 1:12 scale chair. The fabric is all glued onto the chair for the final finish.
It seems that when it comes to minis and making for dolls, there are people who glue and people who sew. I wanted the finish of the Bentley House mini, but I shared Resin Rapture’s concerns about glue and fabric. They don’t always play well together. So, I made my own combination—for this first one, I tried to ensure that all the glue was where it wouldn’t be visible.
I didn’t take in-progress pictures, so here’s the 1:6 finished chair.
I made my own pattern pieces for the chair covering – I liked how BHI worked from a rough shape and trimmed once they were in place, so I left a lot of excess to be trimmed later. I glued the front piece so that the glue was on the seat and under the front of the chair. Then I pressed down the two vertical edges on the back piece, and sewed it to the side pieces on the machine. After pressing the seams, I positioned it on the back of the chair, wrapped the fabric over top and bottom, and glued it in place on the inside back of the chair and under the bottom of the chair. I pulled the sides around and folded under the front edge beneath the arm rest (the straight vertical that meets the front) and put a teeny bit of glue on the seam allowance to secure that edge in place. I also turned the bottom edges under and glued them on the underside.
I trimmed the curved edges so that the seam allowance was about 3/4″, then clipped the curves and folded the fabric over the chair. The glue is only on the inside of the chair. I clamped some of these bits until they dried.
Here’s a Monster High doll in the chair with some mini-books. (That’s Elle Eedee, who arrived naked from the thrift store.)
I created a template for the inside of the sides, trimming it until it was the right height. The template is the size of the heavy fusible interfacing and the fusible webbing – for the fabric, I added 1/4″ all around. I fused the fabric (wrong side down) to the interfacing, then set the fusible webbing against the wrong side, turned in all the edges and pressed them in place. I had to be careful with this as there was fusible webbing exposed in the middle of each piece and you don’t want that stuff melted to your iron. I could have trimmed it so it was only on the edges and will do that next time. Then these two pieces were glued in place on the chair. Again, I used clamps until they were dry.
I modified the strips that run down each arm from the back of the chair, too. Once again, I used interfacing to make a finished strip of perfectly consistent width. I topstitched it on each side, turning under and topstitching one end. That one goes at the top. Then I glued it in place, counting on all those layers keeping the glue from seeping into view (and being pretty frugal with the glue, too.) I pushed pins into the foamboard down the length of these pieces – every 1/2″ or so, to hold each one in place – and left them until the glue was dry.
I made my two cushions – seat and back – but cutting them out of foamboard, then building them up with multiple layers of padding. I fussy-cut their upholstery from a contrasting fabric, glued it onto each cushion, then glued them in place. All the glue is between the cushion and the chair, where it will never be seen.
The legs are 1 cm dowels cut into 3 cm lengths, as specified in the original pattern, then “stained” with Sharpie marker. I did sand down the bottoms to give them a little shape. Because these legs are round instead of square, I added a bottom piece to the chair in foamboard to create more surface area for gluing the legs in place. (The pattern piece is the seat with the corners cut out of it.)
I added a little cushion, too. The Resin Rapture pattern also includes some book covers and a book template for the foamboard and I made these, but they’re not in the pic.
Here’s Jade Feelin’ Extra, enjoying some downtime in her new chair. (She’s my one and only Integrity Toys doll – I like her, but she’s very tall and skinny to me. She’s 12″ tall.) She’s nicked Elle’s books, which are these 1:12 scale fairy tale books (printable PDFs) from Etsy.
Next, modified the templates for my 1:4 girls and changed up my method.
I didn’t love the glue on the black chair since no matter how careful I was, I got some on the visible part of the fabric. (The solid black may have been a bad strategic choice.) It’s a water soluble glue, so I managed to get most of the offending bits off with a damp cloth. Still.
This time, I made the chair the same way and padded it the same way. I added some pieces inside the bottom of the chair to make a stop for the final piece that goes on the bottom. That also gives another edge for gluing it in place.
Then I made a slipcover our of teal velveteen, sewing it together on the machine but leaving the back piece unattached. That piece that runs down the top of the arms is tricky to fit in place, so I’m thinking about how it could be changed or simplified. I fitted it, adding more padding to the chair over the arms, then pinned it in place and sewed the back piece on by hand. (The foamboard is great this way as you can jab pins right into it to hold things in place.) The result is a lot like a slipcover, but more fitted and it’s never coming off. I then stretched the fabric tight over the bottom and glued it there, putting the glue on the inside bottom of the chair and using clamps to hold it until it dried. The legs are square this time, cut from a longer piece, sanded and stained with a Sharpie.
Here are the two chairs beside each other:
One mistake I made in my drafting of this variation of the pattern is that I didn’t trim enough from the width of the upholstery and cushions for the inside back and seat. They’re kind of fluffy and could have been trimmed down another 3/16″ or so.
This time, the cushions are actual fabric cushions, without any foamboard. Because velveteen doesn’t always love being against velveteen, I cut one side of each cushion from a cotton lawn with a teeny print that coordinates – turns out they’re reversible now, which is kind of neat. (And yes, there is a certain irony that I bought this lovely expensive lawn for a blouse for myself years ago, and the first cut out of it is for chair cushions for the girls. I need to start sewing for myself again!) And I made a little throw cushion of the velveteen. I’m thinking I might need to embeliish it.
The 1:6 girls wanted to try the big chair. (You can see that I could have padded the arms more.)
Here’s the completed chair, and here it is with Sydney, its rightful occupant in 1:4 scale.
I’m going to make another one upholstered in fake leather (because everyone loves a challenge, right?) but will make a few changes. I’ll cut the inside chair pieces narrower so they nestle in place better. I’ll also cut them of a plain cotton, maybe with fake leather pieces at top and bottom where that fabric might show. I’ll leave more fabric at the bottom of each piece for turning under, too. And I’m still thinking about how to modify that strip that goes down the arms. Hmm.
For now, though, the girls have somewhere to sit, although they’ll have to take turns.
I’ve also discovered that I really like making furniture for the girls out of foamboard.
I made a bookcase table (it doesn’t spin) and a bookcase, and have been making more books to fill it. Those books on the bookcase table and Sydney’s book are the ones from the Resin Rapture pattern, btw. I’m envisioning a library, so we’ll see how that goes.
This post has been sitting here in draft for over a year. My original plan was to share the pattern for this little cardigan, but I never pulled it together. It’s time to show off some of the results, though. The yarn links in this post go to Ravelry, just FYI.
First, here are my little Monster High Girls in their wee sweaters.
These cardigans were knit from the top down, in a variation of a pattern I made up for Barbie.
Because the sleeves are skinny, you have to take off their hands to put on a sweater. It’s cropped, so their belly-buttons show. (I could knit it longer but it’s kind of cute this way.)
Here are the sweaters:
The grey one has a ribbed collar and hem, ribbed button bands and ribbed cuffs. The raglan increases are done with make-one increases, which disappears more into the fabric.
The purple one has collar, hem, button bands and cuffs worked in reverse stockinette. The raglan increases are done with yarn-overs, which creates a little lacey pattern.
The front fastens with three snaps and the buttons are just for show.
As you can see, slight variations in yarn weight end up resulting in bigger differences. I knit both of these with the same needles and instructions. The purple one, though, is a teensy bit bigger because the yarn is a teensy bit thicker. The grey was knit with The Loving Path Fibre Arts High Twist Sock (that’s a Ravelry link) which has 424m in 100g and is classed on Ravelry as a light fingering. The purple was knit with Dragon Strings Sleipnir (another Rav link) which has 343m in 100g and is classed as fingering on Ravelry.
Here’s my Barbie version of this little cardigan in several variations:
These ones all have working buttons – there are buttonholes in the right fronts. And I made the increases in all of them with YOs. Again, they’re all knit on the same needles with the same stitch counts and you can see the variation in size. Starting from the top left, the green one is knit in Malabrigo Sock (the colourway is Rayon Vert) and is the smallest. Malabrigo Sock is put up in 100g hanks which have 402m. This sweater has 3/4 sleeves, which works out well for Barbie since her hands don’t come off. (I wrap her hands to get the sweaters on.)
The russet one to the right is knit of MadTosh Merino Light (384m in 100g) in Cardinal also with 3/4 sleeves. It’s bigger – 20m less in 100g makes a difference even when you’re only using 7g or so!
The deep blue one, with long sleeves, is knit from leftover Unique Sheep Luxe from my Celestarium Shawl. It has 366m in 100g, which makes it a bit thicker. This one is pretty bulky on the girls.
The blue and grey one is knit of Rowan Kidsilk Haze Stripe (colourway Cool) which has 421m to 50g – it knits up as if it’s much thicker, though, because of the halo. I used the stitch counts for the Barbie size and it’s kind of fun how the striping came out.
Here are the girls modelling two of them. The redhead is Dusk to Dawn Silkstone, who is skinnier than repro Barbie. The navy one is particularly big on her.
Here are two more cardigans which were adapted to fit Tyler Wentworth.
The purple one is knit of Shibui Knits Sock, which has 175m in 50g. I used the stitch counts for Barbie and realized it would be enormous after knitting the body. I stopped working on this one before knitting the sleeves, because it was so big. Recently, I realized it would fit Tyler – even with the Barbie stitch counts. It’s pretty snug for Tyler, so it’s a sweater to wear without a blouse underneath. I knit the sleeves longer on this one. (Like B, Tyler has to have her hands wrapped to get her sweater on.)
Finally, I recalculated the stitch counts for Tyler for the last one in mixed brown shades. It’s knit of Koigu KPPPM in colourway 513P – KPPPM is 175m for 50g. I knit this one a little longer and also did some back neck shaping to make the front of the collar sit better.
Here’s the last one on RTW Rouge Sydney Chase, with a matching dress.
I used the free pattern T-Shirt Dress for Tonner Dolls by Samira Jessica (that’s a Ravelry link) but divided the color. It’s a top-down knit with cap sleeves that are created when you cast off for the arms. I started with Sugar Bush Drizzle, held double, in Pink Puddle. At the waist, I changed to the Koigu KPPPM. I didn’t rib the skirt but just knit it in stockinette, then purled one row and cast off purlwise. I thought that might keep it from curling at the hem, but the hem still wants to roll up, even after blocking. I also added a little kickpleat at the center back. 🙂 If I knit it again, I’ll do some moss stitch at the hem.
I’ve been sewing for my Tyler Wentworth dolls again. This is the halter dress from Fashion Doll Clothing by Rosemarie Ionker. It’s fully lined and I’ve made three. Here are the first two:
The first is a quilting cotton floral in pink with a pink cotton voile lining. The second is a green quilting cotton with a green cotton voile lining.
Here are the backs:
They have a pair of snaps at the center back, then buttons just for show. You can see the difference in body types – Tyler on the left is the original SA body type (2002 Opera Gala Raven), while Tyler on the right is the BW body type, with more joints and pose-ability (2006 Look of the Season with a different wig). It’s interesting to me that one seems to suit more classic clothes and colours, while the other seems a little bolder. (Her raincoat isn’t quite done, but it’s faux-leather, which will give her a kind of Matrix look.)
These dolls looked like this in their original outfits:
2002 – Opera Gala Raven
2006 – Look of the Season
The third halter dress is made of a black floral rayon print and has a cotton voile lining in pink. It’s modelled here by another Tyler – 2001 Masquerade.
As you can see, a sundress requires a hat, so I bought this pattern from DBD for Brimmed Hat. (The link here and on the image will take you to their Etsy store.) I was really happy with their raincoat pattern, so went back for more.
The pattern calls for linen and I made this first one in black. I mucked up the directions a bit so the edging is a bit wider than it should be but it came out pretty well despite that. I also didn’t cut back the brim as instructed because a wanted a big glamorous hat.
Here’s the floral decoration on that first one.
2001 – Masquerade
And here’s Masquerade in her original dress. I thought it was red, but when she arrived, the dress proved to be coral.
I have another black hat and a white one cut out, as the girls seem to like them. I’m also going to try one in a light canvas, just to see. And I suspect we’ll need some tote bags, or everyone will be fighting over that red purse. 🙂
Hankie Couture is a book featuring dresses (and other outfits) made for Barbie (and other 11.5″ dolls) from vintage handkerchiefs. I’ve had this book for a few years now and finally found some hankies at the thrift store so I could experiment.
The image and the link above both go to the Amazon product page for the book. I have the paperback and (wow) it’s from 2011. I don’t think I’ve had it quite that long. Evidently there’s a new edition from 2019, too.
This book is very pretty, with LOTS of inspiration in the many many images of dolls styled with dresses etc. made from hankies. The disappointing thing is that it doesn’t have a ton of patterns, certainly not for all the outfits shown in the images. There are three bodices – a strapless bodice, a round-neck sleeveless bodice and a square-neck bodice with straps. All of these are attached to rectangular skirts. There’s a circle hat and a purse. All of these are pretty standard Barbie patterns – I have similar templates already in my stash. The one difference is that the strapless bodice pattern is way too big for Barbie. I used my repro vintage B as a model and usually modern patterns are too snug for her – she has the biggest bust of all Barbies – but I took half an inch out of the circumference of this pattern.
What did I make? Well, first I made the round neck dress from a hankie with a navy polka dot border.
Ha. This is fun. I photographed the outfits flat, the way Mattel used to sell outfits for B, then on the doll, too. Of course, I didn’t make the shoes but chose matchy ones from B’s shoe stash.
This hankie was a bit worn, so I used it first in case the dress didn’t come out well. I lined it with navy broadcloth, which makes it look a bit dull. It has a belt made of a narrow strip of the polka dots which is sewn on and has an in-scale buckle at the center front. I made a circle hat and a purse to go with it – the purse is lined and has ribbon handles – and think it came out pretty well.
Then I made a strapless dress from a turquoise hankie with big purple tulips on it. The hankie had a circular design, so I cut it following the curve and made a half-circle skirt. The pattern almost matched at the center back seam! Unfortunately, the hem on the hankie was too close for me to keep the entire white scalloped border – later I realized I could have unpicked the original hem to get more seam allowance. Oh well. – but I sewed the hem with a scalloped hemming stitch which I like.
This was the bodice that was too big – I was sewing on the snaps after doing all the finishing when I realized as much (grrr) so picked it all back and fixed it, adding a petticoat to the skirt at the same time since I had the waist taken apart. The petticoat is the striped part of hankie that I used to line the bodice with a bit of lace sewn on the hem. I still think the bodice is too long for her in the front, but will use another pattern in future.
I wanted to add a little bolero jacket but couldn’t find a pattern. There were two corners with a floral motif from the hankie after cutting the circular skirt, so I trimmed them into a curve and sewed them together for a shawl collar. I made up the rest of the jacket pattern and it came out reasonably well, considering that I’ve never done that before. I’ll tweak it before I make another. It needs a little more ease through the shoulders. There was nothing left for a purse, since the hankie had some stains, but she looks happy enough.
She also reminded me that she could wear this dress with her Kidsilk Haze shrug, which is all true.
Next, I tried the third and final bodice pattern. It’s identical to one I have from another pattern for B, so I knew it would fit. This time, B got a hat, a clutch purse and a bigger tote bag.
I put lace on the hem of the skirt and the edge of the tote bag, and used that yellow polka dot cotton as contrast. This one came out particularly well, IMO, but the hankie was really pretty. Bonus that I had red flowers in my stash that perfectly matched the ones on the hankie!
I folded up a tissue to put in the tote bag, to give it a bit of ballast against the top-heavy flowers. Mr. Math peeked inside then said “ah! she’s been to the fabric store!” which made me laugh.
Here are the two hats, which I made slightly differently. The hat with an open top is kind of an established style for B, not just because some have a ponytail like mine. It’s hard to make a closed hat fit B’s head and not look ginormous, because usually B has a lot of hair.
The one on the left is more like the instructions in the book – except that the author recommends a zigzag edge around the inner circle which would leave a raw edge. I turned in the edges instead (fiddle fiddle) then top-stitched around it. For the navy hat, I made a hat band of contrasting fabric, then sewed the two brims together along the seam line. I hand-sewed one edge of hat band to the flat brims of the hat, using that stitching line as a guide, then clipped the curves and put all the seam allowances insde the hat band before sewing the other edge over it all. I’m much MUCH happier with this version, although it was finicky. I also bound the outer edge of the navy one with a contrasting self-cut piece of bias – sewn to the outside, pressed very narrow, and hand sewn on the inside – and I like that too. (Even though, yes, there are a couple of red stitches showing on the outside where I made the binding wider on the inside.) In either case, there was a bunch of hand sewing to assemble the hat.
All in all, this was an interesting adventure. They’re fiddly makes, because they have to be completely lined, but I had fun. Of course, I have another one cut out on my sewing table, but then I’ll head back to sewing for the bigger dolls (or maybe even myself!)
I haven’t been watching tv at night during the past month, which means I haven’t been knitting in the evenings. This has slowed my progress a lot, but I’m casting off a sweater this week that I’ll be able to show you next week. Another one coming off the needles!
I have some new girls and have started to sew for them. They’re 16″ fashion dolls – I have three Tyler Wentworth dolls and two Alexandra Fairchild Ford dolls. (No doubt there will be more.) Here’s the first one who arrived – she’s Tyler Wentworth Opera Gala and she’s standing in front of the first of two wardrobes I’m building for the clothes of these girls:
The wardrobe is a chest from Michaels, which is standing on one side. (It’s the Large Gold Polka Dot Trunk from Ashland. That’s a Michaels Canada link, which will probably go 404 once they’ve sold out of this box, so I’ve included a screen shot of it here.) It has rope handles that knot inside – easy-peasy, I untied one and threaded it through the top eyelets to double the handle there. The eyelets on the bottom are covered by the paper lining. I put felt feet on the bottom, too.
This one was much easier to change to a wardrobe than the one I used for Barbie – and even better, the exterior print is just dots, so it doesn’t look like I turned it sideways. (If you remember the wardrobe for Barbie, the Eiffel Tower on the lid ended up on its side, so I had to paper the front, too.) Inside is one of those cosmetic storage drawer units from the dollar store, which is perfect for purses and belts. In this pic, I haven’t hung the bars for the hangers yet.
Here’s the pattern I’ve been sewing. It’s a DBDoll pattern called April Showers: Modern Trenchcoat, which has ruffled sleeves. That link is to Etsy, where I bought the pattern. (The hat, purse, and dress patterns are also available but are sold separately, which diminishes the chance of my buying them. I wish they offered a bundle of all four, but they don’t.)
It’s a very good pattern with lots of helpful suggestions for the construction. I learned some new tricks from it!
Below are my first two raincoats. The navy one on the left was made with the pattern as is. The interesting thing about 16″ dolls is that their proportions aren’t all the same (of course not!) and you can see that this coat is a bit short in the sleeves and the length for Tyler. It still needs the hem sewn in this picture, btw. (Yup, those are pins.) The fabric is a mystery-content that seems like outerwear in scale. It must have a lot of polyester because it was miserable to iron. The lining, which you can’t see, is a floral Liberty Tana Lawn.
I made some modifications for the coat on the right, cut of another mystery fabric which has a perfect pattern in scale. It’s black and white, literally one thread in each color alternating, and looks like a tiny check. It wonks out my eyes a bit to topstitch on this fabric, but it looks great in scale. (I made a suit for Barbie of it, too.) I made some modifications for this coat: I lengthened the coat by 1/2″ and moved the pocket flaps down 1/2″. I also made the lapels and collar pointed instead of rounded and changed out the ruffled sleeve for a plain one.
For that, I used the basic sleeve from Fashion Doll Clothing by Rosemarie Ionker. (That’s an Amazon link.) I traced the sleeve cap from the raincoat pattern, then used the basic sleeve from the book to draw the sleeve down to the cuff. This is a book I bought a few years ago, thinking it would have patterns for Barbie and other 11.5″ fashion dolls. Most of the patterns are actually for 16″ dolls, and the book was my first discovery of them. The patterns for smaller dolls are for Tonner dolls, like Tiny Kitty Collier, so the proportions are different than for Barbie etc. This sleeve turned out to be a teeny tiny bit too long on the raincoat, so I’ll trim it back for the next version.
This book also includes two different blocks for 16″ dolls. One fits the body sculpt of Alexandra Fairchild Ford and the other fits Tyler Wentworth. Comparing these shows that Tyler is almost 1/2″ longer in the torso, arms and legs than Alexandra Fairchild Ford. Their feet are also different sizes (AFF’s are smaller) so they can’t share shoes. Once again, people refer to 16″ dolls as if they’re all the same (like 11.5″ dolls) while in reality, there is a lot of variation.
As anticipated, the navy raincoat fits Alex perfectly. Here are the two finished raincoats, with Alexandra Fairchild Ford on the left and Tyler on the right. (AFF has a tendency to be tippy on her stand, which makes me wonder whether its proportions might be better for a doll with longer legs, like Tyler. It is her stand, though, with the AFF logo, so that’s odd.) I added thread loops for the belts at the side seams so they don’t go missing.
The raincoat has a pleat in the back and a lot of topstitching on the seams, which results in a very elegant coat. I’m not fussed about the hemming, but used fusible interfacing to stabilize the edge of the grey one and that came out better. I’ll play with some other finishes.
Because, of course, there will be more raincoats. I have a longer pink one with the rounded lapels and ruffled sleeves – so my blonde Tyler can have her own raincoat – and plan to make an even longer fake-leather one for my third Tyler doll, who is going to dress with a bit more verve. I’ll show you those when they’re done, and we’ll see what happens after that. It’s easy to look at my fabric stash and imagine even more combinations!
Here’s another picture of the wardrobe in progress. It’s good that I bought them BOGO as clearly Tyler and Alex need their own stashes of clothes and shoes. It’ll be good to keep them separated, though the girls will probably borrow each other’s purses.
I have to replace the hanger bar in this one – I used a bamboo skewer (painted with marker) just the way I did with the Barbie wardrobe, but it’s too flimsy. I’ll replace it with a wooden dowel. Tied inside the lid (or door) is an organizer from the dollar store which is perfect for shoes etc. The dividers can be removed when I need a larger space. I thought of gluing it in, but Mr. Math was skeptical that any glue would hold that hard plastic, especially with a lot of opening and closing. I glued in the ribbon instead, then covered a little block at the bottom in the interior wallpaper. That raises the organizer so the lid/door of the case closes more easily. This solution works very well.
Berroco has a tradition of publishing patterns for miniature knitted sweater ornaments. Every year, I think I’m going to knit a bunch of them and make a garland of mini-sweaters as a Christmas decoration. This was the first year I actually cast on one of them. Here’s what happened.
Fievel is one of the 2022 Minutia designs from Berroco. (Here’s the Ravelry link and here’s the Berroco link. This is a free download in both places.) It’s supposed to be knit in a DK weight yarn on 4.5mm needles, but I decided to make mine smaller. Here it is in MadTosh Merino Light in Cardinal, knit on 2.5mm needles:
There’s a small difference – I don’t have a single knit stitch following the raglan line on mine. Maybe that stitch is missing from the instructions. (?) The result is quite cute, though.
I was thinking about the size of this little sweater and then this happened:
She’s right. It would fit her – if she could get it on. And so, I revised the instructions: as instructed, you start knitting at the back left shoulder and work in the round. There’s not an opening, just an end to sew in. So, I moved the starting point to the center back and added a stitch so there’s a wee bit of overlap. I worked flat until the work was divided for the sleeves, then continued in the round. I had to make the sleeves longer (fortunately, you can take off the hands of MH dolls to get a sweater on).
Here’s Frankie at right with her holiday sweater, a giftie from me. This one is Malabrigo Sock in Rayon Vert, knit on those 2.5mm needles.
Oddly, she doesn’t look much happier.
You can guess what happened next: Babs wanted one, too.
I used those same directions with the split at the center back but used a thicker yarn – this is Kidsilk Aura knit on 4.0mm needles. I’d been envisioning a chartreuse fluffy sweater for B with this yarn, as a good match with this fakey leather skirt. I had to frog this one back a couple of times, given B’s curves – I kept ending up with too much sweater in the back.
The final result has decreases on the back after the work is split for the body and arms, making the back narrower. It’s also shorter, more of a cropped sweater that ends at the waist. It opens all the way down the back – I’d thought of joining it, but there was all that bulk and I went with simple. There are snaps on the back and little non-functioning buttons.
If I knit it again (ha!) I’d change the stitch distribution so there were more stitches on the front than the back. It is a bit stretched over her bust, and that’s where the extra bulk is in the back. At least two stitches should move, maybe four. The decreases in the back might not be necessary then.
Here are the three versions.
Phew. Do I dare to cast on another mini-sweater Christmas ornament?
Alive & Knitting 