Saturday, April 20, 2024

A Smattering of Doll Sewing

While I am also sewing a stack of doll clothes to sell, I have also sewn some random things for my own dolls

Wash Bag

There has been a small pile of relatively delicate garments accumulating on my dresser that I have not wanted to hand wash.  They are all too large for the lingerie bag I have, so of course my solution was to make a larger bag myself.

I did not have suitable fabric, so I kept an eye on the Walmart mill-end precut selection, and it recently turned up a weird synthetic mesh-y fabric that seemed good enough.  Bonus that it was 2 yards for $4.

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Shirt of Sweet Vintage (Print)

Ages ago, I thrifted a length of a very sweet vintage floral print.  I used some of it for doll clothes--honestly, I figured I'd only ever use it for doll clothes.

Until, of course, I decided I wanted to use it for another modified Burda 7831.  There was about a yard and a quarter, which would have been plenty of fabric if it had been 45".  However, I knew it was vintage because it was 36".

I am, of course, stubborn.  I got the shirt I wanted out of it.

With only a small amount of  improvisation necessary.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

mumble

 So I've wanted to revisit Simplicity 8241 from 1987--I don't have my own photo of the pattern envelope, and I don't particularly want to take one at the moment.  There are two listings for it on eBay right now, so I borrowed this from one of those

Simplicity pattern 8241 - misses' skirt in two lengths - size 12 - easy-to-sew - Picture 1 of 2

My copy is in size 8, which was fine when I first acquired and made it (for the only time) over 20 years ago.  No so much now.

Earlier in the week, I had pulled a piece of red and black and white plaid fabric--cotton, not quite coarse enough to be homespun, but not really lightweight enough for me to want to go ahead and make it into another try at a buttoned shirt with a scoop neckline instead of a collar, with no print mixing.  The fabric was also 36", so I would not have been able to eke out even the tiny sleeves. So. No shirt from that fabric.

But, I got it in my mind that I absolutely would use that fabric next. And eventually I thought, hey, I could mix prints with it after all.  Maybe a skirt?  Tiered, with each tier in a separate fabric? ...or...gored...with the fabric mixed across gores...  And that led back to Simplicity 8241.

Which I didn't exactly use.  It's a twelve gore skirt, and there are six separate pattern pieces for those  twelve gores.  I didn't wanna deal with that.  I dug out the back center piece and cut 12 of those, adding some extra width to the top, as well as shortening it by two inches from the top.

Yeah, in retrospect: bad idea.

I knew one fabric I wanted to use with the plaid, but needed another to be able to make everything.  Meh, I have a lot of cloth, I'll find something good.

Hey, guess what?  I did not find something good.  I did find something adequate, and I sewed it all together, but...I'm not happy about it.

Sunday, April 7, 2024

Acanthus

Since I have black thread in the serger, I am making an effort to sew dark fabrics.  I chose a black and white acanthus scroll print and wanted to make yet another button up shirt.  I had a yard of it, so I figured I'd once again use the hacked Burda 7831.  I've made shirts from 7831 and a yard of fabric plus a bit more fabric for contrast on the front bands and collar assembly.

But.

I just didn't want to do contrasts this time.

I thought a but and realized I could do a variation...without the collar.

I borrowed the scoop neck shape from the fake McCall's 8197 variation of Burda 6401 and confidently cut the front and back, a bit less confidently cutting the sleeves and facings, and then hoping I could get enough length to make the front bands.  I did!

And yes I realize the pattern is busy enough to hide anything like a detail this shirt may have.

Sunday, March 31, 2024

Eggplant Man

I have made several Mado Monogatari/Puyo Puyo Carbuncle plush for the kiddo [link to the cutest] because I think the character design is so cute.  A lot of the characters in Mado Monogatari/Puyo Puyo are cute, albeit in a baffling way (Mado Monogatari is a satire), but most of their character designs are a bit complicated

...but not Nasu Grave, an eggplant who wears glasses.


So I threw together a quick little felt version


First, I cut the 'glasses' from foiled silver knit, and glued them on with white glue, edges touched up with Fabri-tac. I machine sewed around most of the body, catching the arms and legs in the stitching, notched the seams, turned right-side-out, stuffed with a pinch of Polyfil, realized I should make a simple stitch to represent the glasses bridge, then hand stitched the top closed.  I attached the leaves with a line of whip stitching through the center (is it still whip stitching if it's not on the edge?), then whip stitched the bottom of the stem over that line of stitching.

I may or may not make a larger, more-spherical version--I have an entirely suitable low pile purple plush fabric, but the kiddo doesn't think an eggplant should be fuzzy.  We'll see what happens, whenever it happens, if it happens.