Between the Lines

Finished this today, listed it on Etsy.

There're bloomers under everything--right now, I like making doll bloomers more than doll petticoats, but that could change.  I've been using bits from the long-saved-for-no-clear-reason interfacing scrap stash for the brims and crowns on these little witch hats--the crown could be folded over/crumpled, if so desired (leaving that choice up to the buyers.)

Next thing sewn will either be a dress for my own dolls or a skirt for me.  Maybe.  Something else could seem like a better idea before then.

Applying myself

While I'm getting the hang of the process of satin stitching densely around the edges of things, I'm still not very good at it, and I'm even less good, apparently, at choosing the correct backings to stabilize the things involved in the applique.  Lesson learned:  medium weight interfacing won't do, won't do at all.

A square watermelon pillow with a cute face was the kiddo's idea, and he's happy with the result, and that's what's important.

Hat Hat Hat

I made these for Etsy today

I used a sort of...space-dyed stripey seersuckerish fabric for a contrast under the brim of the squash print hat

and I'm entirely in love with the combination of those fabrics--going to try to figure out what non-doll thing to make with the rest of those two fat quarters...

Teal Thread in the Bobbin

I initially loaded the bobbin with teal thread because I decided I had no more excuses for not sewing incredibly belated birthday doll clothes for a friend (who ls Australian, so who knows how belated the stuff will end up being after whenever it is that I get everything finished once mailing time is added.)  No pictures of those, because they're supposed to be surprises, but then I did sew this for Etsy with the same thread

(It's not a thing like what's for my friend, who prefers Mod style for dolls.)

Then I said to myself that it would be a good time to finally sew something for the kiddo from either the Angry Birds print or the Skylanders print, both of which had blue/teal grounds.  He's not really interested in either game right now--his heart belongs to Terraria at the moment, with Minecraft and Lego Worlds getting sporadically remembered--so I figured it wouldn't bother him if I chose the fabric and the project.  s.o.t.a.k. handmade has been posting a lot of drawstring bags lately, so that inspired me to try a drawstring pouch.  I'm not sure if I've ever made a drawstring pouch before, and my results are pretty much what you'd expect from jumping in with no pattern and a reasonable-but-not-positive idea of how it would be constructed.

Skylanders it is.

It's large enough to hold all the figures (I scored a bakers dozen of them in a thrift store earlier this year...)    I did use a middle layer of a heavy twill to give it body, with a vaguely-cloud print (sky) for the drawstring casing and a continent print (land) inside (get it get it?)  And then I made another one that's not as structured and is lined with the kinda-cloud print (because I didn't have enough of the continent print left) to hold The Portal of Power.

I think I'll use the Angry Birds print to make a pouch to hold all of his Angry Birds figures and Telepods, and I think I know how to add a divider inside, which seems like a useful thing...

Little Witchy

Still having fun making vaguely-lolita dresses and matching witch hats for dolls.  Forgot to post this one here before I put it on Etsy (it's on its way to Belgium right now)

 This one (which is admittedly not very loli) is on its way to an American destination

And this one is staying here for my own dolls

And I just got a bunch of doll-appropriate black lace--I hadn't realized how low I was until I made the cat eye print outfit and ended up using almost all of what I had left...  I mean, yeah, sure, I still had a suitcase full of other laces, but...black lace is important...

Well, I thought it would be a skirt skirt, but it ended up being a skirt.

Skirt on a dress instead of a skirt on its own, that is.

I sewed five 4" wide selvedge-to-selvedge pieces together and finished one edge of that with the rolled edge foot before attaching it to the bottom of the patchwork piece with the ruffler foot...which took two tries, because it was set to gather too much the first time.  The second time had some  of the ruffle cloth left over, but that was OK because precision there wasn't required.  Attaching the patchwork to the bottom edge of the upper tier of the skirt, though...actually, it only took three tries to get it the right width, so it wasn't too tedious.  ('Traditional" gathering of ruffles is something I do find too tedious...)  I serged the seam allowances where the tiers came together, then topstitched close to those edges and then started to think...hmm...maybe it wouldn't be too misguided to make it a dress instead of a skirt...

I used the simple bodice I cobbled together from disparate patterns, opting to put the zipper in the back (instead of the side) because the skirt pieces were made with a back seam in mind.  Everything went together with no problems, and I finished by topstitching close to the edges of the arm openings and neckline.  Taadaa.  (Now I need to get back to my last-year weight to fit comfortably into it...)

Always and never ready for Halloween

I put together roughly 10½" by 116" of bright Halloween print patchwork today

Plan to turn it into one tier of a ruffled skirt...maybe tomorrow, maybe not...