craft, mental health, sewing, Uncategorized

Find the thread.

Fast forward eight months. That’s how long it’s been.

I’m now on ADHD medications.
The middle finger of my left hand has been bandaged in one form or another for two and half months as I recover from tearing part of a tendon. Typing isn’t a breeze.

If I try to catch you up any more I’ll get bogged down. I figure that the way to pick up the thread is to use my photos in my iphone. I’ll just search by month and figure out what needs to be shown that way.

2020 April and May were peak “at home” quarantine times for me with school closed and my daily life indoors

True, there’s a current state of emergency in effect for Tokyo and we’re having a huge spike and vaccines haven’t even started being distributed but now I’m expected to take the train into Tokyo mon-fri to teach two school’s worth of children each week ….let’s not unpack that yet.

I sewed those months. Oh boy did I sew. See the pattern below? McCall’s M6696. After some early tests to get the pattern fitting right I CRANKED out the dresses.

My stash didn’t have many fabrics in the quantity I needed (about 4 meters) so the fabrics were ones I found on Mercari and the fabric shop located near the dentist I saw 12 times between May-August. I figured if I had to go to the damned dentist that much I might as well make use of those trips to gather essentials like food and fabric.

You see that? The oranges? That’s the inside of the dress. all french seamed and everything. That’s due to this invaluable sew along youtube series about the pattern by Kittenish Behavior.

Ebony had also given me a few patterns earlier in the year including Simplicity 4077, so after bust adjustments I made three shirts for work.

BUT THAT’S NOT ALL. How about the McCall’s pattern variation with the slim skirt? I made it…in a fabric featuring apples and hedgehogs. See the fabric on the floor? You’ll see it again.

In July or August (Summer break after school started again) I found an awesome traditional styled Japanese fabric with hidden kitties. I also had some Japanese fabric I found too overwhelming once I sewed it so I over-dyed it a purple hue. Same pattern but now with band collars.

I also made myself this Vintage Simplicity from one of Ebony”s patterns. Unlike the button and go style of the McCall dress it isn’t suitable for work so I haven’t had the chance to wear it anywhere. I’ve worn the McCalls dresses SO MUCH for work it is insane. It has pockets, ya know.

It should be noted that the vast swinging between “I can sew everything I HAVE FOCUS” and “I cant focus on anything I’m going to do nothing” in March/April/May is what got me to get on ADHD medication.

And that is the start to returning to bloging…wonky finger be damned,

craft, Doll, monster high, sewing, Uncategorized

Sally and the bumpy ride.

Oh. Oh. It’s just so hard to know where to start.

As an elementary school English teacher employed by a dispatch company in Japan, March always involves a dip in work and pay for me.

This year has been a whole ‘nother experience.

My contract year and the days I had to show up to school ended March 10th, although my actual classes ended in February 28 due to Covid19. A few days before the contract ended I learned that the company I work for had lost the contract for the city I worked in..and didn’t have any cities near me they could shift me into.

Next school year starts April 1st. Japan is still planning on it starting…but then again in Japan people are still going to cherry blossom parties and Prime Minister Abe is JUUUST starting to admit that maaaaaaaybe the Olympics won’t happen this year…but the Gov. of Tokyo wants to declare a lock down. It’s all complicated. I think Japan is in denial.

I’ve had the insanity of being an asthmatic social distancing myself when it feels like so few other in this country are people are… while also making sure I’m employed the next coming school year…even though I think that the school year maybe shouldn’t start.

All while trying to get more organized through the filter of knowing I have ADHD and need new skills, at a time my days and nights all blend together in mostly emptiness.

My family back home is taking precautions. I would often travel to see them this time of year but..well..I can’t do that during a job hunt and the end of the world. I worry about them. I really do.

In the last 48 hours I’ve turned down a job, thought I had another job, lost that job, applied for different jobs, and accepted a job offer from my previous company now that they’ve had an opening that’s…not near me but not worse than last year?

And there have been tears.

My friend Ebony works in a preschool. Her school isn’t public so she’s been at work this whole time. Things have been rough on her. We have texted dailyl

One thing I’ve been able to feel great about is that I finished a surprise gift for Ebony and sent it to her home..and she got it and cried.

This is what we do now, we cry. We all cry a lot because there’s just so much to be overwhelmed by.

This is what she opened:

I didn’t take enough in progress photos, sorry.

That’s a Frankie Stien Monster High doll as Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas…but I think you knew that.

The process started before I had an airbrush so I had to sand and build up the color of the doll (Frankie is more light greenish blue than blue) with chalk pastels and layers of fixative. And then I had to pencil in her seams.

You can see the color difference clearing in this shot of the finished body and the head (uncolored) after I’d rooted it with brushed acrylic yarn.

But this time I had an airbrush to get the base color down for the face before painting.

With the dress, this was my first time using acrylic paints, thinned with a textile medium, to create the whole dress pattern.

I made a base dress from white cotton. Then I painted in the color patches. Once dried I used a permanent fine-line marker for details. Finally I over-stitched sections with black thread and added a stitched on patch for depth.

For all the turmoil…and stillness…the last few weeks have contained…I have brought some joy to someone.

I have also been making progress in organizing my projects, tasks, life and daily needs in a bullet journal….figuring that a system developed by a designer with ADHD might be a good fit for me, and so far it is.

Tonight, I get to rest. Knowing that I do have a job come April…I really do..so long as school is a thing. If school isn’t a thing for a while, I have a safety net.

There is much to worry about…but I’m getting out of bed everyday and doing…somethings. I hope you are too.

barbie, blythe, craft, Doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Work the book: First Coordinates

Here I am working my way through a doll-clothing book from cover to cover.

The book is はじめてのドール•コーディネイト•レシピ (First doll coordinates how-to) by Dolly Dolly books. ISBN978-4-7661-1982-4 (1,500¥ new)

The projects are: a dress, medium length shorts, pleated skirt,blouse, tank top (for knits), bloomers, socks (for knits), tote bag, and tailored jacket.

Included with the book are all the patterns in five different sizes and which model doll they were specifically designed for:

11cm doll (Poochi Blythe)
20cm doll (Odeko and Nikki ), 22cm (Blythe)
27cm (momoko doll)
42cm (Unoa Quluts Doll)

there are also specific charts for various dolls indicating which size of the pattern works best for them.

The one below is for Dal (Groove). It shows that she’ll wear the the dress in size 20cm but will need a 2cm adjustment. The waist for the 22cm skirt will be a bit to large and so on…

The other dolls with specific charts like this: Licca, JENNY, Unoa Quluts Light, Tiny Betsy McCall, DAL, nano Haruka, and MISAKI.

The books are full of step by step guides like this. This one is for tracing patterns to fabric. This book takes the odd step of tracing the outline of a photocopyof the pattern and then cutting away the seam-allowance from that photocopy and trace again.

I do not have the time or the desire to waste paper like that. I’m tracing the patterns onto clear plastic, like that used for folders, to make a reusable pattern. I’m sketching in the seam allowance lines in thin chalk after tracing the pattern onto the fabric.

Here is another example of how detailed the instructions are. This shows the type of closure used on the dress (there are how-to on making the loops) and then covers how to assemble a variation of the dress top that includes darting.

Projects finished so far:

The dress:

In my first version I added a twice folded hem to give the skirt more volume. The stitching isn’t perfect so if I have a doll for this I’ll add trim at the waste to hide that stitch line.

My second version, with the spooky bats, is much cleaner and better assembled.

Shorts:

These I felt I nailed on my first try. The Preppy shorts were made first. Then I shortened the length, made in denim, and added yellow-stitched details.

Skirt:

The detail notes were correct, the waist is a bit large for a DAL or Picconeemo. If I do this regularly for DAL I’ll draft my own waistband.

Shirt:

For the love of GOD is this difficult. It’s also a project I made before. I went straight to this pattern when I first bought the book for my Agretsuko Blythe could have a shirt two summers ago.

This time I’ve made it twice so far, each version getting cleaner.

With this I’ve achieved a looser collar. I know how to remedy this (where to fold so the collar “button” flaps overlap correctly) but I rather like it as-is on the tiny-print fabric version.

Tank top with trim:

I gotta be me. So far I have NOT yet made the tiny socks and bloomers. I might just make them from the same fabric for a comfy rocker pj outfit. I did most of this by hand instead of machine sew.

pssssstt. Making tiny socks scares me.

Tote Bag:

I didn’t have matching thread but I made it anyways. When I have matching thread I’ll finish the handles but it looks CUTE.

So what do I have left? Socks….Bloomers and the dreaded:

craft, Doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Lucky Bag Inspiration: Classical Style

With the New Year came my first trip into Tokyo for Fukubukuro!

LUCKY BAGS!

The concept is simple: With the New Year stores put together items from the store into bags you can’t see into. The idea is that the contents of the bag are “worth” (priced individually) more than what you’ll pay for the bag. Generally you’ll have an idea of what sort of items will be in the bag but not exactly WHICH items.

I’m not a huge fan BUT Dollyterria had USED DOLL WIG BAGS. So for 4,000 yen I knew I’d be getting 6 wigs of X size. I love the random game of “what do I have and how will that inform what I make next…”

That’s 5 wigs, you say.

There’s another, but she’s already on a doll.

There’s more than just wigs, you say.

Of course I bought a naked doll in a baggie. I’m me.

There’s a body! You say.

Of course. sometimes you need another body for the naked dolls at home. They demand sacrifices.

I love the wigs… but now I also had this lovely doll who I decided NOT to rewig or change her face on. I figured out who she was. Zuora, a Pullip from 2006.

She looks like she knows how to have a great time. Alas, her outfit was missing in action.

I fixed up a damaged dress I had in my used stash. I repaired split seams and added black lace and ribbon accents.

I also took a cape I’d made previously (using a pattern from a book about sewing for dolls with felt but rendered in a suede.

Those buttons actually button and unbutton through tiny button holes. INSANE.

And I made it.

INSANE. So tiny.

I ordered a book with patterns I thought might suit her better. “Classical Style” by Dolly Dolly. I have many Dolly Dolly books about doll patterns. The felt book was a used find at a book-off. I scour used book stores for their Doll magazines (which include patterns) and the doll-specific sewing books. Not rare to find, which shows you how doll-focused some percentage of Japan is.

I often just jump to whatever pattern I want to make and just do that. It can be frustrating because my sewing skill set is more HUMAN SIZED, interior decor, and hand detailing. Sewing doll clothing is a skill that takes practice. The seam allowance (space between the needle/sewing line and the edge of the fabric) is often 5mm or less. That means very little room for error and ….your sewing machine bobin hole wants to eat your fabric.

The more fabric you join together the bulkier an outfit is. This matters very little when you’re 164cm tall but very much when you are 22cm.

There are ways you construct doll clothing that you’d never use in human clothing .

I have a friend I’ve been sending some of the latest tiny outfit photos to. He replies with emojis indicating that this is something the would NOT want to try and make. He’s a third generation bespoke suit tailor in Ginza.

I decided to use these books the way many of them are intended…working my way through the order of projects as written so that I’m doing the easier skill-building ones first with step by step photos before I tackle the harder ones. It would also allow me to blog.

And…this was the wrong book to start that idea with. Everything is lined. That means that every garment has any raw seams hidden between the outer fabric and lining fabric. This increases the bulk but makes for a more stable end product.

That wouldn’t be bad in and of itself but these are FRILLY FROCKS with lots of gathers.
Patterns have SO much gathering of fabric going on that sometimes I found that I’d make it once and then alter the pattern slightly to reduce bulk (but still finishing seams properly)

Like this insane all-in-one bloomer set. I’m using scraps so I am making some outfits I’m not sure I’ll ever have a use for. This is my second, altered, version.

This is the book version:

Below you can see how much bulk is created when you have lined and gathered bloomers attached to heavily gathered skirt (with two layers of fabric) and an extra gathered waist ruffle) …and that’s before you sandwich it between the layers of the top.

going in order as written I have completed the following, including the above.

From left to right:

Undarted lined dress. Two tops (one with making ribbon bows for extra frill). Dress lined dress with darts. Ribbon bustle and hip ruffles for apron or hip bustles.

And it inspired me to take a break from this SO RUFFLED book, as it’s not my general aesthetic, and work my way through a simpler Dolly Dolly book I’ve used before but haven’t done everything from (show below)

This is going much smoother with less swearing. I’ll be writing it about it, and showing more of what gems these books are, next time.

Doll, living dead doll, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Here I am. Little Me.

It was about a year ago I brought home a Living Dead Doll, Hush, from my local Hobby Off and opened her baggie to be assaulted with the stench of nicotine. I wrote about scrubbing and scrubbing to remove the nicotine stains.

Eventually I got her down to an ivory white. She’d never be the same pink as her unexposed vinyl but it was good enough…then I waited for inspiration. She came to me in the form of Little Miss Muffet.

Little Miss Muffet was never actually made by Mezco Toyz, unlike Little Bo Creep. What struck me about her was that she was dressed like me. Maybe not the make-up and the tiny tie but everything else looked like it could have come from my closet.

I decided to make me.

Hush’s hair was string and smelled. It had to go. I started re-rooting her with strands of red and brown 100¥ shop acrylic yarn until I had a version of my bangs/fringe and ponytail.

In the last year I have discovered the wonder of buying glasses on-line. I’ve worn glasses since third-grade and needed them even earlier than that. Contacts aren’t easy for me to wear. Hard/semi-permeable contacts can handle my stigmatism but have caused scratches and pains in the past. Two week disposables can mostly handle my stigmatism but not perfectly and my eyes get itchy..I wear them for dance performances and little else.

For years buying good frames with the latest “as thin and humanly possible” lenses mean spending high hundreds of dollars…so I’d stick with the same frames for 4-6 years. Now for the first time I have one “safe/formal” pair of lenses that looks like my last pair (but with updated prescription) and two rather cartoonish over-sized frames…like the ones pictured above. My me would need glasses.

I had seen some doll sized glasses in a gochagocha machine a few months back and went to Akihabara and on Mercari to score some being resold.

Now, my doll has three pairs to choose from as well. the arms of the frames were too long so I had to snip them, drill to insert wire into the ends of the arms, and create newer “ear loops” with Apoxi sculpt….which I don’t appear to have photographed.

I’m glad I found oversized frames for her. I’ve drawn a cartoon version of myself with over-sized lenses since mid-college. Without the frames her face looks a little too sweet.

That’s one of the huge takeaways I’ve had with this. Remove the make-up from your average Living Dead Doll sculpt and it’s a very traditional looking base.

Face almost finished it was time to dress me up!

Someone in a doll customizing group suggested that 1/6 Yo-SD shoes would work for LDD dolls. So when I found these…which are nearly identical to a pair I wore in late college (except mine had a pink nose and pink inner ears) I bought them

Clothes!

I found a free pattern on Ravelry for “Raglan Sleeve Doll Sweater for 10″ Ann Estelle” which worked for LDD dolls and knit two sweaters, one in black and one in burgundy.

I found a free sewing pattern for a simple a-line (reversable) dress on-line.

Last I made her a skull skirt (no pattern because I had to pleat to the specifics of the fabric print I was using) and modified a houndsouth skirt I had in my stash to fit her.

Ta-Da!

Transformation achieved!

I know it was a success because when I sent my friend the above photo, without context on what I was going for, I received back a string of shocked LINE sticker and “It’s YOU!”

She even has a hedgehog!

And, last, here we are posing together…with the other oversized frames I bought.

So now I have two me-like dolls. Little Me and my first Pullip face-up.

And I suspect when singing Anna from Frozen 2 starts showing up in thrift markets…I shall make another me.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, sewing, Uncategorized

Acrylic Yarn: Squeeky self-care.

I’ve written before about how handy-work can be quite an effective form of meditation for those of us with minds that sometimes fight meditation.

The repetition of movement, the precision needed, and the concentration used helps clear my head. It’s not that I don’t think while doing this, I do, but it’s a quieter thinking. I don’t have the time to chase strong emotions or berate myself. With my hands busy a strong emotion may easily be noted and pass and I won’t be tempted to chase down its cause right then and there.

Let us now sing praise for 100¥ acrylic yarn…here for me at my time of need.

Without too many details, it’s been an unwelcome revisiting of the end of May 2019.

Vague story vague: within days two distinct circles of friends in different locations were revealed to contain two different types of horrible predators…and a lot of nasty information poured out of each. This week one of those two cases came to a settlement that involves only probation, no jail time, for a person who has torn through lives.

Cue the unwelcome few days of time travel none of us asked for.

And this brings me to the acrylic yarn. It’s not ALL the self-care but it is some of it.

I’m not the first woman in my family to find comfort in acrylic yarn.

My paternal Grandma Leah used to use the cheapest, squeekiest, most eye-hurtingest colors of acrylic yarn to knit and crochet hand scrubbers, sturdy foot “booties” and hard to explain dolls and toys…for cash or family.

Preferably craft-stall cash.

She lived with my father and step-family for years. We, family, all had these booties in inexplicable colors. Well, semi-explicable; they were the cheapest yarns for the best return on her investment of supplies. I also used to have a yellow and blue clown down with two distinctly different length legs where she’d just run out of yarn and ended.

Grandma Leah had a huge stash of different sources of patterns but it seems like the booties came from a hand-written letter from a neighbor. I have some of the letter but no more of the booties.

Dear Leah;

Once before I had to show someone how to make the slippers. It takes a long time to do it. I can’t read a pattern. I’ve never had one for the slipper. Thelma showed me how. I only know one way to show you.

I start with each step. I just hope your friend can follow the directions. They go fast. 1 3 1/2 oz of yarn will make a pair. They sell real fast at x-mas time. You can make a pair in an evening and more if you’re fast. They get $5.00$ a pair….

What I do to cheap acrylic yarn is a transformation in the opposite direction. Knitting builds up form. I take acrylic yarn and attack until it is broken down into thin synthetic fibers. This is time consuming.

What am I looking at?

Upper left hand corner: Acrylic yarn.
Upper right hand corner: Acrylic yarn that has been tethered to something and then brushed with a wire pet brush until it gives up hope. After this step comes using a flat-iron for hair set at 140.
Lower left hand corner: the yarn fuzz after ironing, being cut free, lined up, and attached at one end with glue to create hair wefts.
Lower right hand corner: building a wig from this insanity.

What doll is that and when did you make it?

Oh, yeah, I’ve been away from the blog. This is where I show you some of what I’ve been working on.

Googling tells me this Monster High doll is Twyla. She is a freshman student at Monster High and is a boogeyman, daughter of the Boogey Man, she lives in the Boogey Mansion. This specific Twyla is the “Coffin Bean” coffee shop release.

But to me, she’s one of the many used dolls I bought off a girl in America using a charity shop go-between.

Let’s check out what I did with her.

She’s loosely inspired by the aesthetics of Disney’s Haunted mansion.

I used the Rococo Hime Lolita dress pattern to create this outfit. If you’re thinking of using easy fraying fabric like I did….don’t. headaches.

I sanded off the “spirit swirls” or whatnot on her legs and used chalk pastels and acrylic to create a bat motif.

I created this wig with exhausted acrylic fiber, a syrofoam egg, a homemade wigcap, and a handful of things from the 100¥ shop.

Then it was time to repaint her face.

I repainted her shoes and added accents. Again, solid nod to 100¥ shops.

And finally, some earrings:

As for me, tonight I’ll be brushing, brushing, and brushing yarn and slowly creating wefts…allowing the feelings to come and they must…and focusing on what is really a low-stakes unessential and beautifully absurd addition to the strange world of things I make.

Stefon.

Because…this world has EVERYTHING.

costuming, sewing, Uncategorized

The dress with EVERYTHING.

My friend Ebony rocks. She really does. You should go check out the looks she serves up on Instagram. I’ll wait.

I can’t even tell you how essential she is to my life here. Not since art school have I had someone in my neck of the woods who was not only an amazing friend but who also makes s stuff all the time. All. The. Time.

I can talk shop with and bounce inspiration back and forth with her. I’ve helped her stain her couch black so it’d be more goth. She’s my year-round source of Halloween baubles.

She has her own impressive fabric haul. From time to time she’s given me fabric she realizes will be put to use by me before she ever will use it. Like..three meters of this.

Yeah. Take that in. Take it ALL in. That’s a lot of lot going on.

And for a year she’s been waiting to see what it will become.

well, you can’t get really complicated with a fabric like that so I turned to a simple pattern I’d modified until it fit. 2 or 3 years ago I made three dresses with variations based on Vogue Patterns Misses Jacket Dresses-V8146

And this would be no exception! SIMPLE CLEAN LINES!

But I wasn’t going to do all the insane pattern matching of the Maiko/Geisha patterned dress just so I could have pockets. I made EXTERNAL POCKETS with APPLIQUE!

I’ve had someone ask me if I made the dress and then ask me if I also made the appliques. I want to live in their world because it’s a world where ready-made appliques of octopuses drinking coffee and eating cheese MIGHT EXIST.

I’ve since slightly darted the neckline so it doesn’t gape.

Lemme tell you, this is a dress that makes people smile.

costuming, craft, Doll, monster high, sewing, Uncategorized

Little Dead Riding Wolf

One of my finished projects this summer was Little Dead Riding Wolf.

You may have noticed that I never show concept sketches. It’s not how I work. It’s never been. With dolls as with creating dance costumes I start with a very hazy concept, maybe gather some inspiration, and let the tools take me where they will.

I’m not proud of this. It’s just what I’m comfortable with.

In art school I’d just tackle large sheets of paper and see where the drawings took me. I think in my fine arts classes, because I drew (worked in dry and thus relatively fast materials) and i wasn’t majoring in illustration with need to think of a client, it was encouraged.

When I started dancing I was more comfortable soloing improvisationally than I was confident in making choreography…but in grappling with how to learn AND create choreography I’ve become a better dancer overall. In this new-to-me art I think some pre-planing and concept sketches would save time AND help me be more productive overall. I just need to figure out how to start that journey.

I’m getting that out here so I can think on it.

Little Dead Riding Wolf started out hazy.

The concept was part of the original doll’s name…I had one from the 20 doll haul.

And I knew that I wanted to do 1). more experimentation with Goth/Fantasy concepts on darker skinned dolls 2). unraveled yarn to create kinkier textured hair.

I bought red and brown acrylic yarn at the 100¥ shop. I unraveled it and re-rooted her head.

I covered her hair to spray her with a few priming layers of Mr. Superclear and got to coloring with chalk pastels, water color pencils and acrylics.

Next came how to redress her. I decided that Little Dead Wolf would want to warn possible grandchildren she met in the forest NOT to mess with her. I set to making a skull from Apoxie Sculpt. Nothing says “nope” like the skull of your vanquished enemies.

I drafted the cape myself. The red/black velvet is left over from a dance costume I made for myself.

The making of that and the lace beading can be found on my costume page.

For the rest of the outfit I turned to Requiem Art Designs. Etsy: DGRequiem is THE source to turn to when you wanna make doll outfits but don’t want to make your own pattern AND are willing to pay another artist. I went with her Rococo Lolita pattern.

And I took a trip to Nippori (our fabric street) for remnant scraps.

Let me tell you, it took me two tries to get the brocade to behave. I have a less than perfect version I’ll find a use for.

Then I made a short skirt using her pattern AND a longer skirt by free-styling it.

The awesome belt came off one of the other MH dolls from my haul.
I layered those two skirts. I’m a huge fan of the idea that you just layer fabrics until they look expensive and fabulous.

For a final touch I painted those horrible purple boots to match her new outfit.

I’ll need to make her a basket soon but for now I love her.

craft, Disney, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Power Puffing

Where have I been? I’ve been doing my summer thing. I’ve made a lot of stuff, done some social things, and visited America for 12 WHOLE DAYS.

And now, with my day job lurking beyond this weekend it’s time to start catching all of you up on my projects.

First up we have a work in progress: Powerpuff Girls.

I have a ton of Disney Animators dolls so Ariel is becoming Blossom, Snow is Buttercup and Aurora will be Bubbles.

First I had to clean them and do many days outside with 10% Benxol Peroxide acne cream to remove stains.

Which brings us to hair.

I’m ok with Blossom’s hair being more red than orange but neither Ariel nor Snow have bangs.

Which meant removing heads in order to properly root some bangs in.

I had to do the same thing with Snow. I also figured there are two waysI could interpret Buttercup’s hair. It can be slick with the up wave at the ends or I could make it more of a messy curly bob as her out of place hairs and morning illustrations suggest. I’ll be going team curly. Why not? More variation.

Aurora/Bubbles. Her hair just didn’t have the right part to do ponytails AT ALL AT ALL. I’ll work at making her a wig because I am never going to reroot a whole ‘nother of these heads. I’m sewing my first large wig cap for her, as I couldn’t find a light colored 13inch doll wig cap available online in Japan and I have stretchy nude fabric in my stash.

I’ll be buying a used wig of Mercari here later to remove blond wefts from, cheaper than buying them new.

And I’ve started on Blossom’s face.

I have already drafted a pattern that’ll work for the dresses, I did that back in the early stages when I thought I’d just learn a bit more about hand sewing by using a book about sewing for dolls….ya know…that thing that lead to all these DOLLS and Repaints.

And that, my dears, is only the start of what I’ve been up to.

craft, Disney, Doll, sewing, Uncategorized

Melody, complete!

I HAVE FINISHED IT!

Last I updated about Melody, as far as my searches show me, I’d given up on dying her synthetic hair. I’d pried her head off and started rooting.

MY GOD, that was arduous. The heads of Disney Animators are about the size of softballs.

Towards the end I realized that the the neck hole was so small, and the area I’d need to secure inside with glue was so large…it was near impossible to do cleanly so I…CUT INTO HER HEAD.

Desperate times.

I finished rerooting the head and the skull flap and secured the hair with Aleene’s Clear Gel Tacky Glue. Then I used Liquid Fusion and swearing to fit the head back into place.

I later, after building up enough layed of liquid fusion, painted the seams black. And took photos.

Then onto painting!

I didn’t take in progress photos. This is the final result all at once, with a little outfit I sewed her because I don’t like the idea of sending a naked doll to a friend.

This week I’ll find a box and send her off to Gina and her daughter. And never ever reroot a Disney Animator Doll again.

Do It Yourself: WFU

The dolls and art of a woman in Japan trying to be better.

Category Archives: sewing