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.

craft, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Bi-Little Pony, for Caty.

I wasn’t a pony girl.

My childhood room was not edged with realistic horse replicas nor did My Little Pony (the first 80’s round which was square aimed at girls my age) ping my interest. Nor did the new wave of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic capture my attention.

I’ve seen an episode, while obsesively brushing out tangled pony hair, at my friend’s house in Madison…because her son is a fan…but I didn’t go back to Japan and watch any more.

Then, at the end of 2018 a My Little Pony Equestria Girl Rainbow Dash 11 inch fashion doll came into my home via a box of random gifts.

Do I understand what is going on with this doll? No, I don’t.

I don’t know how the horses became horse/girls on two legs other than the fact that fashion dolls sell. Or maybe horse dolls got tired of carrying passengers (because that’s NOT the kinda pony My Little are) and decided “I AM THE ONE WHO RIDES. ”

Then came muse Caty. Last seen as a Byul.

Her instagram looks are a place I cruise when I’m looking for doll inspiration because she’s talented and ‘effing adorbs. She usually does a series of LGBTQ inspired looks for gay pride and that’s when I knew.

Bi-Little Pony.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First there was the “reroot or fix up” question. Rainbow Dash has rainbow hair. Pride. Keep. Boil perm.

Boil perms are still hit or miss for me. Each one gets a little better…I hope.

Inspiration.

At this point I took Bi-Little Pony off my media posts. It’s common for my work in progress to vanish at times…but this time it wasn’t just my inability to focus.

Caty’s family suffered a terrible loss.

I wanted this doll to go to Caty as a small “Hey, people are thinking about you and you are loved” but I didn’t want her to have any hint of what I might be sending from Japan.

I knit a dress using crochet thread, size 0 needles and this on-line pattern. You drop a stitch on these and it’s nearly impossible to recover. Kinda hellish. That’s why I ended with a fluffy yarn skirt with leftover yarn from…oh, I never updated that project here so I guess I’ll do that next.

Then I finished the face, embellished the dress, found a tiny jacket in my stash and painted her boots.

And now Bi-Little Pony lives with Bi-MUA-Caty in America.

Doll, pullip, Uncategorized

Caty is a doll.

Today is one of those days where I realize how much I haven’t posted.

I sat down to type up a post about a finished project I named Bi-Little Pony. The project involves a person serving as an inspiration who I have Dolled before so I went back to find those posts and found…only one post. I’d never posted the final product.

In May of 2018 I’d recently returned to Japan from a trip to America with some Barbie Made-to-move bodies in my luggage. The curvier MTM body inspired me to buy a used Byul doll I’d seen with matching skin tone.

I had a model for the doll, my friend Caty. Caty is an amazing MUA on instagram. Go check her out NOW. Caty had done a look inspired by one of my dolls. I then decided to do a doll based on one of her looks.

I wrote upa whole post detailing how I put the Byul head on a MTM curvy body…but failed to follow up after that. The last time I featured her here she looked like this. She had a new body and a temporary outfit and wig but I hadn’t remade her face or found the right wig for her. There might be some more photos of her here and there in the blog, but if there are I haven’t properly tagged Byul.

So, what has happened to Caty Byul since?

New face! This was the midway point.

Then I got her a new wig at Mandarake (I usually buy used wigs but Caty was sporting a her own wig in a color I wasn’t likely to find used quickly) and new eye chips by BeBeBlythe on Etsy. It was getting closer but she was still sitting around in a random outfit.

I found a pattern for the Curvy Barbie Fasionistas by DGRequiem on Etsy and some suitably bright fabric. I swiped some insane stockings from my stash as well.

And, as a final tribute I made her a simple felt beret…seen here with an almost matching fuzzy backpack.

And that should catch me up on enough Caty-Inspired posts to start writing about..Bi-Little Pony

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.

craft, Doll, monster high, pullip, Uncategorized

Feeling sad for my dolls?

“Is it weird that I feel kind of sad for the characters that the dolls originally started out as?”

This question was asked by my friend Doug when I posted a picture of a Kaoru in progress.

First, you get to feel what you feel.

We all go through enough stress that we don’t need to be negatively judging our feelings if they aren’t causing us (or others) emotional or physical duress. Feel Away!

It’s natural to have feelings about what I’m doing to dolls.

Dolls are powerful. They contain emotional resonance. Dolls are small representations of humans with a long, varied history. They’ve been used for rituals (magic/religious) since we’ve been able to create them. They range from high art objects to rudimentary crafts. The dolls (or action figures) we played with as children are no different, we imbued them with a wide range of emotions and tasks in our creative play.

Some of my friends have pediophobia, a fear of dolls, and which is also due to the power of how human representation in dolls affects us….not that any of those friends are following this blog.

How Doug feels about the characters I’m changing might also have something to do with how I know Doug. We met at American based Anime conventions in the late 90’s. I don’t think it’s any fluke that the character face that finally made him ask this was quintessentially Japanese/Anime-like.   I don’t know who the head I’m transforming into Kaoru is. I have no clue if it was any character from a particular series or just a cute head. I bought it as a head in a bag….no context…but Doug has identified the base anime characters I’ve picked up before for transformations. He probably has more emotional connection to them by knowing them as anime/manga characters and knowing what their backstory is, wherein I’m just picking them as blanks to make them into a character or an idea that resonates with me.

I also know nothing about Ever After High dolls or Monster High Dolls. I look into the characters once I have a doll, but it doesn’t influence their transformation.

Now, as for if I feel remorse for the original dolls I’m working on.

Easy answer: No.

I’ve long been fascinated with doll mutilation, HI BARBIE!

My Freshman or Sophomore year of art school we had to bring in a collection of a certain type of objects for one of my art classes. I chose mutilated barbies. It was easy. I know girls and boys are rough on Barbies. I asked my high school friends if they could provide me with naturally child-mutilated Barbies and I quickly had a pile of gnawed/melted/broken bodies and a few shorn heads.

Shout out to my Sophomore year roommate, Tor Imsland, who often had to endure these things all around the apartment, sometimes opening the bathroom door to find them floating in the bathtub.

I also read up on Barbie and followed up on Barbie related artists (many of whom mutilate Barbies and deal with the psychology of how we react to dolls in peril).  The idea of working with damaged dolls has never emotionally bothered me.

Additional answer:  No, because I don’t mess with dolls I’m emotionally attached to.

If I get a vibe from a doll that it’s fine the way it is, I don’t mess with it. I love the sculpt of the Baby Moana from the Disney Animators dolls. It also reminds me a little of my friend Ebony. When I got one in great shape I knew I’d make some outfits for it and enjoy it as it is. I’ve since received a messier Moana baby but I’ll probably just transform it into a cuter Moana.

More Answer:

I think of myself as making dolls better..which also is a testament to emotional attachment.

The first used Groove/Pullip/Dal I bought was a combination of “Hmmm, what are these dolls about” and “OMFG what did they DO to you poor doll? I’ll make it better”

I love a baggie doll. I’ve learned to have boundaries about how much work to put into dinged-up humans if I’m not getting anything from that relationship. With dolls I get SOMETHING, some change, from the work I put in.

Let’s look at two dolls to illustrate how my emotions fluctuate from doll to doll.

For my birthday, Ebony gave me two baggie dolls.

I love that my friend went into Dollyteria, not quite knowing what she was looking for but knowing I like dolls in baggies and that I need more dolls of color. She came to me with these two My Scene dolls.

My Scene: Madison and Hudson.

TADA.

My Scene “Hudson”…I do not have ANY emotional attachment to him. I think he looks like a douche.

So, within a day I was sending Ebony pictures like this, to let her know I was getting THE MOST out of Hudson….my way.

Yup, cutting his hands of to try and get more articulation. Removing his insane hair. I’ve sawed off parts of his feet to sculpt him new ones.

This is how I will make Hudson a better man.

Hopefully, this man:

Katya Zamolodchikova

As for My Scene Madison?

Far gentler treatment in how I handle her and present her. I’ll saw off Hudson’s flat feet in a hot instant and show you the pictures. If I sawed of a doll of color’s feet I probably wouldn’t show the process of it until those feet were right again.

BECAUSE DOLLS AND IMAGES HAVE POWER.

No one needs disembodied Black heads on their feeds. No one needs to see hand-less Black Dolls. Maybe someday dolls of color will be as mass produced as white/white passing dolls (Licca) and those images won’t resonate but we’re not at that point.

But Madison isn’t getting sawed.

She’s going to chill on the shelf until I’ve worked up the nerve to try and turn her into a woman I DON’T WANT TO FAIL in making. There will be no naked object photos of this process. Too much feelings there.

Legit scared about falling short on this but know I won’t get better at dolls of color if I don’t try.

Finally:

It’s ok to have your feelings about my dolls, or your dolls, or your action figures. It’s natural to shift between seeing them as dolls/humans/personalities/totems/ritualistic objects.

They are ultimately your feelings to have.

craft, Doll, Uncategorized

Hair Meditation.

A common reaction to my arts and crafts is: “I wouldn’t have the patience”

I don’t. I am not a patient person.

I am a scattered mind with so many ideas and thoughts that teaching myself organizational skills has been essential to get anything done. When I am not hyper-focused I am easily distracted and have a hard time prioritizing tasks. When I am hyper-focused on something I need to do…great…but that is rarely the case.

I have anxiety and depression which creates powerful emotions that can derail my life if left unchecked. I require grounding on a regular basis.

Let’s look at what this has to do with craft. I’ll be using doll hair here but the same is true of sewing, knitting, beading, stitching individual sequins and more.

This is an EAH doll I’m turning into Teen Titans Go Raven.

This is a traditional reroot. I’ve hand mixed three colors of hair, cut them to length, and started the process. For each hole I’m wrapping about 10 strands of hair around a two pronged needle, holding them in place along the needle’s shaft with a finger, and plunging them into the head from the outside. Then I release the finger holding strands,twist the needle slightly, and remove the needle.

Later I will apply glue to the inside of the head to keep the plugs in place.

Let’s check out a yarn re-root.

Using acrylic yarn threaded through a wide-eyed and long needle, this process also starts outside the head. I push the needle into the head but then, unlike the previous re-rooting, push the needle until it emerges from the neck hole.

Pulling the needle out through the neck usually takes the use of a Leatherman or similar gripping/pulling tool.

Please excuse my fingers, these are the cuticles of my anxiety.

Once the yarn is in through the hair hole and out the neck hole and the hair is the general length I need, I knot it. I cut the yarn below the knot and pull the knot into the head by pulling on the hair above the hair hole. No need to glue later.

Once it’s all threaded and knotted and pulled it’s time for the pet brush, unless you’re using yarn to replicate locks or twists and want the yarn to remain as is.

You brush and brush and brush that yarn until it separates into fluffy strands (you’ll loose a LOT of fiber and some length, that’s ok). Below shows before and after brushing. If you were replicating locks/twists you’d fill fewer hair-holes (after doing the edges) to control the amount of hair mass.

Now what does this have to do with anxiety and my lack of patience?

For most of my lifetime this (and dance) was as close as I could get to a meditative state of mind clarity.

Anxiety and Depression cause feelings/emotions that are real. Your body reacts. You can feel your heart rate change. There’s a buzzing. There can be anger flares and tears. You can feel your chest deflate and your shoulder slump forward and the heaviness of everything. It’s not in your mind, it is your mind and body.

These emotions are Real.

They aren’t necessarily TRUE.

Without having ways to ground myself, these emotions take me to terrible places. If I feel worthless, I’ll internally dig into myself find a list reasons why I should feel worthless. I’ll justify that feeling and label it real. If I feel the buzzing of anxiety and search externally, I’ll find a million things to believe are the cause and set to “fixing them” as if that will lift the surging panic: I’ll rehash settled issues with friends and loved ones, hurting them and bringing no peace to any of us. I’ll spend 2 days thinking that I need to re-order my kitchen and it’ll bring me calm. I’ll fixate on the past. I’ll ignore boundaries. I’ll lash out, believing my rage is justified. I’ll be all reaction and no calm, rational, reflection.

I’ll spend my nights awake in self-torturing thought loops chasing each emotion until it is dawn.
When I’m doing detail work I’ll be able to do what I’m supposed to do in meditation.

Breathe
Note emotions, memories, thoughts and let them pass without action.
Calm myself.
Give myself permission to do one thing at a time.
Give myself permission to be quiet.

I am not patient. I am a complex emotional woman whose lack of patience and desire to do things RIGHT NOW when my emotions flare up who has found ways to calm herself and create in the process.

You don’t need to be patient to do these things. You just have to enjoy the process and what it brings you. If you don’t enjoy knitting, or sequins, or beads, or plunging needles into dolls heads (but enjoy the results when others do it)…it’s not because of any failing in your patience, it’s just it isn’t a process that suits you. That’s ok.

And to all my crafting friends…who, like me, know that crafting does have emotional highs and lows but who love it for what it brings you. I’m glad you have craft and it brings me joy when you share it.

-K

craft, Doll, Social, Uncategorized

New Years Eve

It’s New Years Eve.

My 破魔矢　”Hamaya”/ Demon Breaking Arrow from this year is ready to be burned in a bonfire tonight.

My bedroom and kitchen are clean enough for guests. I’m spending my third New Years Eve in a row with Jamie. I’ve known her since we were both wee cosplay dorks at cons in America. 20 years?

I’ve pulled out one of my futons. it’s folded up beyond my desk.

None of these dolls were here last year. Contemplate that for me.
The desk, however, I bought sight-unseen from another foriegner before I moved to Japan…17+ years ago. It’s been painted many colors since.

Jamie will come over. We’ll get snacks and catch up. Then we’ll head to a shrine in Kashiwa to count in the New Year. I’ll burn my arrow.

I don’t usually buy Hamaya but I’d been asked to pick up two for a friend in America and then got one myself. That friend turned out to be a full-time scam artist…one of two friends this year who turned out to be harboring secrets so horrible that they traumatized too many people to even contemplate…watching it burn will hopefully be cathartic.

I’ve rid my home of so much from the scammer but never by burning.

In my dance room my quilt is pinned and ready to be tied…and tied…and tied.

Tomorrow Craftmas begins in earnest and without interruption.

craft, Disney, Doll, monster high, Uncategorized

Starting Melody

Meet Princess Melody, the daughter of Ariel and Erik.

That there is all I know about Melody.
Gina’s daughter knows more. She loves Melody. This is how I pay for the 15 dolls Gina sent me. Melody gets made.

From Gina, re: which doll gets Melodied and is she planning to wig or reroot:

I was thinking the belle doll. I didn’t know what would be easiest for you it would be fine if she was a brunette for it as Freya (Daughter) is a brunette if her hair is Good enough. What ever floats your creative juices. Most of all, have fun.

I’m a brunette.

Disney faces are so simplified that hair shape and color do a LOT for identifying character ….So, I wanted to get CLOSE. At least a darker brunette if not black.

The dramatic sweep of bangs and the side part make Melody read as Melody…so I set to experimenting.

First I noticed that there aren’t many videos about re-rooting these dolls.This is probably because of what a pain in the ass removing the heads is AND how much time rerooting a giant head takes. Most customizers seem to go with wigs or gluing wefts to the dolls. Kid play made both of these seem like “meh.” ideas.

I have two Belles in my collection, both from Gina. One is from the first generation of Belle dolls (I can tell because she has blue painted on undies to match the blue dress she came with) and MORE hair, and a second generation doll with yellow undies and less hair.

I started experimenting with more hair Belle and figured I could trick her bangs into doing a side-sweep…even if I couldn’t move her hair part. I set to work seeing if I could get her hair any darker.

I know that synthetic strands don’t really take dye well….but I’m not above magical thinking and believing in the power of stains.

Yeah…No. Neither Dylon nor alcohol and arcylic inks worker to get her hair more than a shade darker.

I have a new sink container now.

I turned to Belle with the more sparse hair…and chopped.

Then I dipped her head in boiling water and set to softening her vinyl. Her neck softened first, ball of the head joint.

Unlike Barbie dolls, the ball part in her neck is what rotates and moves. The section inside her head remains connected to the head….but it had to come out so I could glue the hair from inside the head.

It was possible to get my tools in at the front of the neck between the joint and the head vinyl but in the back section the vinyl and joint were fused together. I had to tear some vinyl.

The neck hole is a little jagged but I figure I can bond it all together with liquid fusion after rerooting and repainting.

The

The pencil line shows where the part will be moving to. I’ll also be doubling up on the small holes at the front of the head so hair can be swept forward for bangs and back for her pony tail…no gaps.

Starting the rooting process. I’ve painted the scalp so it doesn’t show through the hair..

Which was when I realized that I hadn’t done the same for my Wednesday doll. The hair is pretty thick but I stopped rooting to paint the top, as that is where the scalp will most likely show through.

And this is how my Monday evening is looking…hairy.

craft, Doll, Social

I Slump in Sadness

I visited America for two weeks this summer, hitting Maryland/Virginia/Pennsylvania for the first time in 18+ years.

I don’t have a car in Japan. I don’t need or want one here. I only drive in America. Usually I visit my hometown, where I can borrow a car. I’ve also visited cities with good enough transportation options and friends….but this trip I needed to rent a car.

How I got to this age never renting a car, I don’t know. I asked for advice and was told “reserve the smallest possible car. They will try to up-sell you once you’re in front of them. Often they won’t even have that car, it’s just to lure you in…but keep saying you want that car. You’ll generally get a nicer/larger car for the same price if you don’t back down.

Well, that’s what I did. I also requested GPS because I ready don’t need to make my once-a-year skill use more complicated.

My friend Brad took me to the car rental office my first full day in America. The man behind the desk was a sweetie and liked my homemade skull dress. He said he could go locate a GPS system for the car I asked for (a clip-in one) or rent me a larger car with one built-in for the same price.

This is how I came to be driving a Cadillac Escalade. A HUGE fucking car. HUGE.

Brad was kind enough to take a test ride with me to a Denny’s first. I was yelling “omfg this is low key terrifying!!!!” most of the way. Brad helped me figure out all the extras the car had to make driving A HUGE FUCKING CAR easier (more sensors, things that light up when someone is in your blind spot, that kinda thing).

After that all my major drives to different cities became a GPS navigation to all Tuesday Morning stops between Point A to Point B.

I didn’t know what a Tuesday Morning store was when I bought my first used Pullip doll. Through YouTube Pullip Education sessions I soon learned that these odd stores occasionally have random Pullip dolls for 40-50usd….when they normally go for 100-200 new.

Now, that’s I all I knew. My first trip to a Tuesday Morning earlier this year, in my hometown, was creepy and I found no Pullips. Tuesday Morning is an “off-price retailer for close out merchandise” a grab bag of furniture, home goods, and a handful of random toys. You never know what you’re going to get.

I did find four different full sized Pullip/Dal/Tayangs on this trip but nothing grabbed me. I now have regrets. In fact the regret set in when I learned how expensive downtown Philadelphia parking was but by then I was at the end of my trip and far away from the Tuesday Mornings that I’d found treasure at.

I did buy one Mini-Pullip. I’ll rebody her in the future.

I was well into my habit of googling “Tuesday Morning near me” before any long drive by the time Rook and I went to pick Emily up from the Philadelphia airport. I informed Emily and Rook that our drive to where we were staying WOULD involve one Tuesday Morning stop on the way and that was non-negotiable. I then explained the above reasons.

This was how Emily found herself, a woman once afraid of dolls, buying toys.

Our first Tuesday Morning DID have a Taeyang I now regret not buying…but we didn’t leave empty handed.

First of all I took this photo. Y’all know Hippos are deadly, right? The Little People know.

Then I saw Tristesse.

I’m very upfront about being a depressive with anxiety issues who avails herself to prescription medication to stay moving forward. I have a special love for Sadness from Inside Out (Japanese title: Inside Head). The last Elementary school I worked at has a large poster of the character I painted for the English room. They also have a poster I painted of Bianca del Rio.

I had to have Sadness. Her action? Slumping in Sadness.

Relatable.

She was only 6$ or so. In part because the batteries inside her own head were now dead and when you pressed her slump button she only made a bug-like clicking noise.

I bought her and a Monster High doll to be customized later.

Emily bought a Stieff Dinosaur, a Malificent, and some assorted bugs.

Here we are feeding Tastykakes to our toys in bed.

Here is Sadness trying to blend in. Relatable content.

But I’m never content to leave well enough alone. When I returned to Japan I figured out how to remove Sadness’s hair, unscrew her headplate, and replace her batteries. She now moans and says things like “Goodbye, friendship, Hello, loneliness” “I don’t think that will work” and “I’mSad” in English.

Then there was the matter of her sweater. It’s sweatshirt fabric seamed in many places and kept flipping awkwardly and showing the seams.

So I knit her a sweater from leftover yarn. It was the first time in a long time I knit without a pattern. She also tried on a beretthat one of my other dolls had been wearing.

I’ve since gone on a felt beret spree, making berets with exposed seams and enclosed seams. I figured she needed a proper blue beret for her active slumping.

The Sadness figure comes with a fake book. My next plans are to cover that fake book with a Sartre cover and sew a tote bag for her book. Maybe I’ll even make some tiny medicine blister packs to slip into the tote with her reading.

After all, Sadness relies on a the Inside Out team to balance her out…and I rely on modern medicine to be able to better access my full emotional range, despite sadness always being an integral part of who I am.

Do It Yourself: WFU

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

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