I’ve been working on this doll for a while because there are so many pieces to it – first the doll, then her underclothes and then her outerwear. She was made from Make Your Own Southern Belle Cloth Doll and Her Wardrobe. I’m not crazy about the book. The clothes don’t fit very well, mostly because shortcuts were employed. For instance, the difference between the fullness of her skirt and her tiny waist is accomodated via a drawstring, which creates a lot of bunchiness around the waist. That’s why I made the belt which wasn’t part of the pattern.

This photo shows under underclothes – bloomers, a hoop skirt, crinoline, and what the book calls a “bust improver” (kind of like a bra padded with falsies). She also has shoes made of felt. As you can see, she’s bald at this point.

The face is a combination of paint and embroidery. I made her necklace by twining three different cords from my stash together. It matches the trim on her dress very nicely. The flowers were bought. This was my first experience working with curly hair and it was pretty tricky. It’s so tangled together in the package. I didn’t try to make much of a hair style, being happy just to get it stuck on her head at all.

Now that she’s done, I have no idea what I’m going to do with her.

While not exactly a craft, I did assemble this and it’s certainly part of the craft room. I was looking for a nice cutting table to put in my spare bedroom where I do my crafts and my mother came up with the idea of using kitchen cabinets. It makes a beautiful piece of furniture. I don’t have handles installed yet because I’m nervous about drilling the holes and not getting them lined up. Maybe I’ll skip handles. The best part about this cutting table is how much storage space it adds. My old one had no storage at all. Now I can keep my tools at hand.

The dress looks OK from the front but it doesn’t close right in the back. This particular envelope of patterns calls for “facings” all the time – pieces that are supposed to be folded over and back and sewn in so many ways that I can’t figure out what they’re doing. I came out with more folded over than I should have, I guess, because it takes all my muscle to close the dress barely enough for the Velcro to catch. It certainly doesn’t overlap smoothly.

This was the first time I’ve ever had to match a fabric pattern. Call it beginner’s luck, but it came out perfect. Indeed, it was beginner’s luck because the instructions didn’t offer any suggestions. I sort of guessed where the pieces would line up and tried to cut that way but it came out better than I deserved. I had trouble with the facings on this one too. The tie is attached with snaps. I have this thing called a Snap Setter that I bought for a huge project where I had to put in about 500 snaps. It’s pure genius. No sewing – only hammering.

There’s something not quite right about the top of his head. The pieces didn’t join together the way they should have. I faked it and it shows. Maybe I was supposed to blow that piece up larger than I did.

Having now done a few stuffed animals from the Adventures in Toymaking book, I’m taking a break from it. Working from patterns printed on copy paper isn’t as nice as real tissue patterns. I worry what they’re doing to my scissors and it’s rough cutting through all the layers that accumulate from having to join multiple pieces of paper together to get one big enough for the whole pattern. Not to mention the aggravation of blowing the pieces up in the first place. Inevitably once I’m home I discover that I didn’t enlarge the snout enough and have to make a second trip to the copy center.

Next up: curtains.

This octopus was made from the same Adventures in Toymaking book as the elephant. The most fun part of making it was picking out the fabric. The fleece on the top part has little fishes swimming on it and the cotton on the bottom has spirals like suckers.

The worst part of making it was turning and stuffing all those tentacles. The pattern was supposed to be about 25% bigger. It’s pretty big anyway, as you can see, but maybe if it had been a little bigger those tentacles would have been easier to manage.

I got an old book called Adventures in Toy Making from a library book sale (actually got it for free because I turned in eight boxes of books for their sale). It’s full of patterns for stuffed animals. This elephant is the first one I’ve made. It’s asymetrical, with the legs being different on each side. That makes it slope a little bit, or else my sewing was just off. But it’s cute. I actually got the eyes and ears lined up pretty well so for once the face isn’t skewed. I think I should have stuffed a little harder. It seems like no matter how much I stuff I never stuff things full enough.

Making clothes for 18″ dolls isn’t as fussy as making Barbie clothes and the patterns are more like real clothes, so this was an interesting change. On the other hand, you need more fabric.

This nightgown was a simple pattern made out of muslim with a lace trim. The entire neckline is elasticized, meaning no complicated collar seams.

This t-shirt was my first time ever working with knits and I didn’t do such a great job. It’s very easy to stretch out the edge of a knit when working on it. That’s why the sleeves are more bell shaped than is customary for a t-shirt. After messing this up, I did some reading up on the subject (wrong order, I know) and I might do better next time, but I have to say that knits are not for me.

This skirt is my pride and job. All the those pleats and I did a pretty decent job of them – not perfect, but nearly. I couldn’t find anything that would make good marks on that fabric, so I ended up doing all the ironing with the pattern still attached instead. That was the way to do it too. I’ll remember that trick for the next time. The only part I don’t like is that it has an elastic waist, which I didn’t realize until I got to that step at the end. It would be a nicer pattern with a real wasitband.

I gave these clothes to a friend’s daughter and she sent me back this photo of her dolls. Aren’t they cute?

The pattern included scrubs for both Ken and Barbie. Ken had green scrubs and Barbie had pink. The hell with that. Barbie doesn’t have to be a nurse. Everyone on ER wears blue. Besides, blue was what I had. This was a McCall pattern. Making that pocket was tricky. It’s just so tiny! Then came an even thornier problem: getting the elastic through the waistband. I know the principal of threading elastic. You scootch it through with a safety pin. But where to find a safety pin small enough to go through a 1/4″ tunnel? I must have spent an hour trying to thread that elastic.

I love this fabric but not this dress. This was a Simplicity pattern and they tend to use shortcuts. In this case, gathers instead of pleats. It makes for a bunchy waistline that doesn’t drape well. I have a very similar pattern from Vogue with pleats that came out much nicer when I made it.

The coat has very short sleeves. That’s because the pattern fooled me (for the second time – more fool me). It says 5/8″ seam allowances unless otherwise noted. I was so excited about it too. I don’t care how small Barbie is, working with 1/4″ seam allowances is tricky on your own fingers, especially with any kind of fabric that wants to unravel. But on the next page it says 1/4″ seam allowances unless otherwise noted.

So I had done the first few steps which joined the back to the sides (and clipped the seams, of course) when I got to the collar and realized that if I took 5/8″ off of each side it was going to meet in the middle. That’s when I found the second note. It didn’t seem to make a whole lot of difference in the fit except that the sleeves came out so short, which is odd because I hadn’t hemmed the sleeves yet. Now I’ve crossed out the 5/8″ note and circled the 1/4″ note so that it doesn’t fool me the third time I use a pattern from this envelope.

This was from the Vogue envelope. Vogue doesn’t take shortcuts with Barbie. She gets linings and darts and pleats and pretty much everything you’d expect from a real pattern except set in sleeves (and 5/8″ seam allowances).

Her belt/waistband is actually a piece of ribbon. That’s a pretty common solution to the problem of how to make what would be skinny pieces even for humans. It’s not always easy finding 1/4″ or smaller ribbon to match whatever project you’re working on though. I think this dress is lovely. I believe it was from one of the Simplicity envelopes.

Twice a year my town has what we call “big trash day” where you can put out large items for collection. Pickup trucks and strollers will cruise the neighborhood, checking out the sidewalk sale. On the last big trash day, I contributed a couple of items that were claimed almost immediately. Then Todd and I took a walk around to see what there was to see. We found this chair in perfectly good shape except it had no seat. I really needed a chair for my sewing table at Todd’s house. I was actually using a folding chair. So we grabbed it for rehabilitation.

Todd made a seat out of plywood for me that fit the gaping hole. Then I added foam and made a cover for it. On the top, I sewed it like a regular seat cushion with contrasting piping and everything. But on the bottom I just folded the fabric over the plywood and stapled. That way you can’t see the plywood. It came out really nicely and it’s very comfortable. Not too bad for free!

I love this gown. I wish I had the tiny waist and long legs to look as good in it as Barbie, not to mention enough of that material to make it. I don’t even know where I got the material from. It was obviously cut from something because there was a seam in it, but I don’t recognize it. At first I thought the other side was the front but then I realized I liked the back side better (I don’t know which one is officially the right side, but it doesn’t matter).

I like making Barbie clothes because they’re fast and Barbie doesn’t complain if I’m a little crooked. Plus I never have to do zippers. Barbie fastens all her clothes with Velcro.

I wanted a white Barbie because I thought this color would look so nice with blond hair but K-Mart charges $2 more for white Barbie than person-of-color Barbie. I can’t decide if that’s prejudice or reverse prejudice but either way it seems wrong. Wal-Mart charges the same.