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.

This was made from the 1903 Grand Ball Gown kit from Paradise Dolls.

(click on the picture for a full sized photo)

The hair was a nightmare, as I knew it would be. In the end I covered up the mess with a lot of feathers.

Here she is from the front. Her best view is really from the side, so that’s how I have her posed on my shelf.

There were supposed to be three bows down her back but I ran out of ribbon. This is the best view of the underskirt which took a lot of effort to make but which doesn’t show all that much.

I’m so thrilled to have this done because I’ve always wanted to make one of these dresses and I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. It’s not perfect but I think it’s beautiful.

Tips for working with beads and sequins

Crocheting with beads and sequins isn’t hard once you got the hang of it. The hardest part about working with beads is that they’ll take any opportunity to escape. You can’t just put your thread down or you’ll come back to find beads all over the floor. Believe me, I learned that lesson a few times. The kit included pre-strung beads which is supposed to make getting them onto your thread easier. It does, but it also allows you to spill hundreds of beads onto the floor at one time when the knot joining the string to your thread comes loose.

Sequins have the opposite problem. They don’t like to be separated. My fingers would go numb from trying to get just one sequin into position for the next stitch. The sequins in the kit came covered in a white powder. It felt nasty, like chalk or resin, and it hid their sparkling beauty. So I washed it off the first set. Mistake. I learned that the white powder was there to help keep the sequins from sticking to each other so tenaciously. Even with the powder, they stick, but without the powder, just try to pry one away from the pack. Fingernails come in handy here.

Another thing that came in handy was a small pair of tile cutters. You can use them to cut off the extra sequin that will inevitably end up part of your work no matter how diligently you tried to separate out just one. Of course, you want to be very careful doing that. Don’t cut the thread.

Some of the beads have abnormally small holes and as you’re moving a string onto your thread, one will catch and refuse to move over the knot. Trying to force it will result in the knot breaking and all the beads running off onto the floor. Untying the knot so you can remove the bad bead will result in your putting down one of the threads without thinking and going to pick it back up again only to realize that all of the beads have run off onto the floor. Use the tile cutters to cut that one bead in half so you can remove it from the string without untying.

Extra tension helps control the beads and sequins as you’re working. After stringing on about a mile of beads (a few inches of sequins goes a long way), push most of them way down the thread. Keep a working number of beads or sequins between your work and the hand that guides the thread. To move the next bead or sequin into place, you’ll need tension from something besides your hand. I would run the thread under my foot or between my knee and the sofa arm.

Working with beads and sequins will feel awkward and slow at first. The first row was only 36 stitches and I think it took me an hour. I didn’t think it would be possible to finish this project in my lifetime. By the end of the skirt, the rows were almost 200 stitches long and I was doing them in less time than that first row. So just keep working on it, and remember: Watch those beads!

Here’s Lady Paradise modelling the underskirt. I’m not sure it ended up exactly the right shape. It’s made out of a million strips of ribbon. Kind of crazy. I think a pattern and some fabric might have been a better way to go. Their sewing instructions aren’t that clear and I ran out of ribbon before I got all the bows made. I don’t think I wasted any either but I came up about 20″ short which is a lot of ribbon.

This is my hand modelling the skirt after the beaded loops were sewn on. You’d be amazed at how long this step took. I thought it would be about an hour but it was probably more like four or five. Plus the loops are all tangled together. Once I’ve got the doll fully dressed and on the stand, I’m going to have a lot of sequins to flip and loops to arrange.

Nearly done. You see the bow on her shoulder? Well, there isn’t one on the other shoulder yet. There are also bows that go on the back and more beaded loops for the bodice and sleeves. Then there’s the hair to worry about. I guess I can’t just keep the scrunchy on. It’s starting to seem like crocheting the dress was the easy part.

1903 Grand Ball Gown from Paradise Dolls.

I got this kit and immediately created a disaster by turning the skein of purple rayon thread into a hopelessly tangled mass which I then attacked with a pair of scissors in a temper fit, resulting in little pieces of purple rayon thread all over the living room floor.

When I regained my composure, I went down to AC Moore to see if I could find a matching crochet thread, since I didn’t want to throw out my $75 kit before I’d even started it. I found Opera Lavendar. It was nowhere near the same color but it was complementary.

After that inauspicious start, things progressed pretty well. Here’s a photo of the skirt after I’d finished crocheting it:

In this photo, Lady Paradise is having her first fitting. No, she’s not wearing a blindfold because she’s into kinky bondage. I have her head wrapped up in scrunchies because her hair gets in the way.

Now I have to do a lot of sewing to finish up. There’s an underskirt plus sleeves and bows and loops of beads that need to be sewn on and together and then the doll gets sewn into the dress. The dress is coming out a little tight on her so I may need some kind of gusset up the back as well.

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.

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.

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.