Introducing!

Two nameless models. If you remember the sewing business that my friend Kara and I tried to start last year, this is the booster attempt with a focus on: doll clothes.


They are pictured here with our first two attempts. Kara's is the peach dress, and mine is the maroon. They won 3rd and 2nd place in the state fair, respectively.

The red head came with a name already (I hate that) and it is NOT staying. "Stacey" is so "Barbie" when it comes to dolls.

I love her red hair, and green eyes, but her face is plain (she reminds me of an early American Girl doll, and for all their popularity I've never thought that they were very nice dolls) and her coloring unfortunately unrealistic for a red head. The pricing for this doll was MUCH better than American Girl prices (very cheap with the coupon), though, so I am happy with her.

The Madame Alexander dolls I found while researching on the internet. Her vinyl upper body is nice for lower neckline and thin-strap tops, as seen in the picture.


I was very excited to find that they are sometimes available at Costco beginning in October for the holiday season. However, over the phone, Costco informed us that they would not be carrying them this year. The next week, Mom surprised me with her after a trip to Costco! The employee was apparently mistaken.

Her skin is beautifully creamy, her eyes a rich chocolate and her hair is unbelievably silky. She also has the ability to tilt her head, as well as looking up and down (like my Elsie doll). American Girl and the Springfield collection dolls (my red head) can only turn their heads from side to side. Amazingly enough, she was also fairly inexpensive (much, much less than American Girl!)

Suggestions for names are quite welcome! I'm thinking of Flanna for the red head and Rowena for the brunette...

~Lizzie

Doll dress

My friend Kara and I made doll dresses to enter in the state fair. This is mine, on my doll, Elsie.

I couldn't get the lighting right... so I have two versions.
The washed out version:

The fuzzy, yellow version:

Maybe between the two you can get an idea what it really looks like. =P

Details:

Full length shot:

I had a lot of fun sewing this dress! We threw them together pretty last minute, so now I'm eager to do another doll dress with more planning and more care.

~Lizzie

Finished Apron

It didn't turn out as nice as it could have... the green checked material ended up being really hard to work with, so I let some little mistakes go by instead of going through the trouble of ripping seams and sewing them again. Still, for my first attempt at an apron, I'm pleased with it. And I really like the color combination...

Rainy days and sewing corners...

Today there was no 'making "hay" while the sun shone' because the sun did not shine... instead, I did some creativity indoors and FINALLY got started on my dress! After we went to see Star Trek at the movie theater... but that's a post for the review blog. Once I have time to mull over it a little.

And as I'm sure you all know, I could go on and on... about nothing much in particular. But instead, I'm going to end my little break and get back to my dress.

That's probably the shortest post I've ever done...

~Lizzie

I'm BACK!!

I know, I didn't announce that I was leaving. Nor am I going to oblige you with a lengthy and juicy account of all the busy-ness that has kept me from posting for the last month. Hint: it was mostly baseball... baseball game on top of baseball game... and if there wasn't a game, there was a practice. All that on top of everything else I'm doing was too much. But the tournament was May 7th-9th, and now that I've recovered from the team losing, here I am, with PATTERNS!

I splurged on patterns today. I decided about a month ago that I wanted to make a really nice summer dress, because I have two weddings to go to, and my 18th birthday is coming up, so I thought it'd be nice to have a dress to wear to all 3 occasions. (Shh, don't tell I'm wearing it more than once!)

So you might be wondering why I said "patterns" plural. If you are, congratulations on being observant. And thanks for not assuming that I accidentally added the 's'. I got patterns because I couldn't decide which one I wanted, they were all on sale anyway, and the store was getting ready to close, so I didn't have time to decide.

I got Simplicity 2965:


I like the one in red, only they're all kinda short, so when I ever get around to making it, I'll make it longer.

Simplicity 2917:


Either the short sleeve, or the sleeveless.

New Look 6589:


I like the style of the black one, but I've got a plain soft yellow in mind for it that I borrowed from Mom's stash...



It's between this one and the next dress for the dress I'm going to try to make in 2 and a half weeks!

Vogue 8470:

I really like the white one, but I'll probably make the skirt a little shorter, because otherwise it takes FIVE yards! Which I don't have in the pretty yellow material.

And I really liked the Vogue 8489, but they didn't have it:

I like the green, but if I ever get to make it, I want to make it with the accent trim like the tan and brown.

And you're probably overwhelmed with patterns already, but I also got two apron patterns.

McCall's Retro aprons:




And M5358:



For this one, I'm planning on making view C (the lime green at the bottom) but with the tie and pocket in this green checkered, and the main part in the brown. And I also want to add a ruffle in the checkered material.

I was going to go ahead and cut the apron, but I got distracted and did this blog post instead... and now it's late, so I should just go to bed. Hopefully I'll have some "finished apron" pictures eventually!

Oh, and I made the cinnamon rolls Abigail mentioned here for Mother's Day. My icing didn't turn out right, (probably because I didn't want to use our entire bag of powdered sugar... and I didn't have any coffee) but the funny little clumps of sugar didn't dissuade my family. And I thought they turned out okay... next time they'll be better, though.



~Lizzie