vintage lace

Here are my first experiments with the vintage lace trims that I have been collecting.

I hand-stitched these... I have really been enjoying hand sewing lately... it's very meditative and relaxing.  The results are more unique.  Some might say "imperfect" due to the nuances of handwork, but I think they have more character, which particularly suits the vintage lace.

i may have a little BK closet clean-out...

I've been thinking of having a wee closet clean-out on BK.  I have a few sundries that I bought that my girls haven't bonded with, 3 sets of eye chips - including one beautiful handpainted set, some fabric, some hair accessories, some petite-sized furniture, some clothes that I've made, and lastly... some oddly appealing vintage/retro Barbie stuff that fits Blythe. 

The vintage/retro stuff is part of a big jumble of stuff that I bought as a grab-bag at this local vintage store.  Some of the things in the grab-bag are great - especially a pair of vintage squishy white boots that Char-Char wears often. Some of it fits Blythe well & some of it would need some creative styling or alteration.

Annie Mesmer (who the reluctant oracle explained was most definitely NOT named after Annie Bessant, but rather a diminutive form of Anton) was a model for the strange & fun retro stuff.  She's actually a fantastic model... so long as she doesn't actually have to wear any of the clothes after the shoot.  I was wondering if my new girl (who the reluctant oracle has dubbed "Little Kim") might like the track clothes... but I think it would be good to start fresh for her.

Here are some highlights from the impromptu retro shoot.

Annie Mesmer really seemed to enjoy modelling - even in clothes that she would never wear herself... I think that she's quite a shy and introspective girl, but she has a talent for magic in front of a camera!

Stateside!

She's hit US soil... and she is now making the last leg of her journey from West Hollywood to the hills of Oregon... my new Icy Liberation dolly!

My friend is sending her my way & I should be introducing her to Charlotte and Annie Mesmer quite soon.

She is going to be fun to get to know.  I think she is a tomboy and I have never made dolly-sized pants... so I decided to buy some Moshi Moshi linen shorts in black and grey that were for sale on BK and also some black cigarette pants from PistachioLibby on etsy.  (Aren't those Moshi Moshi tops adorable too - they were sold so I didn't get a chance at them, but I think they would look adorable on a tom boyish dolly!)

I have been scoping out jeans too... but the ones I want are a little pricy, so I am going to wait to get to know her before I buy them.  I think the shorts and black pants would work with Miss Mesmer, if this girl doesn't like them.

I'm so curious about names.  Brainstorming... but I definitely have to consult the reluctant oracle on this one.  He's actually a teensy bit curious about her because she comes with a gun! :D

Charlotte's Day Out... a hat for spring...

The same weekend that Mesmer got her new look - Charlotte borrowed a dress that I'd originally made for the Simply Peppermint formerly known as Wondie... to take some picks with a new hat that I made for her.

This was my first Blythe-sized hat project & it turned out well.  It's a free beret pattern from Ravelry.

I ordered a jumble of mini-skeins on Etsy and these were three different yarns included.  Turns out that in Blythe world... a hat takes over twice as much yarn as a sweater... something that is logical when you consider the proportions... but not immediately intuitive to my instincts honed by years of human-sized knitting.

Here's a close-up... you can sort of see the way the colors are blended into each other... but there is also a subtle sparkle in the solid colored peach yarn that is lost-in-translation in the photos.

At any rate, Charlotte loves it and it suits her very well.  We've struck on a thread in her personality that she really likes... a very outdoorsy sort of girl.  It's actually also a touch of mori too.. but the more woodland side of it.

I've been on Tokyo Fashion exploring the style trend of mori lately and I really like the different aspects of it, as suited to Blythe style. I ordered some cool trims from BK that I would like to use to make more woodland Eastern-European style dresses for Charlotte. Sort of like this inspiration...

I'm also inspired by the Gentle River and Vinter Arden stock styles... GR for the more woodland style and VA for the more neutral mori girl... I have a bunch of gorgeous vintage lace trims that I want to incorporate into dresses too.

Finally, I am also finding myself really inspired by Satomi Fujii's amazing work that I've been seeing on Google+ and at http://hanonroom.web.fc2.com/

I just finished a huge event last weekend and now I will have time to enjoy making somethings for my girls... as well as doing a project that will result in some new girls joining our family! 

Bye bye, Wonder Mynte... Hello, Annie Mesmer.

So one thing that I didn't really expect or understand about Blythes when I first became interested in them, is how their personalities emerge.

I was first interested in making clothes for them... I imagined they would be able to wear a wide variety of clothes... so long as the outfits matched their coloring and hair... but I didn't take into account quite how their personalities would affect their fashion tastes. I made some perfectly nice dresses before the Charlotte arrived that just didn't suit her.  Once I ordered my minty girl... I day-dreamed about what she would be like & named her before she arrived.  I thought some of the clothes that I made for Charlotte would look better on her because of her pastel coloring... but she seemed ill-at-ease in them and rather aloof.

It was awkward.  I loved her, but didn't "bond". She did seem to like these stompy silver boots and a vintage Penny Brite dress. That was about it.

Then one day I was looking at photos on BK and saw a photo of a smock, I think it was a Melacacia or Melacacia-style. Something clicked.  I have all this beautiful vintage lace trim that I have been wabting to use and also, I was trying to figure out some neurtal color styles to go with knitwear that I had been making for Charlotte. I thought the smock would be a good style to add lace too, so I dug out some charcoal cotton voile that i had used as trim on a dress i sewed for myself years ago & started improvising a pattern.  I didn't feel like dragging my sewing machine out, so i hand-stitched it together and left the edges raw, fraying the voile for an added "distressed" look. This was just supposed to be a pattern... nothing special.  But then I tried in on the my SP and something magical happened.

She came alive as a spooky girl.  Here is the actual smock out-of-doors... though she doesn't really like sun.

It was suddenly clear that my Wonder Mynte wasn't a pastel Lolita or a cutsey Kawaii kind of girl... she felt awkward and ill-at-ease in those clothes and that's why her personality wasn't coming out and we didn't bond.  As soon as she donned this smock... she opened up and I had a sense of her style and personality... then I realized that there is actually a Japanese fashion trend that fits her closely... mori girl!  She is a touch more occult & dark than just mori... but she definitely loves loose fitting natural black, white, grey, cream, etc.  She also has a quirky love of mod fashion and enjoys sporting red vintage clothes on occasion.  She is spooky, whimsical, individualistic and quiet.  She loves solitude & she's quite brave... but she doesn't like the sun and out-of-doors by day.

As we got to know each other a bit more, I got the sense that she didn't have the right name. She wanted to be named "Mesmer". I mentioned this to my reluctant oracular source who had named Charlotte aka Char-Char.  He said - of course:  Her name is "Annie Mesmer".  I didn't know about the Annie part & I don't want her to be associated with the dubious Annie Bessant... but I do trust my source, so Annie Mesmer it is! Welcome mysterious girl!

in a while, crocodile...

I have been away for a long time from blogging, but I've been Blything a steady rate in the interim.

I should probably clear out old business first and give the update on Charlotte's hair makeover.  Here we go!

In addition to a fairly pronounced 'scalp gap' (which seems to be negligible to a lot of Blythers, but is something that really disturbs my aesthetic OCD sensibilities), my Charlotte also had a very thin head of hair.  This made it harder to hide the gap.  I decided to use a lock and loop method of adding highlights to remedy this.  I used this video as a tutorial to help me get the hang of it.

Charlotte waited patiently for me to work on the project. I didn't want her to get cold and I hadn't gotten around to knitting any hats for her yet (that is for another blog!) so I got her bundled her up while I worked on her scalp.  She watched me with great curiosity.

I got my bits ready in little groups that snipped off the wig & got to work... the color was very close to her  original brown, but just enough difference to add a subtle depth to her hair color.  I used the Pucci Collective wet towel and iron trick, which proved invaluable in smoothing and styling her hair after the highlights were added.

And now she has enough hair to pull a little bit across the gap w/o leaving a bald patch on the top of her head!

I had SO much fun with this project and I was really thrilled to be able to give Charlotte more hair confidence.  The project inspired me to try to replace her eye chips too... but it didn't work.  I was hoping against hope that she got some different glue that all the other Basaak/Blybes out there... but alas - her eyechips aren't going anywhere.  I am getting more okay with that all the time... but I am thinking of repainting her lips in a dark red... similar to the Gentle River red.  I think that might look really nice on her. 

Next up on the big blog catch-up... felt applique dresses!

it's been a while...

Life got very busy and took me away from the world of Blythe for while... but strangely when life got so chaotic that I couldn't cope - my girls were waiting there for me as an escape and a way to soothe my stress.

Almost a month ago, my future mother-in-law had a stroke & we have been on the road a lot and spending a lot of time in hospitals, dealing with a lot of emotions.Things have also been chaotic at my job the last month since we got a new boss who is changing everything daily. When I felt so fried that I didn't know what to do with myself, Blythe came through.

I haven't made anything new for the girls, but I've been enjoying looking at pictures and patterns.  I've been day-dreaming about projects and researching tutorial information. It's been wonderfully calming.  My fiance will go next week on Family Medical Leave for 2 weeks to help out now that his mom is home from the hospital.  Being apart from him for 2 weeks would be so sad and stressful if it wasn't for the plans I have been making to start a new phase of customizing my sweet clone girl, Charlotte & to sew lots of dresses for both Charlotte and Wondie with a big stash of awesome fabric I bought a while back and never had time to get into.

I also want to do a fabric softener hair spa for both the girls, as well as this vintage "Little Miss Revlon" doll that I found at a thrift store, who is in great shape but needs a little TLC.

For Charlotte, I bought two sets of eye chips - one apple green & one handpainted blue w/gold accents. I'm going to be brave and try to get the Blybe/Basaak eye chips out - at least the front-facing ones...

I am going to do a little more sanding on her face-plate to remove her existing makeup & do a new faceup with pastels & acrylics for her lips.

And I am going to try adding some extra hair to her scalp to spruce up her hair without changing her too much. 

I am weird about that.  I'm in total awe of the work that customizers do with Blythe dolls, but I could never rip apart Wondie.  Charlotte I am more brave with because her scalp falls off all the time, so it's really easy to lift it off and see inside her to add sleep eyes and change her pull rings and string.  I gently sandmatted her face w/out going close to her makeup.  I was planning when I got her to change her eye-chips and buy her wigs and such... but I wasn't into the wigs at all and I was afraid to try changing out the clone eye chips because I've heard they are really hard to change & I didn't want to break Charlotte.

I have one really long-haired wavy brunette wig that is close to Charlotte's natural hair.  I got it because I wanted to be able to put in on her as a quick fix and still keep her general look and style... but it was awful - first of all, I felt like I was torturing her to get it on her and she just seemed unhappy.  I know that is weird to say about a doll... but I felt like I could feel her unhappiness with the wig and it just didn't seem right.

I think I will try to use the long hair of the wig to do knotted method in between Charlotte's regular hair to just fill in what she has... then I might give her a little trim to make it all come together.

I used to be freaked out by the difficulty in removing clone eye chips, but I'm getting more confident with it because neither Charlotte nor I like her front facing eye-chips at all.

Here are the hand-painted eyechips I got... I think they are gorgeous. They are made by Elficious on Etsy.

I'm getting a little braver and I just love the idea of fixing up Charlotte so she feels really special and unique.  I am totally in love with Gentle River's face-up and I would like to try something like that for Charlotte - with deep red lips, green eye shadow and warm coppery coral blush.

I think I may try to do her eyelids so her sleepy eyes are colored to match her eyeshadow & add some new longer softer lashes.  It's pretty exciting.

I'm just a fan of stock for proper Blythes, though!  I'd much rather sew that do the customizing, at this point.  Customizing scares me, while sewing calms me... the customizing is for the end result, while the sewing is for the process.