Four Little Dresses

I told you I had been hand sewing and the following two photos were taken before the dresses had their press studs sewn on. However, I wanted to see how they would fit different dolls before completing them.

The pattern I used is this one from La Boutique de Vaniline, but I lengthened the skirt and changed the neckline slightly on a couple of them. Her 32-33cm patterns are designed to fit Corolle Les Chéries, Dianna Effner Little Darlings, Sylvia Natterer Minouches, Paola Reina Las Amigas.

Here are the dresses are worn (L to R) by my Phyn & Aero Patience, Corolle Les Chéries, Tonner Betsy McCall and Paola Reina Las Amigas dolls. The dress is slightly big on Patience as her torso is thinner, but she can get away with it.

As I have quite a few different doll this size I wanted to be able to swap their clothes around when it came to dressing them, but still keep all the clothes together in one box. I have some clothes meant for this size doll that cannot be worn by them all, and that annoys me, so they will have to go.

Knitwear can also be switched, however, shoes can not. Just look at the difference in the size of the dolls feet, especially in the first photo. It's laughable! It really is such a shame doll makers don't make all dolls this size have the same size feet!

Here are the same dresses (L to R) on my Vestida de Azul Paulina, Minouche, Little Darling and IpleHouse KID Irene. If Paulina was going to wear this dress, I would need to make one just for her with only one centre set of buttons, as the front of her chest is wider. The fit on my KID is similar to Patience, so once again, she could get away with it.

Here are the completed dresses worn by the girls they were intended for. Lucy (Manica) in the white and Barbara in the dusty pink. I'm not sure about the bright pink buttons on Lucy's dress, I think I may change them to white and I'd prefer a more appropriate pink ribbon in her hair, similar to the pink braid on her dress.

And here we have Carolina and Nora in the more subtle vintage colours. I'm going to change the ribbon in Carolina's hair to a deeper and more olive ribbon and perhaps add matching green braid above the lace (if I can find some) as I have on Nora's dress . . . what do you think?

Well time has flown by and still without an end in sight to this current lockdown. I do hope those of you in the northern hemisphere are making the most of your sunshine and freedom.

FOR BARB: Here's a comparison between my Little Darling's foot and Tonner Betsy McCall's. As you can see Betsy's foot is just a fraction bigger, but I tried my LD's shoes on Betsy and they went on, but were a tight fit, so they wouldn't go on over socks or stockings.

Project: Knitting Continued

After checking the pattern I wrote and posted a few days ago, and prior to my computer chucking the claw in, I realised had made a mistake when typing it ~ where it read Row 14-28, it should read Row 17-28, so you can either change your copy or download the new one which I have edited.

Thankfully, I noticed it when I began knitting it again, this time as a jumper (sweater) which buttons at the back. If you would like to do this, make additional button holes at the end of R15, 27 and 39.

We also have new models to show how they fit my  Corolle Les Cheries and Wellie Wishers dolls.

I'm sorry about the quality of the photos, but my photo editing program went west along with a few other bits and pieces which I had forgotten to save to my hard drive. Unfortunately neither I, nor my tech guys were able to retrieve them.

Willa is wearing the second pink cardi where I added the three extra button holes so she could wear it as a jumper (sweater). As you can see, I also made her a matching skirt using a combination of the Naturally Loyal Baby Print at the bottom and a matching plain pink 4ply from the hip up to the waist.

I use slightly larger needles when I made the skirt, but I think next time I will increase the stitches slightly and revert back to the 2.25mm needles, as the finished garments look much nicer and the stitches more even. Once I have done that, I'll share the pattern.

Well that's it for today my lovelies, I hope you are all having a lovely weekend, I'll be back again later in the week.

Who Came Home in 2019?

There were very few additions to my collection of BJD's and play dolls in 2019.

Only two BJD's ~ Lucy Locket (Liz Frost Willowmenia arrived in Nov.) and Buttons the Tailor (Fairyland Pukifee Jude arrived in Dec.), which you have seen recently, bringing my total BJD collection to 85.

And just three play dolls ~ Annie Rose (a Vestida de Azul Paulina), JR (a Zapf Jolina) who is fully articulated but not actually a BJD and Camille (Corolle Les Cheries). These all arrived in September, which meant the playdolls rose to 45. Hopefully, this will be narrowed down quite a bit this year, as I plan to keep mostly the smaller sizes . . . 14" and under.

I want to sell all of my 16" Disney Animator dolls, unfortunately I'll probably have to let them go for much less than I paid for them, which is a disappointment, especially as I went to the trouble of knitting them all new outfits (although I did sell one doll last year, it wasn't an Animator).

However, my fashion doll collection had a huge influx from Integrity Toys. Between January and October there were ten arrivals, four of which were Poppy Parkers, bringing the IT total to 12. I also pre-ordered a two doll gift set which will arrive in April this year, so I'm not sure if that counts as a 2019 or a 2020 purchase.

Of course there have been some clothing changes with this lot, which I might add, will change again in the not too distant future . . . well at least I have plans, but right at this moment very little motivation. Nevertheless, as soon as I can get my butt into gear and begin sewing again, I promise the changes will be awesome.

As my grand total has reached 142 (which is far more dolls than I thought I would ever own), I have no plans for any additions this year (apart from those on pre-order) and I shall endeavour to reduce this amount down to 130 by the end of 2020. Wish me luck! I think I'm going to need it. :)