Today is the day to join the tartan army, and wear some plaid. It's laundry day in my tartan household, as they've washed all their plaids, and are busy hanging them up to dry.
Thought I'd share a photo of what a skirt looks like in the middle of being pleated. It's hard to explain how I figure out how deep the pleats need to be so that the skirt fits neatly onto the waistband - I've learned through trial and error. I pin all the pleats all the way around the skirt, with a wooden plank in the middle which is about the same circumference all the way around as the final waist measurement. I only use pins without fancy heads, because not only will the heads make dents in the fabric when pressing, but they can also melt. I baste the waist end to keep it the correct size, then cover the "skirt" with a damp cloth and press. When it's dry, I take a few pleats-worth of pins out, then press again, working all the way around the skirt. Then sew on the waistband, and there's a finished pleated skirt!
I finished the embroidery on the red tunic, and have started the studs. On the smaller MSD Celtic costumes I sew on silver beads to simulate suds, and that's an awful lot easier, but for the SD-size costumes I use real suds. They are very tiny, with four points on the back, each one needing to be bent back. It's very hard on the fingers, so needs to be spread over a few days. I was all set to start knitting the "chain-mail" sleeves, but I didn't have enough silver crochet thread. So we went to Michael's in Whitby to get some. They were out. They only had gold and pearl metallic. So we went on to the Michael's in Oshawa. Same story there. The only other place I know might have some would be Lens Mills, way out near Yorkdale, but fortunately they have an email address for questions regarding their yarns, so I can ask first, then go if they have it.
Thought I'd post a few photos of Peach, the new KID I've ordered to replace Soa. In these photos she has the peach-gold skin-tone, but mine will be real skin. I hope she doesn't take too long to come, because I'd really like to have the situation corrected, with Soa as a JID, and finally have my second KID complete so she can relate to, and be photographed with all the other little girls. Of course, she'll be coming blank, and will still need a faceup, so that adds to the wait as well.
Plants keep growing, and today is the day to give them a bigger home. So the little girls roll up their sleeves, haul in the soil and pots, and get busy repotting .....
We went down to the lake this evening. It was the perfect blue, cloudless sky, and the same lighting conditions as when I shot the UFO pictures a few weeks ago. I had wanted more advanced special effects, and we did try sparklers awhile back, but they proved a disaster. So I figured, since the UFO itself was "cheesy" the special effects of it's demise could be too.
So now the little story about an attempted alien abduction is finally complete. Just click on the photo below to see how Nami saves the day. I'm making good progress on the two Celtic costumes, but they are extremely labour-intensive, so will probably take until the end of next week. My two models are Kaye Wiggs Nelly, and Ryung, by Elfdoll. Both are big sturdy dolls. It's been two years since Ryung has been a model, and it's easy to forget just how well she poses. Iplehouse could take a few lessons on how to engineer joints that pose well. Ryung's joints may not be the most realistic-looking - they are true "ball-joints"- but to me range of motion is more important than making a doll look good naked, and under their clothes who will even see? Give me pose-ability!! The girls are still wearing their fancy shoes from their "default outfits", and will put on their "Celtic boots" later. To the casual observer, Nelly's outfit may look just as far along as Ryung's, but it's nowhere near close. Her underdress needs snaps, beading at the neck, unravelling of the hemline (which is a lengthy manual process) and staining of the hemline. Then there's still the knitting of the silver "chain-mail" sleeves, and sewing them on. I don't have enough silver crochet thread, so need to go to Michael's and get some. Then there's Nelly's top. It still needs snaps, and then all the embroidery, and then dozens of tiny studs. Much of the work is very hard on my fingers - especially the fraying of edges, and studs - so I need to spread it out. Their tartan cloaks are also in the process of having the bottom edges frayed.
I still have a lot of things to wash after last Friday's kitchen tile removal as well. All the cupboards with things we use every day, have been cleaned, but there's still plenty more. Then there's the rest of the main floor. It's amazing how just a few hours of ripping out a floor leads to a whole week or more of cleaning up afterwards - and that's even with considerable care taken to blow most of the dust outside. I bought some new books for my girls for "International Children's Book Day". Layla and Hope are loving the little animal stories by Beatrix Potter, while Miki is more of a Robert Munch fan - she loves "The Paper Bag Princess". I found the miniature "Paper Bag Princess" at Chapters, but Mastermind carries many of the miniature Robert Munch books too. I came across the set of miniature Beatrix Potter books at Chapters. The whole set of 12 tiny books was just $18. All the books are fully illustrated, just like the full-size versions, but in miniature - perfect doll-size!
The next costume is a Celtic outfit for a Kaye Wiggs Nelly. Since I like to work on more than one outfit at once, I've decided to finish a Celtic outfit I started for my Ryung two years ago. Nelly's will be red and green, and the SD-size one will be navy blue and golden brown. It's so nice to have two major parts of one of the outfits already finished. Makes me feel like I'm speeding along - even though I haven't actually started anything yet. So, let's go cut out the rest!! I ordered Peach (KID) on a JID body last night. I'm hoping the order went in okay, since I didn't get the usual order confirmation email from Iplehouse. All kinds of things are screwy since they switched to their new website. I did check my order status, and it says Paid in Full, so at least they have a record of it, even though I didn't get my usual confirmation. Now the wait begins. The last two orders from Iplehouse both arrived just short of two months from the ordering date, so I'm hoping this one will too. It always makes me nervous when a prospective delivery date gets too close to when I know I'm going to be away.
Today is another of those days where there's lots of things to catch up on and finish. I need to take the studio shots of my four newest costumes so I can make Gallery pages and send off two of the outfits to their new homes. Then everyone needs to be redressed so they aren't standing around in their underwear. That's become a temptation now that I installed a dark curtain inside my dining room china cabinet where many of my BJDs are "displayed". I use the term "displayed" loosely now, since technically I can't see them anymore because of the curtain. But I had to make it, as I was concerned about fading of all my real skin dolls from the super-bright light in the dining room. Even though the cupboard faces north, the sunlight bouncing through my big bay windows from the snow outside, and the light bouncing off my light south-facing kitchen walls outside, made the room way too bright. I got tired of closing the curtains all the time, because I want to be able to see outside. But I noticed my newest dolls are definitely "pinker" than the older ones, so I need to nip fading in the bud. I'd really like to display everyone in my office doll cabinets, but that means first making room on at least three shelves, and changing the lighting in the cases. Right now it's fluorescent, which is bad for resin too. My son brought over some ropes of LED lights that can be installed on the backs of all the wooden display case supports. They cast a lovely soft light on the dolls - on every level. The lights are hardly ever on, and the cases are quite dark because of the covered porch right outside the sliding doors, so sun and bright light will never reach them. So that should be a project for sometime this year.
I've divided the "Iplekids Everyday" album in Favourite Photos, into two separate albums - one for everyday Iplekids shots, and the second one for "Lesser Known Special Days", which can include any dolls from my collection. I've also added in the short Alien Abduction story, even though I still have to shoot the final scenes. The Iplehouse Custom system is back up for the first half of this month, and they've added Peach, so I should order her as a JID right away, so she can come before I go on summer holidays - that gives it two and a half months. Then Charie can paint her while I'm away, and Soa and Peach will be their proper selves by sometime in the end of July or early August. That's still such an awful long way off, but the BJD hobby is not for impatient people!! |
AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
May 2024
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