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Took Paige down to the lake to see if there were any photo opportunities. But it was so freezing cold that all we could manage were a few quick hand-held shots when the sun went behind a cloud.   We did spot a bald eagle high in a tree. He didn't look like he was enjoying the cold either....    I'm working on the bow for the back of Miho's dress. It took a bit of fussing to figure out how to cut the fabric for the tails of the bow so it would drape the way I wanted it to. The 'bow' itself is also a strange shape so it will hang the way I want.  These are the kinds of things one needs to keep in mind when making a dress for such a small doll. The fabric I'm using is a heavy satin meant for human scale clothes. A 1/4 scale doll should ideally have clothes made from fabric that's 1/4 as thick. But where does one find that?? Not anywhere around here. So the next best thing is to figure out how to 'fake' things so it 'looks' like it's right.
I love my new Paige, but photos just don't seem to do her justice. She always looks rather sad and dopey. So I decided to try a smaller size eye to see if it would make a difference. First a close up from this morning with 10mm eyes. Then another shot with 8mm eyes.
I only had three pairs of 8mm eyes to choose from - a medium and dark blue, and a pair of turquoise green. I chose the green. I think Paige looks so much better with the smaller eyes.
After a ridiculously warm winter, it's finally decided to get really cold - now that it's March. There was even a light dusting of snow this morning when Paige and Coco took one of the dogs for a walk.   Two of the girls brought something along with them this morning. Rachel brought her doll, dressed in the Peacock Princess gown, and Natalya brought her collection of 'Tsum Tsums', apparently the newest craze in collectors items for little girls. Rachel wanted me to take a photo, so I did.....  Jan has started to redo all the hallways. After removing the 30 year old wallpaper, the walls are being painted white and steel blue. This is the first doll photo taken with some of the background walls repainted, and I'm noticing that the blue doesn't blend into the background the same way as the beige and cream wallpaper did before. Oh well, I guess all good things have to end sometime, and they do say "change is good". The halls look so nice and refreshed, and I'm just going to have to get used to the new background.
I managed to finish all the beading on Miho's underskirt last night, so this morning I was able to glue on all the flowers. There were almost 100 flowers per row, and each row took just one hour. I dread to think how long it would have taken to sew them all on.  For the most part the gluing went just fine, but there are a few spots where I can see the shine of the hot glue peaking out. I need to go around with a small brush and some white glue to brush on any shiny glue spots. The white glue will dry matte and hide the shine. Now I have to address the big bow and embellishments for the back of the dress.  Miho's dress decided it needed more flowers along the fabric band, so I complied. But I gave up with all the hand-sewing, and decided to use my glue gun instead. Much faster!! It took just 15 minutes to glue on the second row of flowers, whereas it took two days to sew on the first row.  It may look totally random, but there is definitely a pattern - five small, and five larger flowers, in a repeat pattern all the way around. Then a new repeat pattern for the upper row....  All the flowers add a nice weight to the upper dress, and make it drape beautifully. I think it could even be worn alone, as a shorter fancy evening gown.  I think it will need a slip underneath though, as it's a little too see-through as it is. While I'm working on Miho's gown, I thought I better get started with the wig cap for Lawrence. As soon as Charie is finished painting Benny and Angela, it will be my FID couple's turn, and I certainly don't want to be making a hard cap wig base on Lawrence's painted head. So better do it now....  I'm using the technique on Whispering Grass' tutorial - Here - where the cap is built up with layers of fine tulle and glue. It's a bit fidgety, but I'm finding it a bit easier this time, than I did with my Wizard. Now I need to draw on the hairline and trim the cap. Then choose the mohair.
Every now and then I'll be working on a doll costume, and everything constantly needs to be redone - because the outfit has a mind of it's own. Miho's ball gown is turning out to be one of those. Every day brings something new to redo, or add. Of course it's also the very first thing I'm making for my Fashion girl, so there's a lot of kinks to work out as well. This gown is actually a 'test'. I didn't have enough of the mint tricot for the full length of the underskirt layer, so had to make it gathered in tiers. I also didn't want all the skirt thicknesses at the bottom of the bodice, so made a yoke for the top of the underskirts....
The pattern for the bodice still needs some adjusting for next time, but I have to work with this one the way it is. I wanted the bodice to lace up the back, but there were far too many layers of fabric to insert eyelets. So I sewed on a row of 'eye's down each side.
The back of the underskirt just seemed too long. My Miho was still in her flat bare feet, so I was adding extra to the skirt lengths to compensate. I figured I better put her high heel feet on and find some heeled shoes. The only pair I had was a pair of pink boots that came with my Leona....  Not exactly appropriate footwear for such a fancy gown! I'm going to have to buy - or make - some nice high heeled shoes to go with it. But for now these will just have to do. At least I could now check the length of the skirts. They were way too long. So I picked out all the seams on both the sheer overskirt, and the lace underskirt, removed the edges and gathered lace, cut off a couple of inches, and reapplied the edgings. Then the dress was a much better length....
I had sewn decorative ribbon flowers onto the bodice....  Of course, then the skirt edges demanded similar flower embellishments. Good thing I had stocked up on ribbon roses and flowers at the sale last week....  I had thought a single row of flowers, alternating between small and larger ones, would be good. But the skirt is now telling me it looks too 'sparse' and wants another row higher up. I had debated between sewing the flowers or, or gluing them, and decided I would sew them on - at least for the over skirt. Although, now that there's going to be a second row, AND the longer skirt wants the same thing - plus a beaded edging - I may just have to resort to glue after all. And because I shortened the sheer overskirt, the lace edging on the bottom of the lace skirt underneath didn't show anymore, so I had to sew a second lace ruffle above the first one, so the lace will show through.  I need to get some more beads, start on the big fabric bow for the back of the gown, and continue with sewing on the flowers. This is going to take a while!
I'm not that fond of the long straight hair I first put on Paige, so tried several other wigs on her. First two short 'Roxie' wigs - a golden blonde and a reddish blonde....
Then Peach's long wavy mohair....  Then a pale blonde 'Paige', and a golden blonde 'Charlene'.....
I find she looks good in all of the blonde wigs. Not so much the reddish blonde.
And I definitely prefer the short 'Roxie', and curlier wigs to the straight look. I find they all say something different. So it looks like she'll be able to choose whatever hairstyle suits her mood. I was going to wait to show Izzy's new face up until after I'd made her a new outfit all her own.....but after restarting her sweater four times last night, I figured that was going to take WAY too long. So I put on the 'Chickie' dress, remade from the one I wore when I was just three.  Charie did a great job! She's so much cuter than when she first arrived. We also found the glass eyes she came with just made her look way too 'stunned', so we switched up to a slightly larger eye. She's definitely going to be a redhead, but I'm not sure which wig just yet.   Izzy is wearing a dress reworked from one of my own 'baby' dresses that my Mom had saved for me. I wore it when I was just three and a half, attending a wedding with my Dad.  It's a VERY thin cotton, and I knew none of my daughters-in-law would want it for their little girls, and at the time my daughter wasn't contemplating having kids either. Plus it was way too fragile, and not today's style anyways, so I decided a few years ago to remake it into a doll dress where I could enjoy it myself. All my Kaye Wiggs MSD dolls have a repurposed baby dress, from ones I made for my daughter when she was a baby. I figured they meant the most to me, so why not?
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AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
December 2024
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