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Found a cute little bike at Value Village this week - a 'bicycle built for two' with an extra seat on the back for a little friend. It was a gorgeous day out yesterday, so Nyssa and Nami decided to take their teddies out for a little bike ride....  
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I liked Narae's outfit so much, and there was still so much skirt left over, that I decided to make more, using up the whole skirt, and making as many outfits as it would allow. The original skirt was a variegated pink, with darker pink at the bottom, and pale pink at the top. I picked apart every second row of ruffles, and have enough to make two more outfits identical to the first one, and then two lighter versions out of the lighter pink from the top of the skirt.  I'm using the 'Cute & Colourful' patterns (in my Tutorials), but there are two skirts sewn into the bodice, instead of just one, and I add beading and embroidery along the neck edge of the bodice. The crocheted hat pattern is also in my Tutorial section.
Finally a gorgeous Spring day out there! Daffodils & grape hyacinths are blooming. Tulips and magnolias are starting to open, and my violas are looking great....     I still have five girls that need some fancy lace party dresses, so I checked out 'Lacebeauty' on Etsy. Wow, what an incredible selection they had! Thousands in fact. I had no idea how I'd narrow it down to just five. So I started marking my 'Favourites'. I ended up with 35. Still WAY too many. I finally narrowed it down to 6 laces, and ordered them. They arrived earlier this week. I photographed them with another beautiful, rose embroidered lace, which was a gift.  Now to decide which girl gets a dress out of which lace.
It seems to be quite the challenge to find reasonably priced shoes (or any shoes at all) to fit the FID ladies. I ordered a pair from Facets. They are for the Tonner 22" American model, and I had read that they fit FIDs. Well, Miho isn't here right now, so I tried them on some of my JID high heel feet. The JID feet are almost exactly the same as the FID feet. Well, I managed to squeeze the for into the shoe, but her toes barely protrude beyond the upper, and the sole sticks out way in front, making for a nasty tripping hazard. Then a friend sent me another pair of American Model shoes. They were beautiful - in fact I preferred them to the ones I already had. But I couldn't get a JID foot into them at all. Of course, Miho's feet are a little different, so I have to wait to see how she fits into them. I'm thinking I could split the upper on the smaller pair (on the right) and insert a section with a flower matching one on her gown. And I could cut off the protruding sole from the other pair, and paint the cut edges to match.  I made an outfit for my Butterfly Narae, out of an old skirt. It was such a lovely soft, ruffled skirt, with just the perfect drape for a doll dress.     Today is my birthday, so I took a photo of one of my little girls, with a gift and a big bunch of balloons. I tried outside first, but then it started to rain....   For the longest time I've been jealous of my sister's photos that she takes at birthday parties. Most of my grandchildren have birthdays from November through to April, and that's a terrible time for indoor pictures of kids, and I hate the way flash pictures look, so I find it almost impossible to take decent indoor photos of them. I've improved my camera's range by sewing a little white cotton pocket to cover my flash, and that mutes it to an acceptable level, but my photos are never as sharp as my sister's. She said it's not so much the difference in our cameras, but the fact she has a separate flash, that she bounces off walls and ceilings to get more light on the subject, but not directly in their fasces. She kindly loaned me her flash so i could play around with it. It's a big, heavy unit.  I just took some pictures of the dolls standing around... Like my Asa. Here, hand held at 800 ISO with flash bouncing off the wall behind me....  And here at 800 ISO, handheld without any flash  Benny's family with the flash bouncing off the ceiling....and without any flash...
To be quite honest, I think the photos without the flash are better. They are definitely sharper. That certainly surprised me. Maybe I just didn't use the flash properly. Or maybe it's because with the flash attached, the camera weighs 50% more, and that's getting too heavy for me to shoot hand-held. I can sometimes hand hold my camera for photos down to 1/8 of a second, but it's a very light weight camera, and I can only do it if I'm sitting down, because with my vertigo issues it's impossible to do standing up below 1/30 of a second. Anyway, I found that with the big heavy attachment, the camera was very awkward to hold. Maybe even too heavy for me. Especially with shaky hands. I haven't tried the flash with a tripod, since that defeats the whole purpose - which is to get sharp photos inside the house, of hyped up kids and babies high on sugar. With a a tripod, and using the self-timer, the kids would have bounced out of frame by the time the camera takes the picture. The one situation where the flash did help was when my doll was in front of the window. Here's my Asa, taken at 800 ISO without any flash....  And at 800 ISO with the flash bounced off the ceiling....  Her face isn't in focus, but to be honest, the camera refused to focus on her face, but let me focus on the front of her bodice - and that is in focus. I do like the effect, even though it is a bit grainy.
Looks like I need to practice some more, but with my flighty, overwhelmed brain, I can't focus on absorbing anything in the Instruction Manual right now. Not that I can understand those things even with a clear head. We finally got fed up with the endless costly repairs on our 12-year old car, and bought a new one.  If it ever stops raining, we can load it up and take it out on it's first doll photo shoot.
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AuthorMartha Boers is an award-winning Canadian doll maker and costumer specializing in fantasy and historical-style costumes. Archives
December 2023
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