Travel Outfits Update

Narae and Maya's outfits are quite far along. Narae just needs a cloak, and possibly a bonnet. Maya needs his vest, cloak and scarf. And they both need shoes, which hopefully will come next week.  Narae's outfit is a remake of one I made many years ago. That doll was one of a three-doll commission for the main characters from the Scottish legend of Tam Lin. I couldn't remember the name of our heroine, so looked up the story on the Internet, where most references to the story said the heroine's name was usually 'Janet'. That didn't seem familiar, so I did some looking through my old doll albums, and sure enough our Tam Lin heroine's name was Jennet - close enough.

I really like Narae's outfit. Her sleeves are of the finest cotton gauze, and I gathered them onto narrow ribbons as opposed to using elastic. Elastic will lose it's stretch over time, but ribbons will keep the gathers looking as fresh as the day they were first sewn. I love her wine red velvet bodice. Working with velvet was the usual challenge, having to hand-baste every seam first, but nothing looks quite like velvet, so the end result is well worth the extra effort. I think this outfit would look amazing on several of my other dolls too!

Maya's shirt was also a challenge. I adjusted old patterns from gnomes and musketeer shirts, and cut it out of the same fine white cotton gauze. The most challenging part was the collar - it's bad enough to sew in human size!  But I used soft iron-on interfacing and plenty of FrayChek, worked very slowly, and it came together very nicely. Most of the shirt will end up hidden under his vest and cloak, but that's okay.