Under Construction

Taking a look at items made this year, when I remembered to take photos...

Second Guessing Myself

During the last week of 2024 I made a new outfit for my Lawrence. His was the very first Medieval Fashion sized outfit I made back in 2019, and even though I'd made a new formal shirt to go under his leather surcoat - one without chainmail - there was still a strip of chainmail along the bottom. I decided it was time to make a new surcoat without chainmail. And since I realy liked Matias' formal outfit, I decided to make a black version of it for Lawrence.

The shirt underneath would be the same gray brocades as Matias' but with different trims. And the surcoat would be of two different black brocades...

The beading was a challenge since I was using tiny 2mm round silver metal beads that are so shiny that it's almost impossible to see the holes....

When I was finished I took some photos of Lawrence wearing it...

It looked nice enough but I was having second thoughts about the embellishments. The silver metal filagree looked too much like flowers, and I wasn't happy with the double row of silver beads on the surcoat. It just seemed too 'flamboyant' for his character. So after it bugging me for a few days, I decided pick it all off.

I redid the embellishments on the surcoat. This time I used a slightly smaller bronze bead cap along the front edges. I also stitched the tiny silver beads back on, but in different rows. And I added a row of gold studs at the top. Overall it now had a 'finer' quality more suited to his personality.

Of course, now that I look back at the original embellishment I wonder why I even bothered, since it was actually really nice. But I can't go back, since the new version has new chain-stitch embroidery and studs neither of which can be removed. But I do still have enough of the black brocade that was used for the yoke of the surcoat, so I can always make another one like the first attempt if I really want to. And because I really love one of the photos I took of him in the first version, it will be the face of my Favourite Photos for 2025....

Inspiration?

Ever wonder where my inspiration comes from and why I take the photos that I do? Well, recently many of them were inspired by the new dragon book my sister and I were working on.

We'd been working on it for months, and had done a rough layout of the pages, and there were still several sets of new photos that I wanted to take to include in the book. There was also one photo which we both really liked, and it needed to be in the book. It had been taken way back just after the baby dragons had hatched, but being a vertical photo it couldn't take up a full page, and it just wasn't working with anything else.

It really needed to be paired with some photos featuring books. That's when I got the idea to photograph a brand new 'library scene'. It was back in November, and I'd just finished photographing Winston and Saphira moving in together. Their lair was still set up on the dining room table, so I quickly put together a 'library' scene with every small book I own, right in the middle of the dragon's lair...

I took lots of photos of the little dragons reading, and then my sister put together a spread using that original photo of Winston and his kids....

We thought it worked well there. But then, while I was in the middle of the 'Drako' story I had the idea to share both Winston's and Saphira's back stories, and we thought it would be fun to include their baby photos in the new book somehow as well. But how? Well, how about using that photo of Winston looking at his photo album with his kids? They could be looking at their parent's old baby photos. So that photo was removed from the 'library' page that I'd just taken the photos for...

and it was moved once again to create the 'looking at Baby Photos' page, where it finally stayed.

And that's just one example of the thought process involved in putting together a new book, and coming up with brand new scenes to compliment existing photos, and why the whole process seems to take forever.

These are some of the other recent photo shoots which were done specially for the book....
Moving in together...

Agnes and the birds in the snow...

...and the entire Little Dragon's First Christmas story...

...and there's still one final story which I photographed back in early December for the end of the book, which hasn't even been shared yet.

Larry and Lily

Early 2024 DreamHigh Studio introduced a larger 27 cm House Elf named Larry. I've always loved Donny's little elves and I was excited about getting one in a larger size. So I ordered him unpainted, and he arrived last May.

Not only was he incredibly posable, but he also had articulated hands...

He was roughly twice the size of my other House Elves, and the perfect size to become a Dwarf in my Medieval Fantasy world..

It took forever to get him painted, and I still hadn't decided what colour hair and beard to give him. His hair and beard colour would totally depend on what kind of outfit I wanted to make for him. I had originally ordered him thinking he'd become a Dwarf like the ones in the Hobbit movie with red hair and beard, But I also liked the idea of white hair and beard. Wigs are changeable but beards are permanent, so I had to choose. And since I needed to decide on hair colour before I could make him an outfit I just put him into one of my BID outfits. Then in January Lily arrived. I had ordered her painted, so she wouldn't be blank as long. But I couldn't decide on what outfit to make her either, so just decided to copy Daisy Elf's outfit....

Making her jacket...

I felt that even though I had ordered her painted, she lacked a certain definition (see photo above) So I decided to try and enhance her makeup a little, basically by highlighting the shadows and creases in her face. After sealing her I glued in some eyelashes. It was the first time I'd done either before, and I was quite pleased with myself. I also gave her one size smaller eyes.

Then I made her a wig...

And for size comparison I took a photo of Lily and Willie welcoming my other new arrival, Sarah.

Baby Clothes

I have two baby elves from DreamHigh Studio, but they are not twins. I ordered one when they were first released, and after she arrived DHS released her again with a set of different faceplates. So I had to order another. I had made a tiny dress and nightgown for the first one - baby Mika - so when Gabi arrived she ended up in Mika's nightgown for the good part of a year.

So I decided to finally make Gabi a dress and nightgown of her own. Her nightgown would be identical, but I wanted her dress to be a little different...

The new dress ended up a bit too long, and I couldn't shorten it at the hem, and I didn't want to pick the whole dress apart to cut some off the top, so I stitched a tuck into the skirt....

Gabi and Mika in their similar, but different dresses....

The two identical nightgowns...

The girls ready for bed...

Gown for Sara

I really like Medieval Fantasy costumes, but only two of my four Ruby Red dolls have one, which is rather limiting for photography, so I thought I'd make one for each of the other two.
I started with Sara, and chose a nice turquoise brocade for her dress...and got started.

I had a beautiful trim that was too big scale-wise for my bjds, but would be fine for the Ruby Red dolls, since they are a much larger scale doll.
When making the ruffles for the sleeves, I always finish the ends of the ruffles, and attach them a seam allowance distance away from the edges of the sleeves. That way when I finally stitch the underarm seams, I only stitch to the end of the sleeve itself and not the ruffle, so there's no unsightly stitching visible at the wrist. It just makes for a much neater look.

The most work is always the intricate sleeves with their multiple layers of embellishment. I prefer to do as much as I can while the sleeves are still flat.
*Note that the elbow ruffle fabric is also hemmed at both ends, and it attached a seam allowance away from the edges of the sleeve. That's so the 'puff' isn't ruined by getting caught in the main sleeve seam when it's sewn. Then the seam is sewn carefully avoiding the puff fabric, and after the sleeves are turned right side out, the two edges of the puff are hand stitched together, thereby retaining a nice 'puff' at the elbow.

Sara in her new gown...

In addition to a flower wreath, I also made her a hat...

Medieval Alex

For Alex, I chose blue brocades to go with black pants. He would get a light blue shirt with beaded sleeves, and gray brocade epaulets. And a darker blue tunic. It was the perfect opportunity to use some nice woven trim I'd been saving. The trim needed to go on before the armholes and front seams were sewn, but I had to be careful to make the designs a mirror image of each other.

The hardest part of any outfit is sewing in the sleeves, making the convex curve of the sleeve fit into a concave armhole. Inserting the collar is also a challenge to get just right, and often takes more than one try. Which is why I always baste everything before machine stitching it. The white neck ruffle of fine white batiste is made separately and hand stitched in afterwards.

Alex with his pants and shirt finished...

Then with his Princely tunic...

..and with Sara, all set to join my other two girls in their Medieval Fantasy world.

Creating a Book Cover

My sister and I have been very busy putting together the next book in the Special Days series. It featured all the Special Days in June, July and August. Gathering all the photos taken over the twelve years since the project began was a huge challenge. But then I still needed to shoot a cover, and all the monthly header pages.

I made lists of all the props that were used in the photos each month, and gathered them on three big separate trays. But the book cover was extra challenging because it needed props and dolls from all three months.

After choosing which props to use, and changing any dolls that needed different outfits, I set about putting a scene together. We had chosen pinks and purples to be the Summer colour scheme, so I started by ironing some light purple fabric, and pinning it in place. Everything needed to be arranged around a blank spiral-bound 'calendar' page which would have the title added in post production later. Things could overlap onto the calendar, but they had to be solid objects, and nothing fuzzy - like hair or fur. And it needed to be roughly the proper proportions. It took me almost five hours of choosing, arranging, and moving stuff around in order to get something I was finally happy with.

And of course not everything I'd put aside ended up in the scene....

The final set up. Note the clown off to the right. I had dressed two dolls as clowns, not knowing which one would end up in the photo. I chose the taller one to fill the space between the flags and the pirate, but her hat with the red yarn wig blended into the Canada flags right behind her, so I switched the two clown hats. Just one of the dozens of things that had needed attention...

One of the final photos...

Then they went to my sister for post production, and she turned one of them into the book cover..

More Title Pages

The set up for the June title page...

One of the photos...

The final title page...

The behind view of the July set up...

One of the July photos...

The final July title page...

August Special Days

Then last but not least, I put together the August title page...

The cover page included many of the special days in August - like Clown Day, Pirate month, Toilet Paper Day, and Ice Cream Sandwich Day.

...Lighthouse Day, Watermelon Day, Hug Your Cat Day, and Book Day

...and Colouring Book Day. I even made a tiny version of one of my favourite colouring books from when I was a child....

There was also Potato Day, and since I'd made tiny Mr. Potato Head parts out of polymer clay for the original photos 13 years ago, I wanted some of those on the cover as well. So I bought a bag of mini potatoes specially to make a couple of Mr. Potato Heads....

Evening Gowns

I always need to be working on something, and while putting things away in the front closet I noticed the short green lace sari dress that had been hanging there for years. I thought it was finally time to make something out of it. So I took it down and started picking it apart. The embellishment around the bottom went all the way around the front and back, so it would make two gowns.

After picking the dress apart, the next step was to make the bodices. I wanted to use the same new elf bodice pattern, but didn't have the right colour green fabric for the lining and petticoat, so it required a trip to the fabric store. After making the bodice, I beaded the neckline, and chose some flower petals the same colour as the appliqués on the bottom of the skirt....

Trying on the bodice, with the skirt pinned on. The fabric from the front of the dress had five appliqués further up, and one ended up right in front of her crotch - which was totally unacceptable - so I spent hours carefully picking it off. If it had been any other fabric than lace the holes from the satin stitching would have shown, but on the lace it didn't show at all. Thankfully.

Then the bodice was further embellished to match the bottom of the skirt more...

And the back of the skirt also needed some work. The original dress had HUGE wide seam allowances where there was no beading, so after unpicking the side seams - which would be the back edges of the new dress skirts - there was a wide unembellished space at the centre back seam of the new skirt.

It needed embellishing. There was nothing I could do about the actual flowers themselves, but I did my best to fill in the area and make it look as much like the rest of the skirt bottom as I could...

Then it was time to try on the gown. To me it suggested an Edwardian style evening gown, so I made a pearl necklace and some long white gloves.

I started by making a nice slender glove, which fit perfectly on Sarah's left arm, but her right hand refused to go through the wrist because of her wider right hand. So I had to design a wider glove for that arm. Which is why it looks 'baggy'. But there was nothing to be done about it.

Then I made some matching hair clips...

Then it was on to finish the second gown....

Two More Evening Gowns

I've almost finished two more evening gowns for my Fashion sized ladies. I need something easy (and mindless) to do these days, so continue to keep working on turning some of the old Value Village finds into 'simple' evening gowns using my new Elf Gown bodice pattern.

These next two are being made from a gorgeous girl's party dress. It had a blue satin bodice, with a tulle skirt embellished with gold thread and soft blue roses. The dress bodice didn't provide enough fabric for the two doll dress bodices, so I used the lining for one, and found a close blue satin in my stash for the other.

The dress skirt had enough fabric for two doll dresses, but there were only 9 of the rose medallions partway up the original skirt, so one of the doll dresses will have five, while the other will have four.

The skirts also needed some creative gathering so the blue rosettes wouldn't end up in 'the ditch', so I stitched large darts in the plain areas of the fabric between the rosettes in order to reduce the amount of fabric at the waist. I used a light gray thread to sew the darts so the stitching would be invisible.

The two gowns are pretty much done. Sarah is modelling the one with the five rose medallions..

I've made one hairclip, and still need to make a couple more to finish both ensembles...

...and make one more of the narrower long gloves, since Bianca has slimmer arms and hands than Sarah. And then Rex can take his turn to dress up in the tuxedo to pose with his wife for some elegant photos.

Child Bicycle Seats

Here I was barely half way through posting photos from our Newfoundland trip, and was working on props for the next one.I wanted to take Baron and Naomi and their twins as a contemporary family, and that meant taking bikes. In the past when there were families with younger children, and I didn't have enough bikes to go around, the younger ones would sit on the traps at the back....

But Baron and Naomi's twins are too young to sit on the back like that. They'd need child seats. But how to make them? I had just emptied a bottle of bubble bath, and wondered if I could make seats out of it. It was a clear bottle and I'd have to cover it somehow. but then there was a large empty vitamin bottle, and it was even brown....

So I removed the label off the bottom, and proceeded to cut the bottom of the bottle into two seats shapes...

Then tested them out. They were the perfect shape but would need some work as the backs leaned forward thanks to the big dent in the bottom of the bottle....

The seats would get attached to the metal traps with a wide elastic, so slots were drilled into the bottoms of the seats. Then thin wooden shapes were cut to fit into the dents in what was the bottom of the bottle, and a small block of wood was attached to 'lock' the seat into place. I then glued a thin strip of leather around the edge of the seats, and used Aves Apoxy to fill in the space between the plastic and wood so the seat would angle back instead of forward....

The finished bicycle seats.

The seats may not conform to modern child safety standards, but then that's what child seats were like when my kids were that age. And the bikes themselves aren't exactly modern either. But I did include seat belts to hold the children safely in place....