A hodgepodge

This is a picture I took back in graduate school. All of the girls here are wearing homemade clothes, with the exception of Mariko's green dress.

Yu Lian, who you can't see so well, is in a white dress with grey embroidery and pintucks down the front. Yu Wei is wearing a pinafore with a great many tucks down the front  and around the skirt.

All the tinies are wearing sweaters based off of the same pattern on Den of Angels. What Mariko was wearing was meant for Calla and Nurit, but the yarn was so thin it ended up too small and went to her. Nurit has a cap sleeved sweater due to me running out of yarn, but that makes it nice and spring like. Calla has her top decorate with rows of hot pink running stitches.

Calla and Nurit are also wearing skirts knitted from the same Bleuette pattern, but with different yarns.

Theme and Variation

Here are a pair of alternate dresses made with the same patterns as these two, with different fabric and some light alterations. Instead of plaid, I took a fat quarter of Asian print fabric and some brown scraps.

Yu Wei is wearing the lapel dress, this time without a collar, and for a different solution to the front. The front bodice pieces are shorter than the ones in back. Last time I adjusted at the side seams, but this time I pieced in some brown cloth as a mock waistband.

Yu Lian wears the wrap front pattern, this time without a pocket, and the only contrast in the collar.

Forties fun

After reading my book Forties Fashion (see my Library) a few too many times, I got an itch to make some 40s wartime dresses. As great an inspiration as the book and its many photographs is, I wanted some other sources to glean ideas from. After some poking around online, I found the Blitzkreig Baby website and its descriptions of uniforms for women serving in the various armed and medical forces. The dress uniforms, while pretty, didn't grab my fancy, though the work clothes did and I started sketching, stealing aspects here and there.

What with fabric consumption being carefully maintained during the war years, skirts were fairly short and narrow, and it was common for garments to be made from multiple materials. I pulled out a large scrap of checked material, some muslin and other smaller bits of cloth and got to work.

The idea for this dress was taken from the striped Army Nurse Corps uniform, though I left off the tie as I wasn't sure how to get it to hang right in 1/3 scale. I was going to leave off the pockets, as I couldn't get the two to sit on the skirt and look balanced, and then I realized there was only one on the skirt. Silly me.

I don't remember what uniform inspired this dress, only that i liked the idea of a collar and lapels on a work outfit.

A Parade of Uniforms

I have a soft spot for uniforms. I had absolutely no desire to wear one as a student, but for cosplay or as something to put my girls in, I love playing with designs. Most of these are my own creations, but a couple are cosplay outfits.

Here are Dalya and Lilja. The former is sporting a jumper I'm really pleased with. The fabric is nice and I love how full the skirt is. A shirt with full sleeves and a big round collar compliment the look.

Lilja is cosplaying the uniform from the game Katawa Shoujo. The shirt in the game is rather complex, but I simplified things by just topstitching the princess lines rather than cutting them out. The skirt is supposed to be solid rather than striped, but the developers said that the school allows some level of customization with student's clothes, and this was the closest material I had. The ribbon is a bit of decoration pinned to my sewing kit that occasionally cameos on this ensemble.

Now it's Yu Wei, Mariko, and Yu Lian's turn to show off. Yu Wei's jacket isn't as fun as I thought it would be, but it might be more flattering on someone else. My favorite part of the outfit is the skirt anyway. Mariko's was initially for Calla, but it came out way too small. Her skirt is a ribbon I pleated and added a hook and eye to.

Yu Lian's clothes are my attempt at an Alice in Wonderland style uniform. The high collar of her shirt are supposed to lend a serious official air to something that is usually whimsical. There are also pintucks, but that's hard to see beneath the apron. I was seriously waffling on how to include the pinafore into the design, but one of my friends assured me that aprons used to (maybe they still are?) be common elements on girl's uniforms in parts of Eastern Europe. Again, for formality's sake I made it double breasted. The pattern for it I took from Tudor Links The skirt is just another version of the early bustle skirt I've made umpteen times now.

This is what I consider to be Mariko's kindergarten uniform. It got stained some time ago and I haven't yet gotten around to fixing it. Isn't it adorable? It's a jumper with a smock on top.

Summer editions!

Part two, containing non homemade uniforms, is posted here.

Two Breaths of Autumn

Here's some old ones from back in my undergrad days. I purchased a yard or so of some pretty black cloth with oak leaves on it, and I had a good idea as to what to do with it. Princess seams would be involved, as well as copious amounts of ruffles. Alas, this was my first time with princess seams and I didn't do any mockups. The resulting dresses were too wide, and I had to take in quite a few seams.

I had a lot more success with the ruffles. They're time consuming, but an inexpensive way to make an outfit fluffy. I had a bit of material left over from the ruffles that I didn't know what to do with, so I put tucks on each side, stitched a ribbon to it and made a headdress.

Yu Lian is modeling the simpler dress with a box ruffle around the hem.

Yu Wei's outfit is mildly risque as the front only buttons to the waist and is open past that. It never shows up in picture or in person so it doesn't bother me. All her ruffles are gathered in the back, on a straight panel of material with the back princess seams only on the bodice portion. 

Rufflebutt!

The buttonholes defeated me quite well. I tried doing them on the machine, but something went rather wrong, and the stitches came loose as I pulled the buttons in and out.  Now the fronts of these dresses are pretty fragile, and the clothes are in retirement until I can think of a way to restore them.

Oh Glorious Day

I have a soft spot for pintucks, especially in white fabric. I would like to blame this on blastmilk and her pretty photo shoots, and Volks, for having so many dolls have default outfits of this kind. As it happens, Yu Wei and Yu Lian look good in white, so I made them some outfits based on Volks designs, but with my own stamp.

Sisters on the shelf

Here is a picture of Yu Wei and Yu Lian from some years ago. Yu Wei is wearing a dress I fashioned from a pretty handkerchief. Yu Lian's gown has a more interesting tale. It started as a typical plain white Regency dress that someone at a meetup mistook for a nightgown. Soon afterwards I took the dress apart, recut the bodice so the front was flat instead of puffy, and had fun embroidering it.

Have a happy

Enjoy yourselves!

They certainly are.

And then...

There came Yu Lian. As the story of Rose and Lotus was about a pair of sisters, I started saving up to buy Yu Wei's other half.

Don't they look wonderful together? This was taken shortly after Yu Lian left her box. Yu Lian is modeling a sweater that I adapted for a pattern meant for American Girl dolls, and a sundress beneath that was a part of Yu Wei's initial wardrobe. Yu Wei meanwhile is showing off a Rococo inspired dress I made from a fat quarter. I'm rather pleased with how that dress turned out, it was one of my first self drafted creations, made from a body block I took off of Yu Wei.

Yu Lian is an old body Dream of Doll Tender Zen girl. Her name was chosen to match that of her sister and means "Jade Lotus."