Blue and Red and Heroic All Over

Late last year, I was participating in a winter themed swap. One of my partners had a tiny with no warm tops, and a fondness for superheroes. Off I went to dig up medium blue and cherry red material, the classic hero colors.

The shirt is a simple rectangular style top, trimmed in red. Details on this and other pieces are in the link.

Blue and SIlver and Virgo All Over

For the Virgo swap I joined, my partner specified that she wanted a flowing silvery dress. I was at a loss for a design. My swap partner was kind enough to send me a photo of her girl, but it didn't provide me the spark of inspiration I was hoping for. After much poking around the internet, I found the picture of an empire style jumper with a big inverted pleat down the center front.

The other trouble was finding a proper fabric. I have two silvery materials, but one is an expensive satin and a length of lining fabric. I'm not yet brave enough to cut into the satin, and it's not the easiest thing to work with, being slippery and prone to revealing wrinkles. However, I have a lovely blue fabric that I was itching to use, so the logical compromise to me was to use the shiny blue, give the pleat an inset of the lining fabric, and decorate the rest of the skirt with embroidery.
Sigh.

Choosing the embroidery pattern and marking it out was time consuming, but not too bad. It really helped that I chose a simple design. The trouble came with how the marking pen I used showed up poorly against the blue, meaning I'd have to rely on soap slivers, which rub out quite fast. Silver embroidery floss, I soon found out, frays like no one's business. These two factors made the skirt a project I could not carry around as I pleased, and made progress slow considerably.

Due to time constraints, I went with a kimono sleeved bodice for the top. I cut it so that the sleeve hems went on the selvedge, and fronts were connected to backs to save me a few seams. I even bit the bullet and machine sewed seams that I normally do by hand as they're so short. The neckline is still hand stitched on account of the tricky neckline.

More photos below.

The Art of Pillaging

This was an interesting outfit to make. My swap partner had a long list of things she would like to receive. The short of it was an East Indian influenced steampunk pirate set of clothes. Other details included lots of brown, not much black, with maybe a hint of red and orange. The cut should be loose and baggy to allow for movement, hats and scarves, with pockets and pouches aplenty for storage. Gears, buckles, embroidery, steampunk style squids and octopi, and prop knives were also welcome.

As I don't have much brown fabric on hand, I bit the bullet and bought a yard of brown synthetic. After looking at some Victorian and Edwardian era East Indian clothes, I had a rough idea of how the designs should be, which was thankfully geometric. That made patterning and assembly much simpler.

The Winter Here's Cold

I recently finished a swap with the themes of lace and winter. My partner wanted a medieval inspired gothic dress, with the preferred colors of black, silver, dark purple, and dark blue. One of the sample dresses she showed had a built in hood.

My stash yielded a brocaded fabric with shot black and purple, along with a skirt I made for an outfit I've long since retired. The brocade went to the undergown, and the dark blue became the overgown and matching hood. To make things simple, and to fit with the medieval theme, I used geometric construction, which wastes little fabric and is visually appealing when its all marked out. Since partner stated that her doll is a princess, I expressed this in the richness of the trim and width of the skirts.

More Than a Little Bias

A while ago, I received some swap items, including a dress that didn't meet my standards. As the price limit for the swap was low and handmade items are labor intensive, I wasn't bothered. Even if I don't care for the items (which is uncommon,) I can have fun with the materials.


The dress quickly became acquainted with the seam ripper, and I laid out my sock pattern. Since this is plain weave and not knit, it's cut on the bias for stretchiness.

Here they are, modeled by the lovely Dalya:

Close up:

Not So Spooky

I was in a low key swap for Halloween. There was a low maximum price for the finished products to be sent out, so I decided to make one quality piece instead of several cruddy ones.

 

My swap partner didn't want anything gory or frightening, so I made this skirt. There was just enough orange to make the pockets and waistband, and I think the overall effect is simple but cute.

My little bonus piece was a headband made from yet another clipped bangle, with a rosette stitched to a black bow. The tube top is not part of the swap, but to protect Linnea's modesty as I took these pictures.

Ten People, Ten Colors

This is the other outfit I made for my Dark Circus swap partner. Alas, she did not care for the dress.

For this outfit, she wanted a long dress topped with a corset. Once again, I used the spider print, and instead of bands of white fabric as she shown in a sketch, I used some lace I had on hand. For the top of the dress, I used a very simple pattern with built in sleeves. I then realized I miscalculated and made the sleeves too narrow for the arms, so I pieced in material to the shoulders. the vast majority of the dress is hand stitched, and the raw edges overcast with a buttonhole stitch.

The corset too is mostly hand sewn. instead of boning, as resin dolls don't squish, I used pintucks in contrasting fabric to simulate boning. For the lacing, I used thread bars.

The headdress is made from a bangle clipped to be a headband, and beads glued on.

Though she liked the corset, she thought the bodice should have been lined, and the edges machine finished rather than by hand, and that all the raw edges should be concealed.Using felled or French seams would have eaten up too much seam allowance, and lining on this scale would have been too bulky for my liking. She also didn't care for the handsewn portion of the trousers of the other outfit. I am a firm believer that some things are best hand stitched, where I have more control, than trusted to a sometimes mercurial machine.

The back of the bodice is also apparently uneven, which I find credible, and something I would easily miss, as details like that don't bug me.

As the title says, some people have different tastes.

Stonking Great Doll

One swap I recently finished had a Dark Circus theme. I was assigned to one partner with two dolls, one of which is a 70cm boy. My partner wanted clothes themed on The Night Circus, and had sketches of what she would like. For her boy, she wanted a suit, hat, and shirt. Black, and white are to be the main colors, with a splotch of red. The odd crazy print is welcome.

I made the hat reversible, and the hat along with the shirt are made from a spider web print fabric. Instead of a red necktie, I used a red print of no particular pattern for the lapels without a corresponding collar. for the suit, I took inspiration from The Victorian Tailor. This is also my first time making pants with a built in facing rather than a waistband.

Here is Linnea modeling the upper clothes.

The pants are the height of most of my girls, 45cm.

Steamy clothing

Recently, I participated in a steampunk swap. I'm not too experienced with steampunk costuming, so I figured it would be a nice challenge, especially since I don't care for gears and goggles. They have their place, but I think it's more interesting to have an outfit without those visual shorthands. As it turns out, the doll I was assigned to likes his clothes on the simple side, with a taste for trousers, waistcoats, and stripes.

The materials came from my stash, with the shirt coming from a human sized shirt that became too small in the chest for me. This was made with rectangular construction. The vest front is made from trouser scraps, and the back is from a striped pillowcase that became a mockup for a defunct assassin's hood project. The trousers is form a pinstripe printed fabric that I bought years ago, thinking to make a suit skirt, but never got around to.

As a bonus, I decided to crochet a Doctor Who inspired scarf. Alas, it was my undoing. I got it to a respectable length, though not of Fourth Doctor proportions, but between that crochet project and another one, I got a repetitive strain injury in my forearm.

Cosplay Complete

This was for a cosplay swap. My partner wanted one of two outfits, and I chose the one that seemed less complicated. It still took a fair amount of work. 

I'm not familiar with what this character is from, though I'm guessing a visual novel.

I made the choice to convey the idea of the outfit rather than work myself into a tizzy trying to get the exact fabrics and do fine work outside of my familiarity. Mostly I didn't want to make a lace up bustier with exact scale eyelets. Finding something that could stand in for a belt buckle was tricky enough.

The bustier is mostly hand stitched. It hooks up the back (because I forgot to add allowance for snaps,) was hemmed with ribbon pleated and sewn on the edges. The center has some ribbon appliqued and sewing thread crocheted into a string and tacked on to mimic lacing.

The stockings are made from bias cut material edged with bias tape, the necktie came from this pattern (link) and the hat was a bit of a cock up. I cut the hat a little too small to it looked funny sitting on the head. I fixed it with some quilt binding, though it now looks like a cadet cap instead of a newsboy.

The belt gave me some grief. Once I finally found some buttons that could work as a buckle, I tried threading ribbon through it belt style. Pulling the loose end through the last time was a tug of war I barely won. The skirt was much easier, consisting of a loose hanging lining in white edged with lace, the black main part, and three purple ruffles over a third of the skirt. The waistband was purposefully cut wide as the skirt is supposed to be barely there and low on the hips.

Here it is. The necktie wasn't included in the picture, as I don't know how to knot one.

 

...Also, it wasn't until now that I realized that the skirt ruffles are barely visible in this picture. Oh well, I still like how the overall outfit turned out.

Happy Occasions

Here is something I made for a swap late last year. The theme for this was "Dress for the Occasion," in which the participants listed two events for their doll that they wanted an outfit for. My partner requested an outfit for an autumn day at school or a family portrait. Her doll was a boy that liked casual clothing, pockets, and the colors green and blue.

I think this outfit can reasonably do both. I knit the sweater from two tiny balls of yarn left over from other, human-sized projects. The shirt has a collar and a pocket over the left breast, while the trousers have two back pockets and one in front. The sweater pattern was taken from the DoA forum, though I took some liberties with it. The pants were heavily altered from the Undead Threads slopers, and the shirt pattern came from Dolly Dolly vol. 24 and changed so much as to be unrecognizable. The only thing I bought for this outfit were the buttons, everything else was from my still too large stash.

Fun with Dyes

One of the swaps I participated in had the theme of unfitted clothing. Wrapping, draping, and loose fits can look really pretty, and there was the added advantage of not having to tailor perfectly for a doll you didn't have exact measurements for.

For me, it meant a chance to play with dyes, which I hadn't done for a while. Wool and silk dye nicely with food coloring and vinegar, which is great in terms of price and safety. I had some natural colored silk on hand, so I set out to make a sari....

...Unfortunately, the sari had ample amounts of pink, a color my partner was quite clear about not wanting. Attempts to overdye it into dark red turned it into an unappealing shade of brown red. I contacted the swap organizer explaining that I had a mishap and I needed an extension, and looked over my material. It still had a lot of usable parts, and my partner said that she would also like Japanese clothing as long as it wasn't a kimono or obi. I ended up making a sodenashi, a type of vest.

It's not the prettiest cut, but my partner adored the colors and work I put into it, so all is well.

Swapping

As with many sewers, I have a great big stash, and only so much time/attention span to work on things. It's pretty common to go, "Ooh, wouldn't it be amazing to make X?" and start working on the new thing. Next thing you know, you have a great big pile of things in the "in progress" stack, which is ever growing.

Collecting dolls makes the "in progress" pile and the stash situation even worse, cause the scraps might not be handy for human sized things, but would certainly be useful for your bjds. Also, since they take up less material and don't have to worry about being cold (except Anthea,) current fashion conventions, or an occasion to wear things, there's less reason NOT to sew for them. It has come to the point that my stash is several boxes and a dresser big, and their wardrobes are pretty much filled to capacity.

So I signed up to participate in swaps. My rule is to take as much from the stash as possible when sewing for other dolls and hopefully shrink the darned thing. I also don't like to join ones that have a maximum value or a no hand sewing rule. While my out of pocket expenses for these tend to be low, the labor I put into them is pretty big. Also, when stitching in a small scale, some things are just more practical to do by hand than by machine. Besides, machine stitching is not always a sign of quality. (I glare at my machine, because while I adore it, our relationship is not without hiccups.)

Here's an example:

This was from my first swap, with a mori girl* theme. Being new at this, I didn't want to disappoint my partner, so I made rather a lot of items. Adding another complication was that I'd be on vacation for part of the time between partner assignments and the shipping deadline. I made some educated guesses as to what most participants would want, like a template outfit. This included a dress, pinafore, headscarf and shawl. The rest I added as a personalized touch, like the ribbon on the pinafore and the brown shirt that's to be worn beneath the gown. My favorite parts are the white shawl, which is made with a basket weave stitch and garter stitch edging, and the scalloped tucks on the dress. The blue shawl I added as a bonus, as I made it a while ago and didn't really suit my girls.

*a sort of whimsical enchanted forest fashion aesthetic