Articulated tween newbie and new spring Sparkle Girlz clothing!

A couple weeks ago, I stopped at Goodwill on laundry day and could not resist the lone articulated doll in the ravaged-by-vultures toy section.

Sweet owl! Nice owl! Want a cookie?

Our mystery gal has a Monster High-ish body with the sort of face where she's clearly meant to be someone in particular. It turns out that she's meant to be Cece Jones from the tween-oriented Disney Channel dance series, Shake It Up, so she's based on actor Bella Thorne and there's another one that looks like Zendaya.


These factoids mean remarkably little to me, but because I liked her face, I named her Thorne, declared her an outdoorsy type, and put her in one of last year's Sparkle Girlz outfits, which is too loose but better than going in the bin with the Polar Bear Club to await home sewing adventures.

My initial perception was that Thorne is the size of the current Skippers. But when I pulled out D'Laura and Stacie for comparison, it turned out I was completely wrong.

Everybody's nervous about asking for autographs.

Thorne is close in size to D'Laura, so essentially standard Monster High height. She looks smaller because her disproportionately large head is not as disproportionately large as the MH gals' heads.

Let's see how she actually compares to the MH body type.

Thorne, I promise March and November are the BEST times for sunbathing around here.

Thorne is closer to normal human proportions, especially through the torso.

We should go shopping for shoes. Let's do that.

I think D'Laura's feet are a little larger, but it's hard to tell.

Only one of us can hitch-hike.

Thorne lacks wrist articulation but has more humanesque shaping to her forearm. I think she might also be able to grip things.

Turn over and get the sun on the back!

Wow, D'Laura has short thighs and long calves! Thorne is again a bit more normal in shape.

Left arm in and shake it all about?

I don't know if this is just a matter of how my specific dolls are strung, but Thorne does slightly better on side-to-side splits.

With front-to-back splits, though, D'Laura is the clear winner.

Betsey Johnson is my role model, Thorne.

Thorne's extra torso joint allows her to lean on her elbows with a little more naturalness.

Do you want to go to the mall, Thorne? We should go to the mall.

At Walmart on Sunday, I chanced upon the new Sparkle Girlz outfits -- the same ones Jewell found -- and brought home quite a few.

Everything not completely covered with glitter...

The green-and-white dress came closest to fitting Thorne, but it made her neck look short. So I pulled out the adult members of the Polar Bear Club and dressed most of them, hoping this will remind me to finish working on their hair and other such details.

Many of the dresses are very, very short -- and no longer come with built-in underwear -- so the gals who can't sit like a lady aren't allowed to sit at all.

Some of us are much happier than others with our new clothes.

The winner here is obviously Victoria, who can sit in her new jeans and is neatly dressed for all occasions. I generally like the clothes but need to haul out the sewing machine so that outfits can be more effectively distributed to people they'll look good on. Esmeralda, in particular, is not at all sure that "prep" is her thing.