Sunday, April 5, 2015

Five gals with new outfits wish you a happy holiday!

They haven't agreed on what holiday, since Panthea was raised Greek Orthodox and thinks Easter is next week, Daisy and Shira are Jewish and working on Passover, Akilah Nichelle is African Methodist Episcopal and wore a hat to Easter services this morning, and Thorne was raised by free spirits who celebrate the spring solstice instead, but she likes bunnies.

The outfits in order of construction.
Panthea showed off her outfit earlier in the week, but let's take a closer look at what the others are wearing.

April 3 (I'll explain about April 2 in a minute)
Daisy has a major Cinderella fan thing going on, so she wanted a casual dress that's vaguely reminiscent of Cinderella's wedding dress. The underskirt and bodice are cream-colored; the overskirt and top flap are from a 99 Cents Only pocket handkerchief. (Her Sparkle Girlz head is now on a Fashionista body.)

Helpful forest creatures love me.
Daisy's dress is where I realized that in my terror of attaching the darted bodice to the skirt too high, I tend to overcompensate and attach it too low, making the darts not fit quite right.

April 2 and April 3
The overalls that Thorne is holding started as elastic-waist pants for Shira, back on April 2, and the fit was disastrously bad. On Friday, after finishing Daisy's dress, I picked out the top seam, realized these were sized about right for overalls for Thorne, and tried to finish them that way. However, every effort at extending the top just a little to be less apt to wardrobe malfunctions made it stiffer and drew attention to how much was almost showing.

If Julianne Hoof makes me dance a hoe-down jive,
I'm doing it in a skirt. Srsly.
However, in the process, I'd "discovered" that Thorne has a mismatched thrift store aesthetic, and I'd made my first ruffle. It somehow seemed obvious to make Thorne a denim A-line skirt (with proper hem curve) on a darted bodice (seamed at the right spot) with a ruffle. The one tuck in the front of the skirt was supposed to be two tucks, like Nastia's skirt, but I didn't realize one tuck had slipped out until everything was attached, and since it fit that way, I wasn't going to mess with it. This is probably about what Thorne would do to alter a thrift-store find.

April 4
On Saturday morning, I downed a mug of coffee and sewed Shira a pair of snap-closed pants in one try.

Hailing a taxi around here is impossible.

The top was more of a challenge. I'd tried several approaches to making her a blouse with floaty banner sleeves... but Shira's superpower involves fire, and she really did not want anything with dangling fabric. She now has the same style bodice as Panthea (but with tucks in the cups) on a waistband.

April 5
For Akilah Nichelle (now on an old Pivotal body with articulated elbows but click knees), I wanted to reproduce the Sparkle Girlz dress she'd been wearing, but in a shorter length and dressier fabric.

I am now ready for anything, including
the local accounting society's networking cocktail hour.
This one took a couple tries to get the bodice even halfway plausible: it's bias-cut and still suffers from being a bit stiff. Attaching the bodice to the body of the dress required both Scotch tape and pins before I could get it to hold still to be sewn where it belonged.

Shira: So Thorne, have you ever tried putting Peeps in the microwave?

20 comments:

  1. Wow, you're really keeping up with your schedule!
    I love the dresses, their diffrent style fit each doll beautifully. My favourite is Thorne dress.
    Ps. Attaching a darted skirt to a bodice is something that makes me sweat every time!

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    1. Thank you! I'm so glad somebody faves Thorne's outfit, which was such a weird experience to make.

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  2. Well, whatever each is celebrating, they all look just great! Happy Bunny Day to you.

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  3. Happy Easter et al. to you all as well ;-).

    Applause on your sewing project progress. Note to self: look up "hem curve." Not that I'll be sewing anytime soon. No. Just curious.

    Ms. Shira is rocking those pants. Go girly!

    Thorne, bunnies be cute ;-)

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    1. Thank you!

      It's just the little "smile" that an A-line hem has to be cut with so it hangs evenly.

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  4. Awesome job! The girls must be really happy to have some new dresses :)

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    1. Thank you! Shira especially is glad to have civilian garb. Being dressed for super-hero work all the time is awkward.

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  5. Happy collection-of-holidays!

    You're really doing a brilliant job with your outfit-a-day project, and it's great fun to follow along with. Nice work!

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    1. Thank you! We'll see if I can keep up the pace...

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  6. You make the best doll clothes ever. Where were you in the 70s when I had my Triki Miki and Dawn dolls?!

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    1. Aw, thanks! In the seventies, I was refusing to learn to sew.

      Check out some of the links in my sidebar for the most amazing doll clothes possible -- high fashion!

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  7. I love your doll clothes! Shira's pants and shirt are fabulous.

    Happy dollidays! <3

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  8. They all look great! Uh... she's not talking about putting the chick peeps in the microwave is she? She means marshmallow peeps right? Right?!

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    1. Thank you! DEFINITELY the marshmallow peeps. The Action Heroez gals love marshmallow Peeps for teaching physics.

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  9. Lol @ Muff's question. Fabulous job sticking to your project schedule! My faves of this lot are Shira's pants and Akilah Nichelle's dress.

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    1. Thank you! Akilah Nichelle is relieved at praise, as she's working to adapt to the more casual Arizona lifestyle.

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  10. I say the same thing around Christmas time. Some people don't understand about celebrating everyone.
    Your outfits are right on target. Each one gets prettier than the last!

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    1. Aw, thanks!

      You're reminding me that I should do something with the gals for next year's winter holidays... I kind of ignored those, this past year.

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