Cinderella costume

Well I entered the costume swap on one of my favorite forums, because I LOVE Halloween and I love to see all the AMAZING creations that everyone comes up with.   I was sent my swap partner's questionnaire and read through it.  She had three dream costumes that she listed as choices of what type of costume she would like.   Cinderella was one of them.  I don't have a pattern for Cinderella's dress so I made one.  This is actually pictures of the second attempt.   The first one just was not good enough in my opinion.  This one turned out MUCH nicer.  I had a hell of a time w/ those peplums I wanted it to drape just right.  It's still not like I wanted it but much closer than the first attempt.

The skirt and the bodice are fully lined, this presented a problem w/ the first skirt.  I have a bit of gathered tulle as you can see to add a sort of crinoline.  With the first skirt the tulle went all the way to the top, and was sewn into the waist band, there was such a bulk of  fabric that I broke my sewing machine needle on the first try.  I did manage to get it sewn through, w/ some effort.  So on this version to help get rid of the bulk, or at least minimize it I just made the crinoline shorter and sewed it to the skirt lining.

This is the inside of the skirt looking in from the waist band.

A closer look at the bodice, too bad it got a little blurry.

the inside of the bodice completely lined.  OH! that pointed yolk(is that what it's called?) sure gave me fits.  On the first version I couldn't figure out HOW to so it from the inside so it would turn back out and look nice and smooth.  On this one I figured it out and it looks SO much nicer.

Side view

Back view, it looks so wrinkly in this picture..Argh!

It turned out so much better than I thought it would.  I made the little blue headband to go w/ it.  The satin is actually glittery but you can't tell in the pics.  I looked through hoards of Cinderella pics on the web, and hit was a pretty close representation of it.  It looks so nice on my #49 it was hard to give it up, but it looks really nice on my swap partner's Kanani doll too.  The outfit I received is AMAZING too.  I'll post pics of that too in a few days.

Adora Dolls

I'm a staunch AG fan, but these girls are Adorable!  I might be swayed a bit, the babies are SO cute!
Adora Dolls






They have some REALLY cute outfits for their babies:




They are really cute!

A touch of Sass.

My daughter's doll Aiden was feeling sassy, and looks it. DD said, "she's a rebel, she doesn't care if she matches" So she's sporting a shirt that I made from one of DD's old shirts, and her skirt was actually a MAJOR screw up trying to make a pair of shorts. I sewed the back to leg pieces of the shorts together upside down and then of course sewed on the waist band before I noticed. The plaid was leftover pant legs from a pair of slacks I made into board shorts for my daughter, so I didn't have any left to fix it. I decided to just make it a skirt. It looks horrible, but DD doesn't care and neither did Aiden.

Cupcake Cuteness!

OK, I realize the print is not to scale, but I bought this TOTALLY ADORABLE fabric to make a sundress for my daughter and I couldn't help whipping up one for her doll too. It has not been very sunny this week so I can take pics of both of them in their dress, but I managed to get one of her doll. I will add more pics when the sun comes out again.



I got some pics, and I forgot to put in what else DD said about it LOL... I finished her dress first, and then I whipped up the dolly dress. When I was done I gave it to her, and she said, "Oooh I love it!" Then she thought for a minute and said, "It's too bad though..." and I said, "what's too bad?" she said, "it's too bad that her dress doesn't have as many cupcakes as mine." Kids.



They are both the Oliver + s popover sundress, I made DD's bigger because the biggest it went up to was 8 and I didn't want her to outgrow it too quickly. It's a little bigger than I wanted, but she'll grow. I added the ruffle at the bottom, it's not in the pattern, nor is the white eyelet lace at the top. When I saw the dark brown sprinkle fabric there was no way I wasn't adding the ruffle. I love it! This pattern is so quick and easy it really lends competition to LJ's drawstring dress, it's much easier and looks better when finishes (at least IMHO).

Summer sewing swap

OK, this one was a little harder.  I signed up for the swap and waited to get my partner.  We all fill out a questionnaire..what we like, what we don't like, what we absolutely do not want to receive, what's the dream outfit you'd like...etc.  My partner's dream outfit was a mid 1800's dress.   I was totally lacking inspiration in that area.  I didn't want it to be just the same as the last dress I made for the spring swap. So I procrastinated.  Then American Girl released their new historical dolls Cecile and Marie Grace.  So I was looking through their new outfits and was inspired by one of them.  Marie Grace's skirt set.  So here is my version of the set, I hope my swap partner loves it as much as I do.

I did not care for all the bows on the front of the AG one, so I left that off, I thin it does need something but I don't know what that is.  Sometimes it's better to leave something rather than put too much.

This is the back view:

Close up pics of the front and back

This is a picture of one of the sleeves in progress, it was a lot of work, but I love how it looks

I know some people like to see the inside of the project so here's some pics of the inside of the top (forgive my mess, my sewing table is also the dining table so it's a challenge to sew a project while trying to live life at the same time):

The finished top, front and back.

I also made a Chemise and pantaloons to go w/ it, sorry about the ugly fold in it, this is before I washed and pressed it for the last time.

I LOVE this dress, wish I could keep it, but it's the day of shipping and it has to go out.  I will have to make another one for my daughter to put on her dolls so I can admire it.  It turned out better than I expected because I had to draft some of my own pattern pieces to make it look like Marie Grace's outfit.  Again I modified parts of 4 different patterns to get what I wanted.  If I do make another there are still some changes I would make so it won't be exactly the same but it was a good learning experience.  I enjoyed making it, just wish I would have decided on what I was doing a lot sooner so I could have given myself more time to be ready.  I made it all in one day, from drafting pattern pieces to assembly to washing and ironing, today it's going out in the mail to my swap partner.  I hope she loves it as much as I do.

Birthday dress

I originally cut this dress out to make for my daughter when she was 3, she's now 7.  Well stuff happens right?  Anyway, we were invited to a birthday party for a friend of our's daughter and guess what?  She's 3!  One of the prettiest little princesses I've ever seen and perfect for the dress.   So I sewed it together finally.

It has the most adorable little pockets.

This is only the 3rd zipper I've ever put in.  I don't like doing it really, but at least it looks ok.

My daughter insisted that we put a tag in the back.  So I let her write "back" on it.

It sewed up pretty good, there were some confusing parts, but I got past them.  Overall it's really cute, and I hope to see her wearing it sometime just to see how well it fits.  I had no measurements to go on.

I wish the pictures and lighting were better, but it was down to the wire and I had to wrap it to give so this is the best I could get.

Kids bored yet? Here's something cute.

Build your own cupcake

Ran across this cute site this morning, and Brooke is bored so I printed it out.  She very much enjoyed it and loved putting them together.  It's a free download and if you print it on the "fast draft" setting on your printer it doesn't take too much ink. PRINT Super cute and something to do, that they can do w/o making a mess in the kitchen.  On the edge of paper cupcake bliss...LOOK no calories!

Pippaloo on Etsy

 I just have to share a link to this shop, I KNOW my daughter will LOVE to get some of these for her dolls for her upcoming birthday.   Pippaloo play food and clothing for 18" dolls  She has the most amazing recreations of human food that I've seen.  Simply perfect!

Oliver + s Popover sundress (for dolls)

I whipped this up tonight, SO simple, and adorable.  It actually took me more time to iron the bias for the ties than to make the whole dress.  I LOVE this pattern, I think I'll make a few more when I get some more fabric.  This pattern is SO easy I think just about anyone could sew it.  I like it better than the LJ drawstring dress.  Anyway, I got the link to the pattern from Dynamite Threads blog and the pattern is called the Popover doll dress free pattern there is a girl version too.  I'd like to make that for my DD, but I need to get some more fabric first.  It fits Mattel Samantha nicely but it was a little tight pulling it up over her bum.

I just used fabric I had on hand from the Heritage 30's dress I made a few months ago.  Some white on white print, and a spot of lace from the swap dress I did recently.  I was losing good light fast because I got it done right at dusk, so I might try to get better pics tomorrow.  I was thinking it didn't look very summery, more like Christmas, but after I was finished, I think I like the colors.  I wanted red white and blue, but I didn't have any suitable blue fabric.  Of course Samantha's poor hair looks a hot mess!  I just quick grabbed her up, changed her clothes and ran outside to get pics...sheesh poor thing.   Next time I'll try to make sure her hair is combed at least.

Liberty Jane freebie, Drawstring dress

This is a SUPER simple project, cute and easy.  I thought this would be a good first try for my daughter to sew herself.  It's all pretty easy except for the binding around the sleeve holes and the ironing of said binding.  Neither of those things she could do by herself as she's only 7.  The other problem we had was that she had decided on this pretty blue *sheer* fabric that I had in my stash, which then obviously would need to be lined.  SO the dress turned quite a bit shorter because of the extra bit of folding over we had to do on the hem and neck line.  I just used plain white ribbon for the drawstrings...I'm not that fond of ironing.  I think she enjoyed it, but got bored w/ it after a while and went and watched TV.  It's cute but not my favorite pattern.

Now for the Doll Spa part

I decided to try my hand at American Girl doll restoration.. I found this lovely Samantha on ebay for real cheap and her poor arm had parted ways from her body.  So I bought her and fixed her up...
She was in really beautiful condition when she arrived, she had no spots or stains, just her arm was off and her other arm and right leg were about to go too.  The left leg was good elastic-wise but really floppy, so I just totally restrung her. 

Right out of the box.

 

 

Hair is kinda straight and her arm was unattached and she smelled like crayons.

So I removed her head and washed her body and limbs.  Then I downy dunked her and set her hair in rollers:

Then I restrung her today and now she's all beautiful, smells nice and is able to hold a pose again :D

  I ended up selling her after much deliberation, she is currently being loved by a Mom and a daughter in New York.  It was a great experience, and I know I will try it again sometime.  Samantha is my favorite so it's really hard not to save them all.