Word of the month wrap up. Sundress pictures.

 I now have an armload of dolly sundresses! I had to make one. I ended up making three shirred sundresses, four standard sundresses and four party dresses from the standard sundress pattern! Grand total of ELEVEN dresses! (One was for my 18 inch doll and the pictures of her did NOT turn out so will need to be reshot.)

The dress that started it all. . .

  I'm quite happy with how this one turned out. I couldn't draw up the shirring as tightly as I would have liked to because 1. The printable fabric I used can run when wet so I wasn't brave enough to try steam blasting it with the iron; and 2. The elastic I used is extremely cheap and nasty and melts when ironed. After I'd made all the dresses I discovered that you can draw the shirring up more by just pulling on the ends of the elastic but it was too late by then.

I used pretty much the same design to make this dress for Molly, my Maru Mini Pal. . .

 I didn't realise until after I'd made it that Molly is kind of weirdly shaped in the shoulder area. Her shoulders are more the shape of a bisque doll's shoulder-plate than human shoulders. And so a design this strappy makes her shoulders look very slopey and in general makes her look lopsided and awkward.

  But the same dress also fits my Disney toddlers. . .

Although if I was making this for this doll, I would probably make it a little shorter.
AND it also fits my 14 inch Kish Chrysalis dolls. . .

This is Tabitha, a re-wigged Piper, and I LOVE this dress on her. This combination of doll and dress is definitely my favourite from this project!

  Then there are the procrastination dresses that I designed and sewed while I was putting off learning to do shirring. I made patterns, then had fun designing dresses. I worked with four doll sizes. My 14 inch Kish Chrysalis dolls, my 12 inch Kish Chrysalis dolls, my Maru Mini Pal, and my Wilde Imagination Patience dolls. Each size got a sundress and a party dress. Although in all honesty there were only two sizes because the bigger Helen Kish dolls are the same size as Maru, and the smaller Helen Kish dolls are the same size as Patience, other than a few tweaks of skirt and shoulder strap lengths.

  I really like this dress I made for the 12 inch Chrysalis girls. . .

 Originally I was going to adapt the same design for the 14 inch girls (I wish I had) but instead they got this. . .

Which I don't hate but it's really just not my style either.

 Molly got a cute little flower themed dress. . .

Which looks a lot better on her than the shirred one, I think it's the wider shoulder straps.
And it also looks alright on Ariel. . .

  And I discovered that Patience is a LOT of fun to design for. Because she has a fairly cartoonish face, I feel I can be a bit silly when designing for her and it's o'kay because she can get away with it! Nevertheless her sundress is fairly sweet and restrained. . .

I totally designed that as an excuse to use that fabric!

 While I was still planning those, I saw a flower girl dress in a shop window and thought to myself it looked like it could be made from the same pattern. So I made this for Molly. . .

 Then, of course, I had to make party dresses for the other dolls!

 My bigger Kish dolls got this. . .

This one didn't turn out how I expected and I'm not completely happy with it. But I do have an idea that it made be salvageable with a belt, but I forgot about that when I was taking the pictures and right now (while I don't love it) I'm accepting it as it is. It reminds me of the sort of dresses that people put on their daughters before sending them to a portrait session involving an ornate, vintage tea table that is, for no obvious reason, in the middle of an orchard or wheat field. (And of course all the photos must be printed in sepia tone or some other artistically faded effect.)

  My smaller Kish dolls got this dress which is definitely more fun. . .

 It had been meant to be rainbow coloured. Each tier a completely different colour. But I couldn't find the meshy gauzey stuff in four colours that worked together. It would have had to be three pastel and a fluorescent, or three brights and a pastel, and similar combinations which wouldn't have worked. So I compromised with all pink.

 I had most fun designing Patience's dress. It is definitely inspired by some of the dresses worn by various dolls based on the Tiana character from Princess and the Frog. And whilst Alice's colouring could not be more different to Tiana's, it still looks pretty cute on her. . .

Although I really probably should have styled her hair before I took these pictures.

And of course while I was taking the pictures for this post, I had to take some extra, just pretty pictures. . .

I HAD to share those two pictures of Molly, mostly because I spent an obscene amount of time editing all her flyaway hairs out of the pictures! I have discovered that I do not like her hair. It looks pretty and silky. It feels pretty and silky. But there's a curve to it, that won't go away, that's completely out of scale; and it gets flyaways like you wouldn't believe.

Even if  I don't like the dress, I do like this picture of Amarie. It reminds me of the old promotional photos for Heloise's dolls.

I don't know how I quite got this lighting in the next picture. . .

But I like it.

And of course I had to get a picture of the two littlies in their sundresses together. . .

Although Arden doesn't look like she's enjoying herself anywhere near as much as Lydia!

And then, because I loved her in that dress, I got some more pictures of Tabitha in the poppy sundress. . .

I also set up a "beach" and took some themed pictures. Unfortunately most of those are the photos that did not turn out right and no matter what I did, I couldn't fix the colour and contrast in them but here are the few that I do have. . .

Gwendolen takes a look at Adriel's sketch

Eloise waits for the other girls to come and play horseshoes with her

But they're too busy collecting shells, and complaining about all the broken ones

Arden and Lydia have decided to try to dig through to China!

But it didn't take long for them to get tired out and give up!

I still plan on making PDFs of the patterns to put on the blog but, I haven't gotten around to it yet. It's probably going to be another week depending on how much real life insists on intruding. Also I will be adding "How to make a doll's shirred sundress in any size", so more to come soon!