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!

New doll! Tonner Deja Vu Anne De Toile

Not going to lie - I'm a little bit intimidated by how grown up she looks.

I'll bet her family never have to have toast for tea because

she forgot to defrost real food!

This is my first new doll in almost forever. . . nope, that's a lie. This is my first new ridiculously expensive doll in almost forever. Having a baby means that suddenly if you say "I'm going to buy a three hundred dollar doll.", instead of muttering "Whatever" and hoping you don't expect him to pretend to be interested, suddenly your husband laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs. And you laugh too because clearly it's a joke because the Giant Baby outgrows ALL of his clothes every twelve and a half minutes, so all your spare cash is spent on miniature clothing that doesn't even fit your dolls! (Seriously, the kid isn't even 18 months old yet and he's already wearing a kid's size 3!)

 But recently we got our tax refunds and made an agreement. He could buy a stupidly over-priced pair of gaming headphones, if I could buy a ridiculously expensive doll. And I surprised myself by immediately going to the Tonner website and ordering a Deja Vu doll. I've been fantasising for a couple of years now about how great it would be to have an Iplehouse BID or KID. I've been kicking myself for never buying a Bethany doll for my Helen Kish Chrysalis collection. But when I had the opportunity, I didn't hesitate. I ordered an Anne de Leger and even though it surprised me, I don't regret it one bit.

 When the Deja Vu dolls first appeared, I wasn't impressed. The storyline concept was kind of interesting but the dolls just didn't do it for me. (Also on the pages for each individual doll, Tonner used to have little paragraph long mini-stories. That seems to have vanished from the website and there are just extremely factual descriptions of the dolls.) Frankly, this face sculpt has always made me think of. . . a more inflatable kind of doll, if you get my meaning. I think it's supposed to look like the sort of face of a heroine on the cover of a romance novel. And while I can see that, the other thing is always my first thought.

Even now, most of the Deja Vu dolls, I feel pretty "Meh" about, but I really like the Anne de Leger character. Not her name so much, which I always misremember as Anne Legree, as in Simon Legree the villainous slave owner in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Probably not her story either (I think it was something about her suffocating because she locked herself in a trunk to surprise her lover, who never publicly acknowledged their relationship anyway) which makes her sound pretty dense and hopeless - but her clothes! Her lovely Georgian clothes. Afternoon Stroll and Countryside Visit are my absolute favourites but, oh well, I missed the boat on those ones. The one I have Anne De Toile was the only one available when I ordered mine.

 Anne took forever to get here, or maybe about ten days, time blurs, it's hard to tell. Waiting for the baby to go to sleep that day, so I could open her up was one of the hardest things I've done! This warning on the side of the box made me laugh.

With shipping and Paypal's crappy exchange rates, this doll cost me $350! You don't need to warn me!

If anyone under 14 tried to touch it, I would bite them!

(And if I was insane enough to give a $350 doll to a child, I would be too insane to read this!)

 Anne was covered with tissue, when I pulled it back, she looked like she'd had her neck broken.

Seeing this is what reminded me of the story of her locking herself in

a trunk, like a gigantic moron.

 Two little bits of card were on top of the tissue paper covering her. One is a little instruction card explaining how to remove her hands - because apparently not everyone has had an Ever After High or Monster High doll. The other is her certificate of authenticity which explains that she's an edition of 200 and a convention doll.

This will definitely be the first thing I lose!

 I have mixed feelings about this. Yay! I have an Anne doll! Yay! She's a special convention doll! And if you add in the amount it would cost to travel from Melbourne to America for a doll convention to the original cost of the convention and doll, there is no way I am ever going to be getting a convention doll from a convention. BUT I can't help feel, if I had gone to that convention, and bought a convention exclusive doll, I would be pretty annoyed if afterwards the same doll was made available to just everyone online. But it also makes me feel extra pleased with her.

Stuck to the inside of the box were three little plastic baggies.

The staple that held the hat in place, was through the hat, which made me swear, 

but I removed it carefully and I don't think you can tell.

 These held her shoes, earrings and hat. (Note - I realised after I took the photos for this that I've put the hat on the wrong side of her head. Don't care. Prefer it this way and keeping it this way.) 

For some reason I am a little disappointed by her shoes. I honestly don't know why, I just can't put my finger on it. But I still like them. Red shoes go with everything! Although I had a little trouble figuring out how to use the poly bands to hold them on.

The hat. . . well, the hat is a hat. I really don't know what else to say about it.

Then there are the earrings. I'm not a big fashion doll person. I don't really go in for grown-up dolls. And, I guess I'm not experienced with things like this. She's still not wearing her earrings. Because for the life of me, I cannot work out how to put them on! Yes, there's holes in her head. Yes, I would assume it was just like Barbie - stick the post in the hole and push. BUT when I try this they go in for about two millimetres then hit something inside the head. From the angle they're going in on, I'm pretty sure they're hitting the back of her ears and then I worry that if I try to force them, they'll end up sticking out the side of her head! Will, hopefully eventually work this out later, either jiggle them until they go in on a different angle or cut the posts shorter or something. Maybe.

On the upside with earring posts this long, if she ever became a spy or something

she could use these as shivs.

 I like her face more than I would have expected. Especially the fact that the facepaint is fairly neutral and muted. A doll with dramatic face paint is going to look out of place wearing a lot of things, but fairly neutral facepaint goes with almost everything. (And as I type this I'm realising something. I planned on displaying this doll. Just displaying her, not doing anything like redressing her. But so far in this post, I've pointed out that her shoes and facepaint will go with anything, which makes me suspect that part of my brain is planning something that it hasn't told me about.) My one quibble about her face is her eyelashes. Her incredible sky-high eyelashes. They reach right up to her eyebrows. But only in places. They're too long but they're also staggeringly uneven. Like a four year old cut them with a butter knife. I'm considering evening them out but I'm also considering how horrifically wrong that could go and wondering if I actually care that much.

Her left-eye in particular has very uneven lashes.

I'm also not hugely impressed by her hair. The colour is amazing but it's dry and producty and wiry and that bothers me. But I'm actually starting to realise I am incredibly fussy when it comes to doll hair and while I'm not in love with her hair, I can definitely live with it.

Anne in all her glory!

I don't think her dress is one of the more impressive Deja Vu dresses but it is lovely. I love these kinds of prints! There are lots of little ruffles and ruching (I love ruching!) and the lace is real, actual lace made from something other than scratchy, nylon mesh. Which is unusual to see anywhere these days. I love the tiny cameo! I love the sort of pompadour/bustle effect in the way the back is drawn up! I love the amount of detail that's gone into it! 

 I have two issues with this dress. The underskirt is an actual underskirt and goes all the way around (Yay!) but the back half of the underskirt (from the side seams back) is just cheap, white, lining fabric. I'm ok with that - makes the doll cheaper to produce and reduces bulk which can be a problem in layered outfits in small scales. What I'm not ok with is how far forward the lining fabric starts. The overskirt doesn't automatically cover all of the lining fabric. When you stand/pose her, you then have to fiddle around adjusting her overskirt so it covers the fake bit of underskirt.

Fake underskirt!

ANNNNND. . . still fake underskirt

This bothers me because it seems so lazy. If they'd made the patterned part of the underskirt just a couple of centimetres longer on each side, they could have avoided this altogether. I feel sure that at some point in the planning process someone must have brought this up and was probably told "Nah, don't worry about it, leave it." 

 But except for it making me feel a little grumpy and OCD, the underskirt/overskirt issue is really minor. Her sleeves on the other hand! I had a horrible time photographing this doll because I could not pose her arms! Seriously! Her sleeves end in gigantic frills, which have a layer of toile over a layer of stiffened tulle. The trouble with this was that if I posed her so her hands were pointing anywhere but down, she was attacked by the sleeve frills! It was like they'd become sentient and were out for revenge. And when I was done, I was so done with fighting her sleeves, that I kind of plonked her on a shelf rather than even trying to pose her nicely.

HELP! It's got my hand!

Who walks around with their hand like this anyway?!

 All in all, even though she's not perfect, I love this doll. While I have perhaps focused on her faults a tiny bit here, that's because her good points are so obvious to me that it doesn't occur to me to point them out. I'm starting to worry that she's going to move onto my way-to-long-list of dolls to make clothes for. . . actually maybe I could make a slightly more grown-up version of the dress I'm making for Glinda/Not Glinda for her. . .

And, as usual, some photo-spam to finish