Spring Edwardian Wardrobe

Z here (yes, I am the spoiled one these days).  It's almost spring around here, and we're showing off the Edwardian wardrobe the human made last summer from JenWrenne's summer sew-a-long patterns.  She ended up resizing the original patterns for AGAT dolls for us instead.

First is Nellie's garden party dress, with embroidered inserts in the bodice and skirt.  The human happened to have a yard of embroidered eyelet scallop edging and a matching yard of embroidered eyelet insert that went perfectly with a piece of mint broadcloth.

Next is Lily in the rainy day dress made from a light blue calico with tiny white flowers.  The contrast is from white cotton, and the belt is from a piece of white bias tape.  This dress also ended up a little loose, but that means the blousing over the belt looks good.  (We think the human forgot to account for the extra fabric in pleats on the bodice in some way...)

Samantha is wearing a sailor dress made from this light blue linen with white stripes (please ignore the furry interloper).  It looks nice and summery, doesn't it?  The collar and cuffs are from white cotton.  Because it's linen, the pleats stay in well.  Sadly, so do any creases.  So this dress is usually hung up in the closet and not worn...

Finally, I'm wearing the pleated walking dress, which has a jacket and a skirt.  The outfit is made from a black cambric, with white contrast cuffs on the jacket.  The collar of the jacket didn't lie quite flat enough, so the human had to tack it down with an extra tuck.  The jacket yoke should probably be re-drafted if the human decides to make this dress again.

Upcycling for doll clothes

Z here.  Spring is right around the corner, and that means the dolls of Jinjia Mixed Goods need a new wardrobe for the season.  We're trying to get away from the quilting fabrics and old-fashioned styles and try out something more modern this year.  Which means it's a perfect time for the human to go through her massive stash of old children's clothing and cut them down to size for us.

The stash of children's clothes...

The challenge, as always, is seeing just how many outfits we can get out of the stack.  The stash  of clothing to be upcycled contains 2 mock-layered sleeve tshirts (one red/black, one turquoise/white), a pink/purple print mock-layered tunic over white sleeves, a pair of knit pants (purple with pink and lavender butterflies), 4 tshirts (one pink w/ hearts, one purple with hearts, one white with music notes, and one with a blue floral body and striped sleeves), a pair of white leggings, a pair of black jeggings, and a pair of light denim jeggings. 

Guess which of our new clothes was made from what!

And here we go...

Outfit 1 (Luciana)

White tank top

Turquoise graphic off-the-shoulder tee

Black denim mini-skirt

white graphic leggings

Outfit 2 (Z)

Turquoise and white mock-layer-sleeved tee

Black jeans

Outfits 3 and 4 (Sam and Nellie)

Black and red graphic raglan shirt

Black and red graphic mock-layer-sleeved tee

Black jeggings

Black denim miniskirt (seen in outfit 1)

Outfits 5 and 6 (Z and Luciana)

Short sleeve scrappy floral knit tunic

3/4 sleeve scrappy floral knit tunic 

Light blue denim mini-skirt

Light blue denim jeggings

Outfits 7 and 8 (Sam and Nellie again)

Knit dresses in 2 styles, with white bodices and purple skirts

White leggings

Outfits 9 and 10 (still Sam and Nellie)

Pink and purple print maxi dress over a white tshirt

Pink and purple peasant dress with a belt accented with a gold button

Outfit 11 (Luciana):

Pink graphic tshirt

Light blue jean shorts

Outfit 12 (Z):

White graphic v-neck tee

Purple floral knit pants

And finally, outfit 13 (Lily)

Blue floral knit dress with striped sleeves

Matching striped leggings

I think we got everything we could out of that stash, don't you?

Library Showcase: Alice and Jerry Readers

We are back on our mission to have the best time-traveling classroom dolls can have.  At some point in the past, someone asked the human to make a set of mid-century readers, the Alice and Jerry readers.  These generally date from the late 1930s to the early 1950s.  We think they were eventually replaced by the more popular Dick and Jane New Basic Readers.

The series had:

2 pre-readers ("Day In and Day Out", "The Wishing Well")

2 1st grade readers ("Round About", "Anything Can Happen")

3 2nd grade readers ("Friendly Village", "Down the River Road", "Neighbors on the Hill")

3 3rd grade readers ("Through the Green Gate", "If I Were Going", "The Five and a half Club")

1 4th grade reader ("Engine Whistle")

1 5th grade reader ("Wagon Wheels")

1 6th grade reader ("Runaway Home")

These are our versions of the pre-readers and the 1st grade readers.

And here's the second and third grade readers.  All 6 of them.

The stories are all of idealized life in mid-century America, in a small town surrounded by farms.

Where a trip 'into the city' was a big event.

Finally, the last 3 'grown up' readers.  These covered more historical fiction, biographies of famous people (almost all men, and the only women included were the very feminine ones.  Which makes sense given the era these were published.)

The best thing about historical textbooks is how they represent the general views and moral system of the time.  If you're interested in a series on the history of schoolbooks for children in the US, please leave a comment.  We've got everything from the first New England Primer (1774) to the Dick and Jane New Basic Readers.

If you would like these readers, the printable is on sale now on Etsy.

Christmas 2018 Papercraft-a-long: Advent Calendars

Welcome to the 2018 Christmas Papercraft-a-long, with this episode hosted by your favorite dolls, Samantha and Nellie!

This year, we're going with a vintag-y theme for decorations and cards.

Our living room has been decorated with card garlands and assorted paper sculptures, including an paper nativity scene from an antique french pattern.

The cards are miniature versions of Tasha Tudor's Christmas card designs.  For a bit of a Scandinavian influence, we have some miniature yule goats (No, we are not setting these on fire.  We are not allowed to set anything on fire.  The human has ruled that right out.) and a pair of Dala horse, all made from paper.

The kitchen is ready for some baking goodness.  We're planning a gingerbread house this year, along with peppermint bark and even more cookies.

And for today's papercraft:  Advent calendars!

The original designs are (as always) from Canon Creative Park.

We've shrunk these down to our size.

House Advent Calendar

House Calendar Instructions

Tree Advent Calendar

Tree Calendar Instructions

Print the calendars out on lightweight cardstock for best effect.  

The house is simpler to make than the tree.

We have 2 calendars, one shaped like a Christmas tree, and one shaped like a house.  Each calendar has 24 little drawers to pull out.  These two designs actually have interchangeable drawers, if anyone wants to mix-and-match.

We're just showing off the contents of the drawers...  The other girls aren't getting sneak peaks of the treats.

The giant stash of candy we have actually fits in the drawers quite well.

...and meet a different furry interloper.  This one wants to play with the candy.
Notice the devil-may-care look as she paws at the candy drawers.

Not that the normal furry interloper isn't around...

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween storytime at the bookstore

And this is what happens when the human finally lets us loose in the book-and-candy store.

There's storytime an cookies.

And coloring on the floor.

Or just catching up with friends about the latest books.

Candy and afternoon tea in the sweet shop

There's a place for tea for two.

Or just filling up the candy box

At the end of the night, it's time to see what's in the final haul

The owl is here to supervise.

Someone did in fact hand out apples to go with all that sugar.

But there is more than enough candy to go around.

Even if there's a furry candy thief lurking and waiting to pounce.