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?

Summer Sewing 5/5 (Nautical Dresses)

More from the 'fabric scraps from garage sales' collection:  it started with me finding that scrap of light blue fabric with little navy blue polka dots and tiny white anchors and going 'that's perfect for a doll dress'.  Never mind that there was maybe a little over a fat quarter of fabric in about 4 different pieces, some of which were 2" wide at best.  I can work with it.

A search through the pattern collection and the rest of my fabric stash, and I've found the coordinating fabric of navy with white dots, and two patterns, the Heritage sundress, and MatildaJo's 'Inspired by Zooey' dress.  Now, I definitely did not have enough fabric for the sundress as the pattern was written, so I used the skirt from the LJC Aspen dress with the bodice from the sundress, and cut those from the light blue fabric.  There was just enough of the light blue left after that to make the contrast underskirt and pockets for the other pattern.

All in all, a win.

Summer Sewing 4/5

This collection happened because a friend of mine had some leftover scraps of a snakeskin patterned knit, and wondered if I could do anything with it.  The answer was 'yes, of course I can turn it into doll clothes'.  From the handful of scraps, I managed to cut out a miniskirt, a pair of leggings, and one side of a reversible corset.

The rest of the fabric came from my stash.  I was looking for fabrics that would look good with the black, and decided the color theme was going to be turquoise, white, and black.  I had some floral embroidered fabric that I used for the blouse, and some lace for the sleeves.  The A-line sheath dress and the other side of the corset were made out of a turquoise linen with sequins.

A new Gothic Lolita/Steampunk pattern collection

One of my current projects is to make up a set of gothic lolita inspired patterns for AG dolls.  I've recently finished with the first finished mockups for a versatile blouse pattern and four different skirts.
Samantha's been kind enough to be the model for this collection.

Outfit 1:  peplum blouse with a standing collar and flared sleeves, and a gored skirt with two tiers of ruffles.  The outfit is trimmed with 4 different sorts of lace and trim.

Outfit 2:  same blouse as outfit 1, but with a princess-line jumper trimmed with rosebuds, tiny soutache braid, tiny ruffled lace on the seams, and a deep eyelet ruffle at the hem.  The jumper closes in the back, and has additional lacing for better fit.

Outfit 3:  bibbed blouse with rosebud trim and lace, and a 7 gore gathered skirt trimmed with lace ruffles.

Outfit 4:  same skirt as outfit 3, with a peplum blouse with a pointed collar and elbow sleeves, with rosebud trim on the collar and cuffs.

Outfit 5:  blouse with Peter Pan collar and puffed sleeves, button band, and lace trim, high waisted skirt with tiny rosebud applique.  The skirt closes in the back, and laces up for a better fit.

For the seamstresses out there, is this pattern set something you'd be interested in?

Summer Sewing 3/5 (Celestine's Modern Wardrobe)

A lot of this came out of 'fabric I bought at a garage sale and just had to do something with it'.  Pretty much everything Celestine is wearing in this post is made from upcycled clothing.

The button down shirt was from scraps of a real shirt (no idea what size, because the scraps came in a bundle of garage sale fabric).  The dark blue and light blue tshirts were cut down from girls' tshirts, and the denim skirt and leggings were cut down from a pair of girls' jeggings.  It's a pretty nice mix-and-match collection that would work well with most modern collections.

Summer Sewing 1/5

One of the things I like to do is to cut down girls' clothes for fabric for doll clothes.  I usually get the clothes from tag sales and thrift stores.  Every year, a church near me has a bag sale that I ransack for suitable things.  Last year I got 4 different girls striped t-shirts that I finally had the time to turn into doll clothes.

Kana and Lily are both wearing polo dresses made with the pattern from DollDuds.  Each tshirt had just enough fabric for one polo shirtdress, with some scraps left over that might get turned into something small and decorative.

I also wanted to try out some pants (LJ capris and bermuda shorts) patterns, so I made some extra preppy polo shirts and khakis.  Bot the polo shirts (pattern by DollDuds) and the v neck t-shirts (pattern by LJC) are cut from the same girls shirt, just so I could make sure all the stripes matched up properly.

Spring Mix-and-Match

Kana here.  It's almost May.  That means it's finally spring in Boston or, with the way things are, anywhere from spring to summer.  But this time we have some nice summery outfits for a mix-and-match wardrobe.  The lavender knit, the multicolor floral knit, and the two-tone purple knit were all cut down from a girl's dress.

First off, dresses and leggings.  The sundress is made from the LJC California Cami pattern and the knit dress from the Tri-city dress pattern.  We also have tunic versions of those, worn over denim.  The jean skirt is from the LJC miniskirt, and the white jeans are from the All Dolled Up best fit jeans pattern.  (Eventually, the human will find a jeans pattern she likes and will read the instructions before sewing.  Eventually.  Until then, hilarity will ensue.)

We meant it when we said 'mix-and-match'.  Also in this set:  a purple tshirt with silver stars, a raglan top with floral sleeves, and a plain lavender tank top.  Worn with a floral knit skirt, jeans, or a super-cool vintage handkerchief skirt.

The top layer is a whole vintage handkerchief with ballerinas all around the border and a pretty scalloped border, and the bottom layer is a quilting cotton.

We're showing off some of our favorite outfits from this collection.  The handkerchief skirt is everyone's favorite, and we can never have enough jeans.  (In that we only have two pairs of jeans.  Go sew more, human.)  There's also the off-the-shoulder tee for layer with rhinestones that spell out 'angel'.  We need more tank tops to layer it with, honestly.  Which of these was your favorite?