Now with lightsabers (Free Star Wars doll clothes patterns)

Lily and Shepard here.  We're evil twins.  Or evil clones.  Or something of that sort.  (Only since Shepard is such a renegade, I think I might be the good twin by definition.)  But we're both persuasive, and in this case, we convinced the human to finally do something with the giant pile of old clothing in her sewing room.

With all the talk about the latest Star Wars movie, and the fact we *already* own a droid, it was only fair that the human should make us Star Wars costumes.  I'm dressed as Rey, and Shepard is dressed as Luke from 'A New Hope' (desert planets are pretty much the same, right?)

 Shepard is wearing a modified Japanese hippari and monpe made from an old gi.  Turns out there's no better way to get the weathered and worn look than actually using weathered and worn fabric.  The leg wraps are a pieces of woven brown ribbon, and the belt is a piece of nylon strapping with a buckle.

And I'm wearing a tunic and a pair of shorter monpe made from the same gi fabric.  It's a lightweight twill.  The sash is a piece of vintage Japanese cotton 3" wide by about 45" long.  The belt is all one piece with two buckles.  The arm wraps are the same woven ribbon as Shepard's leg wraps.

Download the patterns here!

These is a modified and resized version of the Little Darling in Japan patterns offered by JenWrenne.  Her instructions for making a hippari and monpe are here.  The pants have elastic waists.  Rey's tunic closes in the back with velcro.

Also, you can buy the lightsabers at the Museum of Science store here.

And now for some more pictures! (Yes, the lightsabers actually light up when we hold them.)

Dual wielding!

LIGHTSABER DUEL!

This should be a book cover pose.

1960s Dresses and other projects

Wren*Feathers has been offering free 1960s dress patterns for AG dolls based on old Chatty Cathy outfits for the last few weeks, and if you make one or more outfits from those patterns before January 1, you can get two more free patterns.  So of course the human had to do this.  And so Sam and I are suffering through the latest bout of sewing.  Because you see, when the human tries out new patterns, she uses random remnants from the stash instead of the nice fabric that we know she has.

I'm wearing the Chatty Cathy smock dress (free pattern here) made in a lightweight turquoise corduroy.  The pattern came together really easily.  For the sleeve cuff, the human used the sleeve cuff from Samantha's Pleasant Company patterns.

 And Sam is wearing a pink cotton blouse (vintage Japanese cottons) and a floral stripe corduroy jumper (free pattern here).   think I got the better deal, honestly.

The human was busy doing other things instead of throwing us a Christmas party, but we got our fair share of loot.  Those are all the new books we got in the last week. 

From left to right:

• Jane Eyre
• Pride and Prejudice
• Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King, The Hobbit
• A Little Princess, The Secret Garden
• A Girl of the Limberlost
• The Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The Road to Oz, the Emerald City of Oz
• Peter and Wendy
• Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
• Robin Hood
• The Boxcar Children
• Little Women
• The Baby's Opera, The Baby's Own Aesop, The Baby's Bouquet (we got them for the wonderful illustrations by Walter Crane)
• A Floral Fantasy (another volume of Walter Crane illustrations that doubles as an herbal)

At this point I can safely say that we have every book that Pleasant Company/Mattel ever made for us historical girls.  And then some.  A good number of these books will show up on Etsy come the new year.

And R2-D2 is holding onto my new lunchbox for me.  I think he'll give it back.  Maybe.  Droids don't need food.

1950s Space Magazines for Dolls

This is Shepard, and welcome to your sporadic dose of space exploration history.  At some point, AG put that that Maryellen short video about AstroGirl, and astronomy and all that good stuff.  And during the video, Maryellen mentions something "I read that in Collier's." when talking about space travel with her friends.

Most people probably went 'Oh, that's just some random background thing AG put in there.'  It's not.  In 1952, Collier's Magazine put out a series of 8 articles (6 of which had cover art) on how "Man Will Conquer Space Soon".  It covered everything from basic space travel to astronaut selection to lunar bases and getting to Mars.  The articles were written by people like Fred Lawrence Whipple, Dr. Joseph Kaplan, Dr. Heinz Haber, and Wernher von Braun.  The concept art is absolutely stunning.

Obligatory Wikipedia link: Man Will Conquer Space Soon!

In 2012, for the 60th anniversary, the Houston Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics did a complete reprint of the series in their newletter.  You can read the original articles at http://www.aiaahouston.org/newsletter/.  Scroll down until you hit the 2012 newsletters.

Since there were only 6 covers but 8 articles, I've combined some of the issues.  For once, the print is really too small to read, but you and your local space cadet can still enjoy the gorgeous artwork

Collier's Magazines

Instructions

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.

Also, we're holding a book pattern giveaway until 12/31/2015.  Leave a comment here with what book published before 1923 (aka 'in the public domain') you'd like to see made in doll size to enter.  The winner will get a full 18 patterns for a complete Hogwarts textbook collection.

Papercraft-a-long Week 2: Retro Science Fiction

Welcome to Week 2 of our Papercraft-a-long.  This week we're going 1950s retro-futuristic with science fiction magazines and pictures books on space.  These would be great for any doll who love science or history, and would be perfect for Maryellen getting into the space race

We have two copies of Fantastic Universe from 1953 and 1954 (Hi Maryellen), one with a story from Marion Zimmer Bradley and the other with a story from Andre Norton (pen name Andrew North, because everyone knows women don't read or write science fiction.)  These magazines have 12 pages of text, enough for one complete story each.

We also have the 'Exploring Space' little Golden Book from 1957 full of facts on rockets and space travel and 'When I go to the Moon' for imagining life on the moon.  It's nice to see what people imagined the future would be like.  The 'Exploring Space' book is unabridged with 22 pages of text and illustrations.  The other book has 14 pages of very nice images with a cute poem.  Both of these are replicas of real children's books.

Magazine Instructions

Fantastic Universe Magazines

Book Instructions

Exploring Space

Instruction addendum:  Glue pages of book together.  Do not follow instructions for making cover.  Run a line of white glue down the spine of the block of pages.  Wait to dry.  Fold cover at lines.  Match first and last pages of the block of pages to the inside of the cover.  Glue.

When I go to the Moon

Instructions:  Follow as written.  No adjustments needed.

If you liked these, please visit our etsy shop at JinjiaMixedGoods for more printable books for dolls.