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.

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 2/5 (with free patterns)

It's not summer without some aggressively patriotic prints.  These were actually made last year, only I forgot to photograph them until now.

Nora's dress is made from a free pattern by PACountryCrafts (twirly lace doll dress)

Sam's dress is made from a free pattern by Wren*Feathers (halter sundress).  The pattern needs a good 1/2" to the center back for it to fit.

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.

Wizard Robes, School Uniforms, and Wands

Wands up!

Kana here.  It is not so much that we are back as that the human is finally fed up with not devoting enough time to us.  So we're going through the backlog of projects and photos, and showing some of them off.

In this case, it's the Hogwarts uniforms we got last fall.  Let's not really go into how much the robes and ties drove the human to distraction...

I'm very much a Ravenclaw, and we all know Lily's a Slytherin.

Nellie and Sam are the 'good' girls in Hufflepuff and Gryffindor.

(Go look up what 'huffle' means in Victorian slang.  We dare you.)

All the sweaters and vests were cut down from the same girl's sweater the human bought at a bag sale.  And all the shirts have working buttons, even if you can't see them here.

We do not actually care what the Hogwarts uniform policy is.  It's 2017, and girls are allowed to wear uniform pants should they chose.

Can't cast magic without wands

And of course, we have our own wands.  Many many wands.  The wands are made from polymer clay around a core of wood, tin foil, and glass beads (to get the knobbly look).

We'll try to be around at least semi-regularly until the human is free from her latest bad idea of learning how to be an EMT.

State Fair gingham and denim outfits

State Fair outfits

 These were the outfits I made up for the dolls to go to the Eastern States Exposition (which may or may not happen depending on weather.)  I think these manage to convey the right combination of casual, cute, and appropriate for the setting.

What makes this pair of outfits unique is the use of a vintage handkerchief as an accent.  I had a handkerchief with a blue ribbon print that perfectly matched the gingham for the contrast.

Nellie's dress made from the Phoebe+Egg doll dressmaking series patterns.  I used the simple drop-waist dress pattern, added a corner of the handkerchief as a front applique, and used half the handkerchief as an apron overlay.  The dress is finished with a red ribbon to coordinate with the red flowers in the handkerchief.

Sam's gingham blouse comes from JenWrenne's 1930s farm overalls pattern, and has real buttonholes.  Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention when I made them, so her shirt closes on the opposite side.  Her denim skirt is from the simple LJC pattern, and accented with a corner of the handkerchief and a little square patch.

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.