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.

Samantha at afternoon tea

This actually happened over the 4th of July weekend, but it took a while to get pictures up.  A friend happened to be in town, and we went out to afternoon tea at the Boston Public Library.  I had just finished a new outfit for Samantha, and took her along with us

Samantha was perfectly well-behaved and got plenty of compliments for her new outfit.

The little chocolate cakes were to die for.

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 Picnic

Kana here.  I swear we're all still here, even if we're not getting out as much as we used to.  The weather has been nice enough, and the human managed to find a free weekend to take us out to the park for a picnic.  We all packed our own lunches, and Shep managed to find the hidden stash of Nuka-cola and packed enough for all of us.

The picnic table, with all our lunches

The giant chocolate covered strawberries

Sam and Nellie are the traditional picnic sort, with sandwiches, apples, and cookies.  And they were the ones who packed a tupperware box full of chocolate covered strawberries, which they were kind enough to share.

I packed a picnic bento with sandwiches, fried shrimp, inari, and other standard bento goodies.  Lily just raided Honeydukes.  Because she could.

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.

The Inquisitor's Office

Settling in and ready to seek out heresy.

Celestine Greyfax lasted as her canon 'Z' self for approximately one week before all hell broke loose.  The brand new cabinet desk was trashed (and scrounged by Nellie for her new sewing cabinet, which looks almost like the human's antique sewing cabinet), and new bookshelves and an actual roll-top desk brought in.

Properly steampunk.  Still needs the proper hat.

Contents of her office so far include:  glassware, a large metal cauldron, 2 cameras, a drone, an abacus, a laptop with extra monitor, a smart phone, an Egyptian cat statue, a deck of tarot cards, a Sherlock Holmes book, a Ms. Marple book, and a cup of coffee.  Oh, and far too many crystals and rocks stolen from the human's rock collection in the specimen cabinet.

The brand new steampunk gear is courtesy of Carpatina, whose clothes quality is far better than AG these days.  (As a note for anyone who's buying their AG-sized steampunk gear:  the belts are all too wide for Mattel AG dolls.  You have to take in 2 1/2" tucks, one on either side, for the belts to fit.)  The chatelaine was a purchase from a doll show last year and just plain fits the steampunk look.

Still being set up, but the bones and the furniture are there.

We, uh, don't talk about the cat or the strange blue starfish-octopus creature that calls itself 

Karl-the-Kr4k3n.  That's between Celestine Greyfax and the human.

(Content Note:  Celestine Greyfax is named after two characters in the Warhammer 40K universe, Saint Celestine and Inquisitor Katrina Greyfax.  The Warhammer 40K universe is about as grim-dark and unfriendly as it gets.  Celestine Greyfax is going to offend someone's sensibilities by being a WH40K Imperial Inquisitor.  Just saying that now.)

Introducing Celestine Greyfax

This setup lasted all of a week before the human got tired of her bookshelf
looking like an American Girl catalog spread

Having survived taking an EMT class and passing, the human decided to introduce someone new to  our already somewhat non-standard and slightly (very) geeky crew.  Meet Ms. Celestine Greyfax, would-be Imperial Inquisitor.  We're in the process of setting up her office and getting her some more suitable clothing.

And now for some thoughts from the human.  But first, some pictures from the AG Boston Bistro.

Some things about the new Z doll and permapanties and what-have-you

• Surprisingly, the permapanties did not bother me too much.  The 'just slightly softer than I'm used to' vinyl I can live with.
• The fact that the doll's measurements are different enough that I'd have to play shenanigans to get older clothing to fit right is a royal pain.  The waist size is about the same as my other slimmer AG dolls.  The chest is about half an inch smaller.  Right now, this doll needs to wear a full undershirt + panties on top of the permapanties to get the sizing right for some older clothes.
• The plastic accessories look adorable and feel like very light very cheap play items, not nice collectables.
• The shoes that come with her official AG outfits are AWFUL.  I can't stand the white plastic soles.

Lunch at AG Boston

 Do I have anything good to say about this doll?

• AG actually honest-to-god made an Asian-American character doll that wasn't someone's sidekick.  I have a character doll that (vaguely) looks like me.  I didn't think it would mean a lot but it actually does.
• As long as you don't put her entire collection into one shelf, it's adorable.  The camera actually plugs into the usb drive of her laptop.  When you put everything together, all the colors are actually too matchy-matchy.
• She can hold her phone and her camera.
• Her collection isn't pink.  Her clothes are actually cute and good for mix-and-match.  (Which, of course, does not stop me making a whole new wardrobe for her.  Or buying her one from Carpatina)

More lunch at AG Boston

That said, I did have to think long and hard about returning her, but in the end decided to keep her as is.  I did, however, warn a friend off from buying Z and had her buy #54 for her Korean-American character doll instead.  I will probably not be buying another doll from AG until they fix the sizing issues.  8 dolls is enough for me, and I'm now officially out of shelf space for doll displays.

After a week, I'm liking this doll more and more, but only because I've moved her away from the AG collection and more into a steampunk-detective style.