Wilde Imagination's Patience as Glinda

Wilde Imagination's Patience as Glinda

 I had a problem with my Patience in Wonderland doll. I wanted to make her clothes, but I couldn't stand the idea of redressing her. I love Alice in Wonderland and I love my Patience in Wonderland. I kept putting off taking her clothes off to measure her for new ones and eventually I just had to accept that I really didn't want to do it.

 So I had to buy another Patience. (At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.) There was simply no other choice.

 And now I have a Patience as Glinda. Actually she's been sitting in a box in my wardrobe for several weeks now, I just haven't had time to open her up. And luckily, I've never liked the Wizard of Oz (come on Dorothy is supposed to be like nine years old but she's clearly a full-grown woman, that's creepy.) so I'm not going to have any qualms about redressing her. But first, I thought I would share some pictures.

Can we get a little more pink over here?

 My first impression after I deboxed my Glinda was that she looked like the sort of thing a six-year-old girl would hallucinate after overdosing on fairy floss (cotton candy to you americans.) She is exceptionally puffy and fluffy and pink! And sparkly, but there was so much pink that I don't think I even noticed the sparkliness for several minutes. And the skirt is frankly enormous.

The dress is standing up by itself here!

 That dress! Seriously, it isn't the sort of thing I like, but I can't help being impressed and a little overwhelmed by it! The dress itself is made of some sort of light pink nylon taffeta with an overlay of palest (almost white) pink chiffon. The sparkly clusters are not glitter but more like tiny silver studs with some sort of oversized glitter pieces here and there and of course sequin stars. 

At the neck there's an attached silver star shaped ornament with rhinestones and a plastic like butterfly shape that's absolutely covered in iridescent glitter (and yes it sheds glitter). The sleeves fasten at the wrists with snaps, something I don't think I've ever seen before in a doll this small.

Layers and layers of skirt!

The skirt is made up of several layers so that the dress can actually stand up on it's own! Under the sheer sparkly layer is the taffeta of the dress itself which is lined in a fine pink net that gives it extra stiffness. Under these layers is a separate petticoat of a coarser white net.

Even the petticoat can stand up by itself!

And if that wasn't enough, when I took her dress off I discovered it had a little bustlelike attachment sewn into the waistband as well!

Just in case the rest of the dress wasn't frilly enough

The back of the dress is a little more subdued.

Normally I'd call this sparkly, but compared to the front it's positively somber.

Under the dress she wears pink glittery shoes with and elastic strap. They're cute, but not very interesting.

When she arrives her accessories are taped to the side of the box in a little plastic bag. Two little plastic bead bracelets, another glitter covered, butterfly cut-out (this one is threaded on ribbon to be worn as a neklace) and a wand. The bracelets are nice, but not really anything special. The glittery butterfly cutouts, I don't like. They look a little cheap compared to the rest of the outfit, they shed glitter which is not one of my favourite things and tying the necklace on nearly drove me insane.

Jewels fit for a. . . fairy?. . . witch? I'm not quite sure.

I was surprised by how heavy the wand was! It's a metal rod with the star and rhinestone thing from Glinda's neckline repeated on the top, except instead of rhinestones there's a large pearl. And from the weight it's clearly real metal. Actually the weight presented a bit of a problem. The wand comes with an attached poly band to tie it to Patience/Glinda's arm, but I found that unless I balanced it just right as soon as I let go of it, gravity would take over and the star would fall to knee level and Patience/Glinda would have a wand handle poking her in the face. The only way I could get her to look like she was holding it was to balance it on both of her forearms rather than her hands.

The wand and crown. Sounds like the name of an English pub.

The crown. . . I'm still not sure how I feel about the crown. I'm either impressed or disappointed. I can see what they were trying to do, and when it's on the doll, it looks how it's supposed to look. It fits in with the outfit and looks like the crown from the movie when the doll is wearing it. But when the doll isn't wearing it and you look at it by itself, it's kind of clumsy and blah. It's made from some sort of cloudy, translucent acrylic, and like the wand, surprised me with it's weight. It's absolutely covered in a fine, iridescent, glitter, I'm not sure if that is sprayed on or embedded in the plastic. Details are picked out in chunkier shedding glitter that's a little messily applied. There are little sequin stars again, and the rhinestone star again at the front and the lower edge is completely encircled in rhinestones. The rhinestones at the bottom are coming away in several places. And there's an attached poly chinstrap. Which is good. And bad.

The chinstrap is good because there is no way the crown would stay on without one. It's bad because once you put the weight of the crown on top of the dolls head, combined with the weight of all her hair and the weight of her already large head, Patience/Glinda's teeny tiny body is kind of crushed. This isn't an issue of artistic balance, the skirt's so big everything looks in proportion, it's a question of physics. Once Patience/Glinda has her crown on, it's really hard to get her to stand up, even with a stand. Her head kept tipping to one side so much that she would twist out of the stand, or one side of the stand would end up on her waist, the other side would be in her armpit. With the combination of the wand and the crown if you were the sort of person that likes to rearrange their dolls and change their poses frequently, Patience as Glinda would probably be the most frustrating doll in the world.

Lucky for me I am never going to put her in this outfit again, so I will never again have to do the crown and wand balancing act. The fully dressed doll looks amazing, the outfit is lovely, and detailed, and slightly overwhelming but not my thing at all, and the doll is great. My Patience in Wonderland arrived with her hair all squashed and weird, with Glinda that problem has been avoided by turning her head to one side in the box. Simple but effective. And I can't wait to see who else she might be.

Gwendolen's Fairy Tale Dress

Gwendolen (Helen Kish doll Shea) looking beautiful.

I got a Shea at the beginning of the year! I wasn't going to buy a Shea because even though she's my favourite face mould , all the Shea's seem to have quite high colouring which makes them look like they're wearing make-up. That's not a moral thing, a these dolls are too young for make-up thing, I don't care about that. (Although I kind of feel that way about the fact most of them come in high heels, I'm 35 and I don't wear high heels as often as these dolls do!) It's more of an issue of the versatility of the doll. A kid doll with natural colouring looks equally at home in play clothes, party clothes, period clothes, whatever clothes. A  kid doll that looks like she's wearing make-up looks a bit funny in casual clothes and the more casual the clothes the funnier she looks. But then someone was selling a "Third times a charm" convention Shea (and "Wren Sugar Plum") and well . . . you know how it goes, I have two new dolls! (Actually three new dolls, got a secondary market "Debut Phoenix" since then. And yes, I rewigged him as a girl.)

Anyway, I saw this dress on Pinterest :

Dress from LACMA. I've found this dress tagged as being 1880s and 1890s.

Not sure when it's actually from but I'm guessing the girl's parents were following the aesthetic movement.

And I HAD to make it! And I really regret that. There's smocking on the skirt. I've always had the attitude that anyone can do almost anything if they try, and found it irritating when people say they can't do things that they've never tried to do. . . but for the record, I can't smock. I'm determined to learn but so far no amount of trying has made the slightest bit of difference. So my pattern has no smocking. Feel free to add some if you're good at that kind of thing though. Also if I were to make this dress again I think I would tack down the pleats in the front somehow. Once I had the dress on the doll, the pleats kept falling open, making the bodice look baggy, but I'm sure you can see that in the photos.

Also I want to apologize for the fact that the photos have turned out a little funny. The fabrics I used had a fairly high sheen and apparently don't photograph well.

Gwendolen (Helen Kish's Shea) full length

As you can see in the picture, the skirt, bodice and sleeves are all one fabric; the collar and cuffs are a second fabric; and the undersleeves, yoke and neck frill are a third fabric. There is a bow at the back which is made from the same fabric as the bodice and skirt.

First thing to do is to make the entire front bodice.

I've made the neck ruff as an entirely separate piece to the dress, so don't worry about that just yet.

Cut and line the yoke piece and the collar.

If you're making the collar out of velvet (like I did) don't line it with velvet, line it with a scrap of cotton or silk. (Although I was horrified when I realised the scrap of "artificial" silk I was using to line it was not actually artificial at all! I felt like I'd just wasted something precious!)

With right sides together sew the collar onto the yoke.

Cut and pleat the bodice, the area between the arrows on the pattern is the inside of the pleat (the bit you can't see).

Stitch the pleats into place across the top and the bottom and (as I wish I had) maybe tack them in place along their length.

Then sew the collar/yoke piece into the bodice. Don't worry if the collar sticks up a bit at this point, you can tack it down at the points later.

Next cut and line, hem or face the back bodice pieces. The overlap/wrap for back fastenings are included in the pattern piece, but not marked.

Sew the front and back bodices together along the shoulder seams.

Now put the bodice in a safe place while you make the sleeves.

Cut two sleeve pieces, two cuff pieces and two undersleeves.

Make a hem on one edge of the undersleeves. Make it wide enough that you'll be able to thread it with elastic, this is the lower edge.

Sew one edge of the cuff to the lower edge of the sleeve, with the right side of the cuff against the wrong side of the sleeve.

Fold the cuff back over the sleeve, so the wrong side of the cuff is now against the right side of the sleeve, tuck the edges of the cuff under and sew it down.

Then gather the undersleeve piece onto the lower edge of the sleeve.

Now to attach the sleeve to the bodice.

I didn't gather them. In the original picture it looks like the sleeves have been sewn straight onto the bodice with the excess pleated into the top of the sleeve where the shoulder seam is, so that's how I did it. You could gather them if you wanted, they'd be puffier. But I like them this way.

Next sew the side seams of the bodice and the seams on the sleeves. BUT before you finish the sleeve seams, thread elastic into the lower edge of the undersleeves and tie it off.

Try the bodice on the doll and if necessary tack the points of the collar down so they don't stick up.

Cut the skirt piece. Or pieces. I used a front piece and two back pieces simply because my fabric wasn't big enough to cut a single 80cm piece.

Line, face or hem the lower edge. I've discovered I prefer facing on dolls skirts. It's almost impossible to make a hem look neat in this size.

Then gather the skirt onto the bodice.

Finish the back opening and add fastenings.

But you're not finished yet!

There's more to come.

Gwendolen's fairy tale dress back view.

Cut the pieces for the sash. The two larger pieces then need to be doubled over and sewn into tubes along their longer side, then ironed flat. 

Take the bow piece and fold the two ends into the centre so that they overlap and sew together. 

To get the fringes you may be able to just fringe the ends of your fabric. I wasn't so lucky. I was using a pretty cheap polyester that had no intention of fringing at all. So I cut two scraps of silk 6cm square, folded them double and zigzag stitched them along one end. Then I frayed the rest of the silk by pulling out the crossways threads nearly up to the zigzagging. Then I tucked the zigzagged part inside the open end of the sash and stitched it closed.

Pleat the bow centre with your fingers, you can put a stitch or two in if it's easier, then attach the centre (or not quite centre) of the tails to the centre of the bow. (I made mine slightly off centre for realism)

fold under the edged of the small sash piece  and iron flat. wrap this piece around the centre of the two larger pieces and sew closed. Then attach the sash to the back of the dress.

AND of course the neck ruff!

Cut the neck ruff piece.

Double it over, right sides together and sew along the long side into a tube.

Turn it in the other way.

Turn the ends in.

Stitch a second line about half a centimetre in from the seam. This is the casing for a ribbon.

Stitch the ends closed, EXCEPT on the casing.

Run baby ribbon through the casing.

Pull the ribbon up so it's the right length to fit around the doll's neck (test on the doll of course!)

Tack the ribbon into place at these points and cut off the tails to the length you want them.

And NOW you're finished! If you're like me at this point you'll need a nice sit down and a cup of tea, while you decide whether to feel proud or cry for a while.

Seriously, making this dress was the most emotionally scarring sewing project of my life! And that is only a slight exaggeration!

And now the pattern and then some more pictures of the finished product.

And she looks so lovely, maybe it was worth the almost nervous breakdown it caused!

Gwendolen looks like a character from a nursery rhyme or fairy tale.

Except for the scrap of cotton she has stuck to her sleeve!

"Would you RELAX it's just a dress!" 

Gwendolen is unsympathetic to my stress over making this dress.

 

Shoes are MSD (Kid delf) sized by Luts.
They fit o'kay with socks.

Stockings are from a pattern in an old issue of the Kish Collectors Society newletter.
Seriously if you like Kish dolls join the Society, it's not expensive and the newsletters are lovely.

Wonderland Patience Again!

I restyled Patience's hair into the ringlets I wanted her to have in the first place. I like the way it turned out. Because I washed all the gluey varnishy stuff out of her hair, it's a LOT softer now and prettier. I took these pictures right after I undid her rags, so I hadn't tidied up the ends yet. The frizzy bits on the bottom of the curls are the very ends of her hair, I trimmed them off after I took the pictures. Also if you can see a black smear in her hair - it's ash. I didn't realise it was there until I was cropping the pictures.

Sometimes Patience looks like she's plotting something!

Probably plotting to steal Alice in Lalaloopsyland's rabbit.

 

 The Littlest Pet Shop Peacock always tells Patience the best stories.

 

I also had a play with different clothes.

I discovered that I have no other doll shoes that fit Patience at all. Longer Living Dead Doll outfits fit her but most of them are disturbingly short (which is why I didn't take pictures.). I have a large Alice in Lalaloopsyland doll and thought her dress would look cute on Patience but it was nowhere near long enough, the hem only reached Patience's hips! Some clothes for twelve inch Kish dolls will fit her. But  Patience is both thinner and longer in the body so some clothes won't fit or will just look silly.

But I love Patience in Olivia Primavera'a dress!

Patience is charmed by this dress, but isn't sure if she's a ballerina or a fairy.

 

 Why, hello there!

 

 What an unusual bird!

A bird in the hand is worth. . .

 

I'm not sure yet if I'm going to be making clothes for Patience or not. I really like her original outfit and don't want to change her clothes, but at the same time I keep coming up with other things I could make for her. I probably will eventually but for the moment I'm going just keep her as something to look at. . . until that face gets to me.

 

 PLEASE make me a new dress!!!

Chiara's Fiesta Dress

Chiara (Kish Song) relaxing in the sun.

I was actually going to do something quite different this time. I had a plan to make Little House on the Prairie style dresses for all my Kish dolls. I spent a whole afternoon making stockings to go under the dresses. But it's a million degrees here at the moment . . . ok, not quite a million but every day this week has been over 40 degrees (that's 105 for those of you who use farenheit.) and the idea of making long sleeve dresses is kind of unmotivating. So instead I made a nice light sundress.

Chiara's (Kish Song) fiesta sundress.

The design is really simple, there are only two pieces; and while some parts can be a little awkward, they're not difficult.

Start by cutting two of the yoke pieces on the fold. The pattern says one but that was a mistake. You need one piece to show and one piece for lining.

Embroider the piece you're using for the outside of the dress. The flowers are :- French knots of pink and orange variegated  thread, surrounded by a circle of running stitch in blue and purple variegated thread, then a ring of lazy daisy stitch in the pink and orange and a further ring of lazy daisy in green and blue variegated thread. The isolated french knots are the blue and purple thread again.

Then cut the skirt pieces, one of each length on the fold. I did a plain hem on the underskirt and hemmed the overskirt with hot pink zigzag stitch on the sewing machine. Hem both pieces and then sew the layers together at the back. Gather across the top edge.

Sandwich the two skirt layers between the two yoke layers (which should be right side in at this point) and stitch together, making sure the points meet on all layers. Turn the yoke layers right side out, turn in the edges and stitch all the way around. At this point I added a layer of topstitch all the way around the yoke in the pink and orange thread.

Finish the back opening and add fastenings and straps. The straps on mine are scraps of white baby ribbon.

The belt is made from embroidery thread. Get six strands of thread in various shades of brown and plait them until the plaited section is long enough to go around the doll's waist. (Leave a fair amount loose at each end.) When it's the correct length tie it off at each end. Cut off one strand of thread at this point at each end. Tie another knot approximately a further inch along the threads and cut off another thread here.

Now you should have a length of embroidery thread that's plaited in the centre with a knot at each end, then a non-plaited section at each end followed by another knot. After the second knot there should be four strands each end. seperate each end into two pieces of two strands and thread each two strand piece through a bead and tie in place. It takes longer to explain than it takes to do.

Chiara tries not to have a brain aneurism trying to understand my belt making instructions.

 

Before she realizes I already made her a belt.

The pattern for Chiara's fiesta dress.

 Rowan (Kish Raven) and Chiara contemplate running away from the crazy belt lady.

The embroidery is done with two strands of Mouline Madeira sticktwist in:-

Orange and pink 2406

Blue and purple 2408

Green and blue 2409