Lydia's Starlight Dress

Lydia (Helen Kish's Peyton) with her Zelf friend.

I wanted something spangley and sparkly for Lydia's first outfit as a girl. Something partyish and pretty. What I came up with was a fairly basic design. A simple dress with a round neckline, high waist, puffed sleeves, and full skirt. I added a sheer overskirt and attatched half-sash to make it a little more interesting.

The result:

It may be the pale blue or the long hair with the headband but

the overall look feels a little Alice in Wonderlandish to me.

The sleeves and bodice are actually made from a pair of sequined gloves I found at a junk shop, with the sequins scrubbed off. The bodice is lined in pale blue cotton/poly and the underskirt is of the same fabric. The overskirt is Ivory Crystal Organza with pale blue stitching at the hem. There's also a half sash of blue nylon tying at the back.

I couldn't get a good picture of the sash, so here's a bad one.

This close up you can see where the sequins were, that's not going to wash out.

To make this is simple.

Make up the bodice and bodice lining, if  you're using a lining.

Sew the ends of the sash (If you want one) into the side seams of the bodice.

Sew a casing along the lower edge of each sleeve and thread with hat elastic. (Shirring elastic isn't strong enough and normal elastic is too bulky.)

Gather the overskirt (If you want one) onto the underskirt.

Gather both layers of skirt onto the bodice and sew the back seam.

Add fastenings.

It can be fun experimenting with different sheer fabrics over different fabrics. You don't have to make it white over a colour, or make both layers the same colour. Two different colours can give interesting effects, but check what they look like together before doing all the work.

And now the rest of this post is mainly going to be Lydia/Peyton photo spam.

Her hair is really WAY too long, but I can't decide whether to cut it or curl it, so I'm leaving it until I make up my mind. (Although I did discover long pigtails really don't suit her.)

Lydia (Helen Kish Peyton) looking cute, just before she did a nose-dive

off the table!

It actually wasn't until I saw these pictures that I realized

 how much the blue of her dress brought out her eyes.

Making a wish on a falling star.

 Lydia (Helen Kish Peyton) with her new friend.

 And now the pattern:

Until next time.

Arden's Gatsby Smock Dress

Arden (Kish Olivia) with her Heidi Ott doll.

 This is my first dress for the twelve inch dolls. 

Please excuse the clumsy hem. With every dress I make, I swear that I will make the next one with the sewing machine but for some reason I keep making them all by hand which does tend to result in slightly ugly hems.

For some reason the Olivia sculpt, combined with the cloud of blonde hair makes me think of more decadent times, so I wanted to do something period in lush fabric. I suspect you might be seeing this particular doll in a lot of period or character outfits on this blog. 

A short 1920s style smock dress, that I made in some kind of synthetic velvet. (One of the problems with using found fabrics is that you rarely know exactly what you're working with.) The yoke is very shallow and the skirt is very short. Lengthening the skirt, if you want to, shouldn't be too hard. Luckily the lace I chose to trim the dress almost exactly matches the underpants Olivia Primavera comes in, so even if her skirt rides up, her pants at least match.

Arden demonstrates why a lot of older people refer to this 

style of dress as a "Pantie Dress"

Start by lining the yoke pieces, if you're using velvet or thick fabric, line with a thin cotton, taffeta or lining fabric. Sew the fabrics together along the neckline and back opening, turn in the right way, if using lace, tack in place now. Then turn under raw edges along sleeve edges and sew together.

Gather the skirt pieces onto the yoke pieces.

Sew the side seams and hem the armhole edges on the skirt.

Hem the skirt and back edges. 

And finish back opening.

Lastly add a trim to the yoke, if you like. I'm not happy with the trim on this dress, but the trim I wanted, I couldn't find anywhere! I wanted little silk flowers that usually when I'm looking for trims, every shop I go to has. This time when I was actually looking for them, the only ones I could find were apple green.

Arden hopes nobody can tell that her headband is actually a bracelet!

 You look upwards a lot when your dress is trimmed with a rosette as big as your head.

 All we need now is a voice to whisper something completely random in french. . . um. . .  "Fenetre"

and Arden can have her own perfume advertisement!

Arden gives me puppy eyes in the hopes I won't put the 

little doll back in the dollhouse.