Mood:
down
...he came home from school yesterday with a fever. We thought it broke, but it's back. We're waiting for his Dr. appointment, and he's resting on the sofa, watching Fox and the Hound again. If he's home tomorrow, I'll try to rent the sequel. Yeah, most Disney sequels suck a unique kind of rock, but heck, he so loves this one. And I kinda want to see Cinderella III...
While he's recovering, I did a bit of sewing. I've sort of got triple goals going. I want to make something for each of my sixth-scale dolls. Using fabric I've had around for some time, but never made anything from. And I want to use patterns I never touched before - those few hundred I scanned but never sewed.
Here's the first one. This is a snug-fitting dress from Barbie Dress Wear, a Japanese pattern book. I don't speak or read the language, and there's only English here for decoration, but the illustrations are simple enough to follow. There's also ads - several for the 'Hip to Be Square' series - and jewelry-making diagrams. It may be out of print now, though.
If you'd like to see this book - and what this dress is supposed to look like, here's an auction for it - eBay # 290079019627 . Scroll down a bit, and this is #24, under 'Shopping Style'. It worked up pretty easy, start to finish was about two hours. I messed up the armholes, one bodice dart is shorter than the other, and one of the side seams didn't match up right, but it fits well regardless, and Midge seems to like it. I'll probably work it again, using different materials for the top and bottom pieces, but I knew this one was a rough draft before I started.
For one, I've never worked darts that are ruler-straight on one side and curved on the other. Every dart I've sewn's been equal on both sides. But I played with the fabric (read : tore the stitches out and redid it at least twice) until it worked. As it turned out, the patterns are forgiving, but quite precise. If I sewed it correctly, everything matched. But that meant that every stitch built on the one before. Tossing off this seam or that dart means that the fit was off.
Now, you can say that for most patterns. But this one was more precision-exact than I'm used to. It merely took a bit more time to get it all right. I confess, I didn't take extra care with the bodice darts, and that's probably why the armholes didn't match.
I did get the seam allowance right. I saw the '0.5cm' above the pattern pieces, and that's just a bit under the standard 1/4" I'm used to. It's amazing to me how some things don't change much, no matter the language or measurement standard.
This fabric was purchased at a yard sale - the seller actually had it behind some items she wanted to highlight. She was rather taken aback when I asked if she wanted to sell it ! It's lavender, and those little clusters of dots are really stars. The whole piece has tiny silver highlights, too. I could probably make a dozen more from the half-yard I got, but there's lots more fabric for me to use in the meanwhile.
Just not right now. It's time for someone's medicine, and I gotta grab a shower before the doctor's. I hope it's just a cold or something minor... Beloved Hubby's also worried. He's home today, and is so bored with waiting, he's painting the kitchen. Looks pretty nice, I think.
