Now Playing: the silence of a 2am house
Current Mood : Ticked Off
I may have solved one of my own personal ‘great mysteries that frustrate me' by sheer chance. This is gonna sound stupid, but you're probably used to it from me by now.
Moving along. When I first ‘got into' dolls, I had to accept that I was an adult who not only wanted to play with dolls but actually did, and that would get me labeled as ‘weird' in others' eyes. Decided I didn't care. While weeding my psyche of stuff that pulled up easily, I also pushed myself through my fear of sewing. While I'd had minor successes with people-sized projects before, there were many more total failures, and everyone I spoke with recoiled in horror when I mentioned sewing Barbie-scale clothes. People I respected for their skills and flair in sewing looked at me with expressions ranging from repulsion to naked curiosity, like an anthropologist who'd stumbled on a new clutch of mammals to study, possibly dissect.
Why would I want to do that ? Didn't I know Barbie clothes were impossible to sew ? Tiny, frustrating, aggravating. Why bother when even Dollar Tree had doll clothes to buy instead ! So many times I heard, "I tried that. Once. Now I know why Barbie clothes are expensive - but they're cheap to me now, since buying ‘em means I never have to sew those PITAs ever again !". It was both discouraging and encouraging at the same time. Few patterns existed, and the few I found looked like directions to craft my own scale model of the Space Shuttle, functional engines and all. Out of fabric, bailing wire, and something called elastic thread. Scary.
I soon discovered the ‘why' - I couldn't find what I wanted to buy, so it was up to me to craft my own style - and also the ‘how'. Easier patterns existed, for pretty much any doll, it's just that most interested new sewists had given up, and left it to the really fiddly-bit folks. Fiddly-bit patterns were around, but if I wanted to start simple, I'd have to hunt for stuff to grow on. Nothing against detail-oriented folks, I wish I was one. But I needed to start with something less challenging than a two-foot wide ballgown made with fishing wire and silk and 63 pattern pieces !
Unfortunately, I didn't learn that until *after* I'd bought a few dozen doll pattern books off eBay, Half.com, Amazon, and various local used book enterprises. And it wasn't long before easier patterns came back into craft stores - everything's on its own cycle, I think. Most of the books were designed to create fiddly-bit type stuff, but a few simpler books came my way. They rarely had anything in the scale I had or wanted, but information is rarely wasted.
One of the first books I bought was Sewing for 20th Century Dolls, Vol. II, by Johanna Gast Anderton. I thought this book would be perfect. Found a place selling it at half the $25. cover price, and it listed designs in dozens of sizes - Crissy, in fact, was featured on the cover. Since I already knew I'd have more than just Barbie dolls (yeah, at one point, I was gonna be Barbie Only), I was sure there'd be plenty in there for me to use. Reviews were favorable, so I bought it.
And ended up so frustrated and upset, I darn near tossed the sewing machine into the Dumpster ! The pattern for the pretty madras-plaid sundress that Crissy wore on the cover simply Did. Not. Fit. Crissy. No matter how many times I sewed it, traced, it, reworked it. Nothing I did worked. The directions were minimal at best - I really needed more sewing experience under my belt, but the book said it was for all skill levels - yet following them to the letter or freestyling it made no difference. Studied the cover photo for hours, probably. Even researched it like the nerd I am, constantly searching for any image of that dress in any Crissy reference. Johanna said it was tagged, but I never found it anywhere but on the cover of her book. Since Crissy was crammed into ‘little sister' Velvet shoes, I scoured Velvet clothes resources, too. Nope. Not made by Ideal or any known clone doll or doll clothes manufacturer. At any size. I even looked up other dolls about the same size, to see if it was by Ideal, but made for another doll. Nada.
Darn thing gave me headaches, and once, a blasted nightmare. Really. I think the last time I tried it, I increased it to 130%, and it sort of worked, but not really. I gave up on it. Pretty much the whole book, too - if that pattern didn't work, why waste more time futzing with more ? If she can't get this one right, what are the chances that she screwed up with others ? Anderton didn't even get Crissy's shoes right. I let it go, because I was tired of being upset about it. She may be a legendary doll artist (it says so in her book), but to me, she was either lousy at pattern drafting, or pretty much a fraud.
Well, I couldn't sleep or focus on much tonight - I've had insomnia issues since I was eight - so I idly trawled eBay to look at dolls. And there it was. A mostly yellow madras-plaid sundress. In a pile of Barbie dolls and clothes. Grabbed my book. Yup. That's the same dress. Even the buttons matched. I snagged the image, and ran some quick comparisons in PaintShopPro. The dress would fit a Barbie, from shoulder to waist. But the waist was simply too big for that scale. While the dress is high-waisted on Crissy, there is no way a Crissy dress should come close to fitting a Barbie. Crissy's eighteen inches tall ! Her clothes don't even fit Elphie !
Ms. Anderton notes that she came by that dress on a Crissy, and it was tagged. I have no idea how, it sure wasn't For Crissy by Ideal. If that was the case, it'd be on Beth's superlative site ( http://crissyandbeth.com/ ) or in her reference book. Now, supposedly, she used the dress that came on the doll to draft the pattern. But why is the doll on the cover wearing the exact same dress - right down to the buttons ! - as what I found tonight, instead of a new creation by the author ? If I was selling a book of my patterns, or just one pattern, there'd be a photo of at least one of my sewing test drafts on it ! Not a photo of the original dress I copied, but images of what I actually sewed, using my pattern. I now wonder if all the ‘copies' shown on the cover are the original outfits the dolls came in, not finished reproductions the author herself sewed to test her own blinkin' patterns ! If that's the case, how does anyone know if any of ‘em fit ? And how does that dress fit Crissy on the cover, but the pattern not fit at all ? I thought it was my lack of skill, but now I'm starting to wonder if it wasn't my skills that were lacking here.
The mystery isn't completely solved yet - I wrote the seller and asked if the dress had a tag or anything - but when I think of how close I came to giving up a much-enjoyed hobby - or, more accurately, never really even starting it - because of *her* drafting failures...arrrgh ! It's been a minor burr at the back of my mind for years, and by sheer chance, I find out it's probably not only not a Crissy dress, but not even something the author herself even sewed to test her own pattern !
Unbe-freakin'-lievable.
