I got a brand-new bag ! (pause for short guitar and horn solos)

 

Current Mood : OK. Pretty good, actually. 

Spent on Barbie and just plain 'me' stuff : $9.71 

 

Got to see DFIL and DMIL, for the first time since DMIL's mother passed. Uncle T., who lived with and took care of Grandmother, is currently sorting and distributing clothes and quilts and such. We inherited a lovely octagon-flower one. I'm sure that design has a name, all quilt patterns do, but I'm too lazy to look it up.

 

DMIL told me that there's bags of clothes and such that no one knows what to do with yet. I said that, once everyone had gone through them all and gotten all they wanted, if they dropped ‘em off here, or told me when/where to get them m'self, I'd make sure they got donated or used up. Of course, my way of ‘using up' often includes cutting up and repurposing, so our place would literally be the last stop. As long as everyone was OK with that, I'd be glad to help, but I understood that my way may not be acceptable. And, of course, I'd never cut up a quilt. Just clothes.

 

In the meanwhile, I kinda went nuts at Dollar Tree today. Dearest Son wasn't in much of a ‘Library' mood, so we skipped it. He scored a Ice Age 3 coloring book, a mini-skateboard ramp (for his Hot Wheels cars), a fresh box of crayons, and a stop-sign shaped stamper - just have to find a stamp pad around here. For Chez Insanity school, I got a card of two decks of playing cards (last time we bought cards, they were $2 a deck, and cards are great for math games), a book of holiday Sudoku puzzles, and a set of Spiderman-themed math flash-cards, ‘cause he didn't want the DPrincess ones. BTW, they got more mini-DP tea sets in, and Pooh-themed yellow ones, too. If not for the hive-shaped tea pot, I'd have been sorely tempted.

 

But as it was, I went crazy enough without ‘em. Chose a sparkly gold sweater (doll clothes material), a DP holiday-themed pen, another set of DP stickers, a mini-skateboard set of steps (just the right size for doll photos !), and two boxes of crackers I like, that everyone else here hates.

 

We also peeked in to Walgreen's, in search of cheep after-Halloween goodies. Didn't find any of those, but did find today's image ! It's so cute ! And at $2.99, cheap, too ! I'll probably use it for small purse-things, or attach a handle to it, like those vintage airline mini-cases. I always loved those, and my dolls used ‘em as luggage long after the candy or jacks inside were gone. This one is a bit bigger, but it'll be just about the right size for Elphie to use as a skate case ! It's nearly four inches long, and about two and a half tall. Back of the package cautions that the makeup included is real, not fakey kid stuff. I can vouch - it's real nail polish, but nearly as thin and light a color on your nails as a highlighter pen. Still, I like my little star-shaped polishes !

 

I was about to toss the packaging, but instead, I pulled out the ‘Barbie' signature logo, the doll image, and the ‘My Zippered Makeup Bag !' medallion. They crinkled a bit, but didn't crack. So they'd hold in the package, the sticker glue is on the good side, but that just means I have to be a bit more creative in using these freebie stickers. Ended up attaching the signature to a Lucite star that has soap bubble colors, so I have a festive Christmas doll ornament for Babs' anniversary. The doll and circle ended up inside the see-through lid of my doll accessories box. It holds doll jewelry, aprons, crowns, etc. Now I have a custom-decorated accessories box, and a one-of-a-kind ornament. For free !

 

The cardboard back has a neat quilted design I wanna scan, and when that's done, the doll drawing on the back, as well as another signature logo, will probably become either bookmarks or ornament designs. Not sure yet. But isn't it amazing how much  you can get from a $3. splurge ?

 

Once home, I busted butt and got four loads of laundry washed, dried, and put away. Whew ! I even line-dried the blankets and towels, and fluffed ‘em up in the dryer while storing the rest. I also cleaned up the kitchen to catch up on dishes, and took out all the trash to the today-emptied Dumpster. I'm hoping the effort will lead to a good night of sleep. I don't care what anyone says, it always takes me a week to adjust to a Daylight Savings time-shift, and when I add a major schedule change, it's no wonder I've been waking up at odd times since the month began, wondering if I was supposed to be awake or not yet.

You can leave your hat on, too, if you want !

 

Current Mood : Sleepy

Spent on dolls : $4.31

 

Well, the first day of Chez Insanity School went well, even though I overslept this morning. I thought I'd be a bit nostalgic for our usual routine, but it turned out, I slept straight through it ! Dearest Son blazed through the third-grade worksheets I downloaded, and pretty much understood the ‘ongoing process of elimination' involved in the kid Sudoku I printed. It was just a bit too big for him, so he got bored and a bit restless halfway through. We took two breaks during the morning, and did a half-hour on the Wii Fit, and were still done before noon.

 

Actually, at about 11:30, we were on our way for a bit of catch-up shopping. Our trip to Target Thursday didn't quite get everything, so I got more sale Doritos and sausage, and the soda and other Mal-Wart brands we prefer. Also hit two thrifts, but the only thing I bought there was the Liam ‘Flavas' doll I saw earlier. He came with pretty much all you see here, which is, of course, darn near naked. I tried to see his hair before I bought him, since that particular thrift has masked issues with clothes and bag-wrapping before, but I couldn't.

 

Once home, I discovered that his hat was sewn to his head by Mattel, so it wasn't the thrift's doing. His hair was pretty much factory-intact, in a blonde GI-Joe style flocked buzz-cut. All the ‘tacky tattoos' were just plastic stickers, originally intended to customize his clothes, so they peeled up, only leaving a bit of sticky behind. What a relief ! Here he is, dancing up a storm during his 'home alone' version of The Full Monty.

 

I also ‘fixed' our living room clock. Yesterday, when I went to correct the time, it rolled from my touch and hit the living room floor, hard. Since it was a cheap $4. Mal-Wart plastic model, I figured it was 50/50 that I broke it. Reinstalled the flung-from-impact battery, and an hour or so later, noticed the second-hand wasn't ticking past the 9. Well, shoot. I adjusted it again, thinking that if it stalled once more, I'd need to score a new one. Completely forgot to do so when we went out, though.

 

Figured I'd give it one last chance, and changed the battery that'd been working perfectly when it decided to explore aerodynamics. That worked. Have no idea why, but it's been about ten hours, and it's keeping the good time once more.

 

Tomorrow's the local home-school association's library day, so I hope to meet a few others. If nothing else, I can ditch those two American Girl ‘Julie' books. I don't think I'll get any others, although I was planning on reading the Molly ones before I saw how bad the writing was. Hoping to hit Dollar Tree, too !

 

Better, so here's a ton of 'branding' !

 

Current Mood : Better. 

Current Image Notes : Courtesy of ‘World Famous Design Junkies.com', I am proud to share a photo of the single most branded object in the world. This pendant -official name, "Bling Bling Medallion" - would surely save many label-fans tons of money, if their necks could support the thing. It's kinda fun for me to see how many of ‘em I can pick out, but of course, the first thing I saw was the classic ‘B' in the current Barbie logo.

 

Feeling a little better today. Still spending a good chunk of the day in the still-clean bathroom, but at least it doesn't hurt much anymore. I'm thinking Beloved Hubby caught some of the same, since he complained of similar symptoms this morning. It may well be the first time my glacial metabolism has burned through something faster than his.

 

Dearest Son came home, with more candy - his grandparents had taken him on rounds yesterday. He was good and amped. But we still took a few minutes to transform one of the Happy Meal Ice Age : Dawn of the Dinosaurs Scrat toys into a Scratee, with Sharpies. She has feathery black eyelashes and half-closed eyelids that Dearest drew, pretty green eyes that Beloved altered, and rich, red lipstick from me. And I just ‘whitened' her front teeth with White-out. You can now tell, from 30 feet away, which saber-toothed squirrel is which. He then made the never-used-by-DC cat hideaway I got at a yard sale last year into her swingin' apartment, complete with a doll chair, a box for a sofa, and a small trophy.

 

Beloved got us the DVD set, complete with Scrat Pack, last week. Since his Grandparents hadn't seen it yet, it went with Dearest - so he probably watched it five or six times this weekend. What can I say, we all love Scrat, and now, Scratee, too. Our versions wrestled with the sole pop-off acorn piece for well over an hour, in Dearest's hands. He thinks the other acorn is still at his Grandparents' house, and can't wait ‘til they both have one, so they won't fight. ( how cute !)

 

It's kind of funny - DFIL dropped Dearest off darn near running, late for work. I don't think he realized today was Daylight Savings Time yet - so it wasn't 9am, it was only 8. I'm sure he got clued in when he arrived at work.

 

A confession : When we visited the Library Thursday, I snagged two American Girl books. Seems ours has ‘em all. I chose two from the Julie series, based in the 70s, mostly because I grew up then. Even for kid-lit, I'm not impressed. In the first book, Meet Julie, her new school's demerit discipline system is described. Three of ‘em, and you get detention, which puts those naughty kids to work washing desks or cleaning classrooms. In the other book, Changes for Julie, she runs for class president, on the platform that detention consists of uselessly writing ‘I must not' sentences a few hundred times - time that could better be put to use cleaning the school or picking up trash. Hmm.

 

It's funny how the books mention Julie playing with Little Kiddles, but not Barbie. Even though Mattel owns all three. I simply think Mattel mostly knows better to not mingle their worlds much - even though, at one point, Julie had a Barbie make-up head, long since discontinued. That may be in other books, but then again, maybe not. I kinda hope to find one someday, at a yard sale or somesuch. Having a half-size Barbie head seems so funny, for some reason. I could probably pass it off in the dress form collection...

 

Late-breaking doll news (at least, it's new to me !) - actual Mattel product ‘Palm Beach Sugar Daddy Ken' hits the media, with the usual WTF ? response from the normals... read all about it (and raise an eyebrow at the photo) here ->

 

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/latest_ken_putting_on_the_dog_KLVuku7q6iDK4vh2gtj9AP

 

No comment yet from the much-loved Keeping Ken site...

I got a real Halloween Horror going on...urgh.

 

Current Mood : Achy busted tummy.

 

Sorry, ya'll. Evidently, after a month or so with no Chinese food, my system wasn't used to it anymore, and I've had a violently upset tummy all day. So I've slept most of the day away, when I wasn't in the nice, clean bathroom. About all I've been able to eat is English muffins. Glad we bought some Thursday !

 

For your weekend reading / distraction news, I direct you to the fun of My Life is Average - I've been reading it all day, since I can't even focus on TV.

 

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

 

I'm on page 107 out of 831. I may never finish !

 

Happy Halloween, ya'll !

Siiiiiilent...Halloween....(that doesn't sound right)

 

Current Mood : Oddly restless, now that the letter's sent, and there's no party...

 

Not a lot happening today. We sat around watching TV and napping. Without a party to rush to, we all just took it easy. I got an e-mail from my used-to-be-favorite machine embroidery site, Designs by SiCK, telling me that sets were on sale once again - but this time, it wasn't a cash sale, it was a points one. I had about 1300 points, earned from various site gimmicks, minus 400 for the Christmas set I snagged last month. I figured I'd look over what they had again, maybe use up my points stockpile.

 

In the end, I spent 700 points, on six sets and four individual designs. Got ‘em all downloaded and stored with images and stitch guides, and checked my points, expecting to see around 200 or so. Instead, I had over 600. Huh ? I scrolled down through ‘points purchases', and saw that the last one I bought at full points-price wasn't listed. So I double-checked my designs. They're there, and I know I paid for ‘em, otherwise they wouldn't have downloaded. Not sure why it wasn't deducted or listed, but I'll just leave ‘em, so when they figure out what happened - someone else already recorded the issue - they can claim the points later. I don't much care, really.

 

Dearest got to spend some time with his Grandparents, so I tucked the Betty Boop doll in with the candy apples and cupcakes we sent with him. I should have known DFIL would see her face through the bag. His excitement and happiness at pulling her from the bag was worth so much more than the dollar she cost.

 

We're going out for dinner and chat, Beloved and I - but first, the night crew at 7-11 gets some candy apples ! Hope your Friday was fun, too !

 

Change of plans...oh, well.

 

Current Mood : Frustrated, but well-stocked with snacks !

 

My fingers still sting a bit from hand-sewing three pieces of Velcro to Dearest Son's Jedi belt last night. But he looked so adorable today ! Luckily, his costume was big enough to accommodate a shirt and sweatpants beneath, since it was seriously thin. Notified his bus driver and monitor that today's his last with them via letters tucked in with their bus ornaments, and there were tears and sad waves when he disembarked this afternoon. But he soon cheered up - while his Doritos donation didn't make the party (?!), he brought home three ‘goodie bags' of candy and small treats.

 

We had a few errands to run, and Beloved Hubby was home, so the three of us were soon off to get those done, and do some grocery shopping - especially for tomorrow's party ! Mailed off the school notification, picked up some library books, returned some unused car maintenance bits, etc. Dearest managed to cajole a set of Clone Wars action figures out of us, and we soon had all we needed. It was fun to shop together. I got nice pillowcases for the Joanne (In The Pink) project - 250 thread count, set of two, only $6. ! - but held off on other goodies. I even turned down rice crackers this time.

 

Once home, with all the goodies put away, we all settled into our usual habitats while dinner cooked. Naturally, I checked my mail. Well, shoot. The party was cancelled. Had been announced as we were on our way home. Wasn't sure what to do with 30 cupcakes and 15 candy apples - the two bags of candy would be consumed, no doubt - before they went bad / stale, but we figured between keeping some for us, and giving the rest to our horse tenant, the folks we like at 7-11, and Dearest's Grandparents, they'd be used up quickly. Especially the cupcakes.

 

Had a lengthy conversation with Dearest's best friend's grandmother - he and his brother live with her - to inform her of Dearest's school change, and just chat a bit. Don't want to lose contact with them ! Turns out, DBF's brother, a first grader, got suspended for behavioral issues, so their grandmother was very interested in what I'd learned about home-schooling. ‘Someone' told her recently that, pulling him from class would pretty much target local Child Protective Service agents to her back, and she'd have tons of paperwork to complete - not easy for a blind woman. I still wonder who told her that, when I could give her the exact statute number that says otherwise in our state's laws.

 

Oh, we don't expect to get away with pulling Dearest cleanly - Beloved and I fully expect phonecalls Monday or Tuesday, but we can deal. Bluntly, they've had nearly seven years with our son. We let them convince us that they knew best about his education. We know better now.

I'm in love with today's image - squeeeee !

Current Mood : Happily tired

 

Current Image Notes : Found this during a Halloween Image search. Isn't it adorable ?

 

Aside from drafting letters, which I can do later, I pretty much got everything done. Looked up local grocers' ads online, found a sale on Doritos, so Dearest is taking two bags for his party tomorrow. Nothing really at the thrifts, although I found a beanie-baby style Betty Boop doll - DFIL is a Boop fan, so I got her for him. Luckily, I had enough change in the car for her (she was only a buck) and my lunch-splurge. Bonus lucky - her price rubbed off the intact hang-tag without damaging it !

 

The local thrift had a couple of male dolls that were interesting, including one of the Flavas line. I may go back and get him, when time and funding are right. I wonder if I can scrub the tacky tattoos off his back...

 

The bathroom and our bedroom's a lot cleaner now. Still a lot of work to be done in both, but a bit more tidy is always better than a bit more wrecked ! One of us could actually take a tub-bath now, if we wanted to. I hate tub scrubbing, so it's been put off embarrassingly long, until today. It should get easier if I'm in there an hour a week - I hope ! There's maybe another half-hour of dishes to catch up, and then I can spend tomorrow cleaning off the dining room table, once again buried in Lego, junk mail, miscellaneous papers, and shopping bags. I find it really helps to get stuff done early - I forget that I've already done half the work when I go back to finish !

 

In late-breaking news, we've been invited to a Halloween party Friday. While Dearest is already well-costumed, Beloved Hubby and I are foraging for ours. Turns out he has pretty much all the makings of an Indiana Jones costume - including the hat - already. I wasn't quite sure what to do with me, until I was tidying up our bedroom. Where the Princess Leia hat-wig resides. Hmmm.... No real time for a long white dress, and I'd just feel silly in one anyway. But... what if I just go with the hat-wig, a white shirt, jeans, and my grey sweatshirt-jacket. Can always say I'm going as ‘Leia's day off'. Potential here. Skylarking a bit further, I thought it'd be fun to add the Rebel Alliance symbol to my jacket, since I'd been trying to decide what to put on my otherwise blank jacket for a long time anyway.

 

Unfortunately, Clone Wars is getting all the attention, so there was no ready-made Rebel Alliance ‘starbird' logo embroidery design. Plus, even if there was, I wouldn't have $20. for a licensed version, and I'd hate to spend $5. on a bootleg. Sounds like a challenge to me ! Thanks to Google Image Search, I soon had a good representation of it, and Stitch Era Universal digitized it in about ten minutes. I then did it again in the right size - I'd neglected to update the correct setting. (headbonk) Well, at least I have a one inch by one and a half inch doll-size version of the logo now. And, while messing around with stitch patterns, I figured out how to make an appliqué of it ! Awesome - I've been trying to figure that out for weeks ! It's just a click-button away.

 

So. I now have my perfect Rebel Alliance logo, correctly sized in a smooth pattern of stitches, ready to go. I'll probably test it out tomorrow, if I don't get to later tonight, and stitch it out soon after, if it's good. And later on, play with the appliqué one. You gotta love costuming an entire family for $40. (which is what we spent on Dearest's ‘Deluxe Anakin Skywalker') . And, as Beloved pointed out, we're even a theme - we're all Lucasfilm characters.

 

I never thought I'd finally get to be Leia on Halloween... I mean, when I wasn't in 1978, I didn't think I ever would ! 

 

Laundry and dishes... and there went my day !

 

Current Mood : A little rushed. 

Current Image Notes : Did this up yesterday, with some fabric Beloved Hubby's Grandmother gave me. I erased the original design's eyelashes, which went past her bangs before curling up ! 

 

Busy day, not a very artistic one. I've devised a prototype schedule for next month, and I'm sort of testing it out this week. Problem is, I'm so far behind, it takes two days to do what I have one scheduled for. Like the laundry. It's all done, all washed, dried, and put away, except for a half load of black clothes. Used every coat-hanger in the house to do it, and even raided the My Size Barbie and Baby Crissy closet for as many as I could liberate. Even then, I culled a few outgrowns from Dearest Son's closet and tucked two shirts into his weekend-with-Grandparents bag to make it work. It's a great glow of achievement, but I'm also dirt-tired, and my arms hurt.

 

I also squeezed in an hour's worth of dishes, which will have to continue tomorrow. But Wednesdays are sort of lightly planned anyway, so I should be able to catch up.

 

I've learned a couple important things so far - if I set the timer for a half-hour and bust butt on whatever housework I'm doing, I can get a lot done ! And the closer I get to finishing, the longer I wanna work, to get it done.  Bonus round - if I give myself something to look forward to, I'm happy to bust butt, and don't have that ‘guilt' for doing something special for m'self. In my mind, I've already ‘earned' it.

 

Beloved Hubby wrote our ‘introduction letter' to the local home-schooling Yahoo group tonight. I'd been meaning to, but got stymied when I read the invitation to a Halloween party. It requested that everyone bring an organic, gluten-free, sugar-free, peanut-free, milk/dairy-free treat to share. After reading that list, my first thought was, ‘I can bring plates or water - but they probably won't like the plastic bottles the water comes in, or non-compostable plates. Maybe I should go with air.'. Yes, I know I'm being snarky, but it started me worrying, and the end result was that I never wrote the intro. Now that he's done it, he's started looking around the messages, and I think he's starting to worry.

 

Anyway, while I'm out tomorrow, I'm gonna grab some chips for Dearest's last school party Thursday. While it's sooooo tempting to let someone else provide for once, I know how few parents actually participate.  Which always astounds me - when Brytiannney and Koele come home with two treat bags, three cupcakes, and a bag of Doritos, where do their parents think all those treats came from, especially when they didn't contribute ? Oh, well. His school will get the ‘we're homeschooling' notification letter Friday, and it'll cease to be a concern on 01 November 09.

 

I also have to draft that letter, and the ones to his bus driver and monitor. And fix Dearest's ‘Jedi' belt. It's a good thing I got a lot of work done today -  and some fun embroidery done yesterday - ‘cause I'm not sure how I'm gonna get all this done in a day !

School days, school days...coming to an end for Dearest Son days...

 

Current Mood : Slightly piqued. 

 

Finished both of these yesterday, about three hours apart. They went pretty well, stitching only took a bit over an hour for each, but they both had the same error - the bottom fender outline stitching doesn't quite meet the bottom fender. First one wasn't too bad, so I simply didn't wash out the UltraSolvy stabilizer. Second one was so bad, it ripped out the USolvy, so I glued it together. Had to keep from fussing with it all night, so I weighted it down. I'm the worst for fussing with a craft when it's supposed to be drying or somesuch.

 

But I learned a lot. Since I decided to stitch these with the overall orange color in the bobbin, and switch it over to black when the top thread switched to black, too, I discovered that I can fill up a bobbin in between colors without removing the embroidery deck. Before, I thought I had to, but I did it twice today -those bobbins emptied quickly ! Luckily for me, Brody's bobbin case is see-through if the fabric is, and a small flashlight helps keep track of darker thread usage.

 

And, in keeping with bobbins, I also discovered that I have to leave the needle up when winding ‘em. Or else, they don't wind right, and the thread bunches up in a pile at the bottom. The manual doesn't specify up or down, had to learn it the hard way.

 

Emptied my first spool of embroidery thread - a Mettler one of white - on this project. Couple months back, I emptied my first spool of bobbin thread. Pretty soon, those things will be more of an annoyance ("Blast it, now I gotta buy more - and there's no sales this week !") than an achievement. But for now, I'm enjoying having and using so many great supplies.

 

I also neglected to put my cutting mat back on my cutting table when I finally cleaned it off last week. So, when it came time to hoop up the UltraSolvy, I naturally went right for the cutting table. Hmf. A cutting table with the cutting mat removed and stored nearby is good for much more than just cutting fabric !

 

And finally, the ongoing fear of the Solvy or other water-soluble stabilizer tearing while it's being stitched on is often interpreted as excitement in machine embroidery. It's also a good creative thinking and problem-solving exercise when it does start to pull a bit. I came up with about 30 ways to try to fix the bus fender separation problem before I just decided to Gorilla Glue it. It may turn out that glue was a bad idea. But ya never know ‘til you try.

 

It's been a day, and you can tell where the glue is on the second one. (sigh) I colored it in with Sharpies, but it still shows. I may add a bit to the other, so it doesn't look as bad. It's separated on the first one too, just not as badly.

 

I also played with some designs, including one I bought this weekend. The Barbie-like silhouette appliqué one had l-o-o-o-o-ng eyelashes. A bit too long for my taste. So I removed them, and now it really looks like Barbie -with bangs and a crown. I like it ! Maybe later, I'll see if I can remove the crown. And, since the owner/moderator of In The Pink is still ill, I tweaked it to include the site's name, and saved it as a separate version. After I do a test stitch-out, I'll make up a nice one for her, and mail it off. I wanted to modify my older Barbie silhouette for that, but I like this one better. Just wish I'd already had the design in time for the big group box going off this week, but that's life !

Gifts from Tiffany

 

Current Mood : Brain-strained. We're working on Dearest Son's upcoming home studies. 

 

Played a bit with Tiffany Taylor today. Showed Dearest Son how her hair worked, and he exclaimed, ‘Now she's blonde like me !'. I was glad to see he knew that part of himself, and was happy with it.

 

As it turned out, Tiffany gave me another huge gift. Late last night, I was doing some research on her, for fun. What can I say, I'm not just a nerd, I'm a doll geek. I ended up looking at other 70s and 80s dolls, which is always fun. So many toy companies,  sadly, most that don't exist anymore. Personally, I was kind of morose when I heard Ideal had gone under. I know a guy who was upset when Kenner went bye-bye, since he didn't think new owner Hasbro would do a decent job on his beloved Star Wars toys.

 

So I guess it wasn't a surprise that I ended up reading about Mego's Candi, a doll nearly the same size as Tiffany. I'd seen one once, a long time ago in an antique shop, with a ghostly faded face, even though she was still in her box. The sight actually made me shudder a bit. I'd long cherished the idea that if a doll was NRFB, she'd always remain perfect, yet here was definite proof that wasn't true. I'd heard a lot about the Tiffany and Tuesday Taylor dolls, but I'd only ever seen photos. It's funny how half the time, the first time I ever see a doll in person, I usually end up owning her.

 

Anyway, reading about Candi led me back to www.crissyandbeth.com - she's a big fan of all those Crissy-sized dolls. And that's where I saw it. I still can't believe that mystery is solved. It's been somewhere in my mind since '02 !

 

That's when I bought a nearly-new copy of Johana Gast Anderton's Sewing for 20^th Century Dolls, Vol. II. It had lots of Crissy patterns in it ! One was right on the cover, a pretty faux button-front sundress in a feminine, soft plaid. As is my nature, I hunted around for a great price - and free shipping ! - and pounced. I don't think I had the book in my hands for ten minutes before I'd traced out the bodice of that sundress onto a sheet of paper, and cut it out of scrap cotton fabric.

 

Um. I was new to sewing, truly, but I had no idea how this bodice was gonna fit Crissy. The cut piece didn't even go all the way around her chest, unless I didn't sew the darts, the faux-front placket, or the facings. But, with the utter faith that a newbie has for an experienced, renowned expert, I figured that, when it was done, surely, it would fit. Nope. I re-read the directions, and drew the pattern again, even going a bit big on the cutting. Still didn't fit. Even a photocopy of the pattern, measured to be an exact match to the book simply didn't fit. Unless it was made out of cotton-look Lycra (which doesn't exist, elastic fabrics always have a certain sheen to them), I didn't see how, but I still believed...

 

I tried off and on for two years, utterly clueless as to how it fit the Crissy on the cover, but didn't come close to fitting any of my Crissy dolls. I had to be doing something wrong, but for the eternal life of me, I couldn't figure out what. I did note that the book doll had her feet crammed into shoes that fit a smaller Crissy-family doll, and that Ms. Anderton said the dress she used to create the pattern was an original tagged fashion found on a red-haired Crissy. Um, they're all red-haired...if the doll is blonde or brunette, she has a different name. I re-read the directions, to make sure I wasn't supposed to enlarge the design, or something... but it was always the same as the first time.

 

After a while, I gave up, but I always kept my eyes open. I went through every page of Beth Colvin's (formerly Gunter) Crissy site, looking for official Ideal outfits, or Sears ‘bonus' deals, or just plain knockoffs. I even checked McCalls and Simplicity patterns, and looked through Magic Hair Crissy's pages, too. Nothing. That dress seemed to exist only on the cover of Ms. Anderton's book. Once, in an eBay auction, I saw something similar, but the dress didn't seem much larger than the Barbie it was photographed next to.

 

So it was that, by getting Tiffany, I ended up exploring Candi - and that plaid sundress  turned out to be an official Mego dress for Candi, not Crissy's. And Candi, Magic Hair Crissy, and Tiffany all have much smaller torso figures than Crissy. It was never my fault the pattern didn't work ! Ms. Anderton evidently didn't notice that the ‘original tagged' dress read Candi, not Crissy. I still don't know how she got it to fit the Crissy on the cover, but at least now, I know.

 

I also learned a lot stitching up those two free-standing lace school buses today. But since this has already gone long, it'll keep ‘til tomorrow. Hope you had a great weekend !