I had the oddest time shopping for tiny snaps at Joann's on Friday night. The convergence of moms frantically trying to put a last minute Easter outfit together for their daughters and the tattooed and pierced crowd of equally tardy Comic-Con attendees made for excellent people watching... What were they all planning to make with all this Superman-Spiderman fabric? I will never know. And to the woman trying to decide between the linen and and quilting cotton for a dress... enough said.
Moving on to the tiny snaps, Oh How I Hate You! But sometimes you must, and so I did, for the good cause of putting this charming minuscule dress together. You see I have a Blythe (copy) and a half coming my way through the distant asian post and I am afraid she will be naked (!). To spare her the indignity I am making her a small wardrobe. Starting with this dress which took me almost as much time and effort as a human sized version. Except the cutting, that was fast.
The dress turned out slightly more Ralph Lauren than expected, the original pattern in Japanese was less preppy. For this version I used a monogram handkerchief set I bought at a charity shop in France in March purely for the laundry tag ribbon that was used to tie it together. Don't fret, it must have set me back no more than 1 or 2 euros. The blue fabric is from the left overs of Thomas' upcycled shirt used for my Sorbetto tank top refashion. The buttons are beads and of course, it's closed in the front by the dreaded snaps. Anyone with a tip to make hand sewing them in less horrible. Hot glue maybe...
Blythe dolls have one or two cords with pull rings at the back of their heads that people use to change the color of their eyes and the direction of their gaze. I plan on replacing the rings with keys. In times I hope to find small keys for this purpose but for now the two smallest ones above will have to do. I thought of using pampilles (crystal pieces above) but they really would be too fragile. Picture pretty but not practical in the least...
Having solved the problem of dress for the time being, I have decided to name the girl Serafinn. It's a play on words between Seraphine and my son Finn. He thinks it's perfect and fully endorses the enterprise. So much so in fact that he has already placed an order for a "boy one", which might be named Jonathan, "a very cool name" apparently. Let us hope I turn out to be decent at face carving/customizing, no promises!
Note: If like me you have never heard of Blythe dolls, they are these large headed Japanese plastic doll that some brave artists sand down, carve and paint to create exquisite objects that are then photographed in a variety of cute poses. Check these out for example.
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