Good Morning, Rochelle !

Current Mood : So sleepy...

Well, my trade partner can rest assured that her beds are on the way. It was so odd, though. I used Priority Mail tape all over it, and told the cashier I wanted to mail it Priority. He quoted me a price much lower than I’d seen online, and I even verified it was Priority Shipping – he said it was. The tracking ticket says ‘Priority’, but my receipt says ‘Parcel’. I was hoping she’d have it by Friday, but again, my receipt says Tuesday. Now I’m hoping like heck it even gets there with the confusion.

But heck, I insured it, it’s done, I’m gonna just hope for the best and move on. It’ll probably be Saturday before she mails HooDude, if I’m lucky. I finally ‘heard’ my green MH doll’s name – the blank faced one from the Create A Monster Lab that I bought used a few weeks ago. It’s Olivia. Olivia Green. What can I say, it suits her.

And, out of a bit of boredom, I opened one of the four Dollar Tree Barbie-size doll outfit packages I bought Monday. It was the one with a purple t-shirt, sun-print pants, and a glitter-dot lavender minidress. While it was the dress that sold it, I kinda liked the pants, too, so I spent roughly an hour and a half remaking them. Yeah, it would have taken me about a half an hour to sew them from scratch, but I’ve never seen this cute print before in stores. Plus, it cured my boredom !  Removed the Velcro closure, removed the top hem and resewed it as a casing, and gave her elastic-waist pants. I had to redo the inseam and back seam anyway, as both were coming apart inside. Lotta work, but came out quite nicely, I think.

The purple shirt is a total write-off. I spent at least another half-hour trying to iron it, only to have it go right back to ‘wad’ when I took it off the ironing board. Plus, it really was too cheaply made out of cheap fabric to really spend much time on salvaging it. Seriously, I’ve seen Air Mail paper thicker than this shirt. No hems anywhere, a snag on the neckline, and poorly sewn…eh. If the wrinkles had ironed out at all – which they didn’t, and I had that iron as high as it would go, even spray starch didn’t help – I might have played with doing something with it. As it is now, I’d be embarrassed to even donate it. So it’ll probably go in the trash.

So I cleared something else off my desk. Robecca’s shirt is a leftover – I wanted to try another hoodie during Boyfiends Week, but cut the shirt part with short sleeves instead of long. I know sleeveless and short sleeved hoodies are popular, but that wasn’t what I wanted to make. So I recut the shirt and slid the miscut off to the side. I figured, the pants look like pajamas, why don’t I sew the shirt as an oversize tee, with orange thread ? Sewed it just like I did for the guys, but used a half-inch seam allowance for the underarm/side seams. Reused the pants’ Velcro ™, along with a longer strip of fresh stuff, to close in the back. It’s open a little to accommodate her wings.

Slippers. If this is gonna be pajamas, she’s gonna need slippers. I remembered some that’d come with a couple Mattel-made Barbie pajamas a long time ago – basically a strip of fabric sewn to a thin bit of oval vinyl. Like this, check out the third image. I’d bought a lavender nightie in hopes the simple slippers would fit another doll, and was surprised to see they hadn’t been turned so that the seam was on the inside. So I did it. They barely fit, but it gave me an idea about 20 years later. Dug until I found some mid-weight sew-in interfacing scraps from my machine embroidery days, and traced my fitting doll’s foot.

Five trials later, I had a workable pair, but not as good as I like. Gotta work on the toe part. Should only take a couple more versions before I get it right, and I’ll have something to share ! For now, though, I colored the strap part with one of Beloved’s highlighters, turned it so the seam is inside, and she’s got matching slippers from scraps !

Too tired to work on the glittery lavender dress. But I had some fun draping and fitting it to another doll, so I don’t regret that dollar ! Gonna watch something and wait for Beloved to come in from work. Hope you got to have some fun today, too !