Take *that*, Modern Art #1625 !

Current Mood : Celebratory !

Other times, I take several hours of quiet time and proceed to demolish one of my challenges ! I stayed up waaaay too late to sew this, a cowl-necked blouse and skirt from a Japanese pattern made for a 9-inch doll. In a t-shirt knit fabric. No directions, just an image of the pattern, not in scale. If I wanted it, and if I could master it, it would be a serious challenge. Was I ready ? Was I up to it ? Could I really try again after a string of failures still haunted my psyche ?

Well, what else was I gonna do at 11pm when I’m broke ? Might as well go for it, even if it is another Total Fail, it’s just another on the pile, no big deal. But maybe, just this once, I might get it right. I may understand and learn and grow from the experience. And I could always try again later. One thing’s for sure, mine wasn’t gonna look like the sample photo. That looks like t-shirt knit, not the woven cottons I have such a surplus of, I use it for tests and trials and scrap. Still, it would look good as a knit…

Original design image

Resized the pattern about four times until a paper version more or less pinch-fit my craft doll, then I cut it out of crap fabric. Nope. Sleeves are super tight, and it’s rather short. Trash can fodder. Resized it again. Too big, but I saved it off anyway, for a potential Barbie version. Six must’ve been the charm, because that one was a workable, usable pattern that needed only minor revisions, and I was ready to sew it. For superstitions’ sake, I continued to use the sickly green fabric and white (not matching – gasp !) thread, because when I do that on a first trial, it almost always works and is worth keeping. No surprises here, it actually looked really good. On the test body, that didn’t have to accommodate wings, it closes fully in the back, and the cowl neckline drapes over the shoulders in a near perfect oval that is open in the back. I could even reverse it and use the back as the front if (sigh) I had used matching thread that didn’t show the Velcro ™ so much.

But here’s the challenge – it wasn’t in resizing the pattern. PaintShopPro does nearly all of that work for me. It’s that cowl neckline. I spent over two years trying to get a similar one to work on Barbie, it’s the main focal point of my repeated failures to clone her #1625, Modern Art. Even the Aileen’s Petite Fashions pattern didn’t help, I just could not get it right.My favorite fashion out of all Barbie's millions (except maybe the Astro Fashions, those were awesome !), the one I couldn't make m'self.  And tonight, with a pattern that wasn’t even designed for her, I sewed it, and even the bilious color and glaring white thread doesn’t look bad at all on Rochelle. I felt like dancing, and did, a little.

Then I calmed down and made a simple slim skirt to match – an NG Creations slim skirt from her first set, same as Lagoona’s ‘Music Festival’ one – with some of that pretty trim I got on such a great discount, and poof ! Rochelle has a lovely spring suit ! Her wings keep the back open much more, and you can see the collar’s edges. I kinda like it better her way !

After a too-brief sleep, I decided to noodle around for patterns and inspiration, and ended up on Craftgossip.com – there was one for the Little Disney Princess dolls ! I snagged it and Pinned it and did a search for more ‘doll’ there – and had to go through over 50 pages dating all the way back to 2007, at least two thirds of which had nothing to do with dolls. Nope, the authors of some other completely unrelated projects had taken some cutesy ‘craft’ name with the word doll in it somewhere, so I ended up looking at endless terrariums and countless slightly changed versions of little-girl pillowcase dresses. I freakin’ *loathe* pillowcase dresses.  Or their sites had the word ‘dollar’ in them. (sigh)

Most of the doll patterns I found were for – guess who ? – American Girl dolls, and were too firmly locked into AG to alter. Not even gonna get into how many pillowcase dresses I found for that lot. growlmuttergrumble. I found some that showed how to custom make the pattern or change it to fit other dolls, so I Pinned those, too. For once, I have a few Pins that aren’t already on everyone else’s (much better) pinboards – I feel like I’m sharing, instead of just taking. Much better.

And I’m tired again. Think I’ll loaf on the sofa a bit. It’s been a very creative 18 hours ! Too bad less than five of them have been sleeping !