So, I’m sewing away–doing my best to make a few goodies for those special people (you guys know who you are!) and get other things done as well. I’d love to share photos on here of what I’ve made (because some of it’s turned out really well) but if I do they’ll see their presents and …well..that just wouldn’t be good right? So hopefully come xmas time they’ll post on their blogs & flickr accounts the goodies I’m making now! *I hope anyway*

While I’m at it I figured I’d post a pic of how things are starting to come together with the insanity quilt. It’s just a quick shot (I threw them on top of a tile) so you can see where I’m going with them so far.

Would you believe that there are 231 hexagons in that shot?

I know they’re not much to look at at the moment but I’m making some progress. I am glad that I only decided to do a dorm size (twin) quilt with them though and not the original 1:6 queen size I’d planned.

I’m also working on getting those photos done for new etsy listings. I’ve just about sorted out the light bulb situation here (oh don’t even ask) so that’ll be back on track soon. The broken printer–not-so-much-so but I’m still trying to source a replacement that we can afford at the moment. We’ll see what happens.

Ok back to the worktable! See you all later!

It is pretty bright. Nothing wrong with vibrant colors — but wow, huh?

The patches all started out as individual squares. And no, before you start thinking I’m an absolute masochist–there was a reason for this: I had already had a number of them cut (to the wrong size for my Insanity quilt) and this seemed like the perfect way to use them and not end up wasting the fabric. I didn’t know if it was going to work but I gave it a try and I’m pretty pleased with  the overall look. Next time I’ll try to do it as a Nine Patch rather than just random placements.

This quilt marks a lot of firsts for me.

• It was the first patchwork I completed. The other one I’d started got tossed in the bin as a needless exercise in frustration),
• The first time I made my own bias binding (not as hard as I thought it was)
• The first whole doll blanket that I bothered to quilt by hand. Although I have to admit that it was a pain, and it is part of the reason why Nerissa’s Quilt is only lightly quilted.
• I used a combination of tying & hand stitching to quilt the quilt.

So I sewed all the patches together, quilted it, washed it and now comes the really hard part–deciding which character gets it!  After sticking them on it I came to 3 conclusions. Shayna could have it (but since I’m working on the insanity quilt for her it doesn’t seem right she should have two. Does it??Nope.) So….either  Mallory or Parker will get it.

Maybe you folks can help me decide? Who do you think owns this quilt? I’ve snapped a few pics of each with the patchwork quilt so you can help me decide! There’s a poll at the end of this post–please vote!

Sooo..what do you think??

Yes, it IS considered a quilt (albeit not a patchwork).  It’s a wholecloth quilt which means that the top consists of one whole piece of fabric. I did hand quilt it with some nice variegated thread in pinks.

She got a fitted sheet, a pillow & a pillowcase. (needs a flat sheet still)

There you have it. I’m gonna ask you all to forgive my pics. I’m still working out the new set up here and the lighting.

That’s not reaaaaaaally a problem for the volks/obitsu dolls since they can wear the mattel/ barbie clothing with no trouble.  But the trouble makers are of course– my fashion royalty dolls.  Yes, those lovely, fashionable dolls! Although  the fashion royalty girls can wear a lot of the barbie stuff (and their default clothing) but in general I always find myself struggling when it comes to finding them  pants/ slacks since they can’t wear many of the babs bottoms due to their incredibly loooooong legs.  So I made them a few skirts, pants and now I need to start the great clothing assignment of 2011!

The tough thing for me about doing this sort-out is…. who should get what pieces? Which outfits look better on…. well you get the idea, right?

So what I’m hoping to do later this week (probably this weekend) is to start shooting some photos of  the clothing on some of the dolls—basically asking you to be the tie-breaker and help me decide who gets the clothing!

Are you guys up for that?

Sorry that they aren’t pretty pics — I’ll try to shoot some of the clothes on the dolls soon!  You can probably tell these are primarily meant for the students since it’s all casual wear.

Ok I fibbed! There’s one pair of slacks for Shay (and a camisole top for her too). I wanted to make more jeans but I didn’t have any more fabric — so maybe some other time? There is a definite shortage of jeans…

Yes, duplicate skirts. I’m thinking that some of the girls might do the occasional dress-alike thing.

Dresses… The blue ones were test-pieces. I’d never tried making a pseudo-babydoll type dress before. Not overly thrilled with them except for the black one. (the orange-y sheath goes under that).

And of course I managed to leave out a few items, but all in all (not including the things I made for Etsy) I made 90+ pieces of _usable_ clothing! That’s quite an addition to my characters’ wardrobes and I’m pleased—-although I do feel like it all looks sort of the same.

The last 2 weeks have been big, long exercises in stress & anxiety and I decided that the best way to deal with that was to do some sewing.  For myself.

I don’t usually bother to sew anything for my dolls–the majority of stuff I make tend to go on to other people’s dolls.  I get the rejects & QC fails–But the great thing about sewing (sometimes) is that it requires me to focus & concentrate.  Which makes it harder for me to be all stressed about what’s been going on.

So, this weekend I’m going to sew on the hooks, eyes & snaps, and then I’ll photograph the stuff I’ve made. Which will be kind of cool since I plan on doing a few “Who wears it Better” shots since I can’t decide who really looks better in some of the pieces.

And of course, Happy Birthday Bob. I still love  you and miss you.

Making the beds was (for me) the more difficult of the two projects from the challenge.  (I should stop and say here, that my simple plan was critiqued and overseen by Mark.  Mostly because this was the only way I was allowed in the shed and to use his power-tools–the things you gotta do, you know?)  When we move though–I will have tools!

I don’t know if I’d mentioned it in the previous post, but I only had 2 real requirements for my beds:

1) that they be flat-packable. I didn’t want to go through the bother and hassle of making them (and bedding for them) only to have to ditch them when we finally move.

2)That they be slightly shorter & narrower than the original (make shift) dorm beds so I have a few mm extra space to jiggle things around for room set-ups.

I tend to be pretty flexible insofar as what I want my finished pieces to look like. This is because I have a habit of wanting to change it as I go along, to make it more …better. This, however did not go down well with Mark, who again was vetting everything I was doing.  Ever take a shop class with that teacher who would stare at you when you said something incredibly retarded?

Yep. Mark is that teacher and I’m that student (when it comes to drawn plans).  We had a disagreement about why I had to draw scale drawings (I knew the sizes of the pieces of wood, I knew where the wood went & how it connected—-so why bother with plans?)

The answer to that is that you can use it to make sure everything is “right”.  Ok, maybe if I were planning on making a crap load of beds I’d bother.  Otherwise—nah.  Stuff for me  (it’s totally different if I’m making it for someone else though) just isn’t that finicky.  I kept my sheet of paper with the rough drawing I’d done and the min & max dimensions I wanted the bed to be, along with what pieces I needed to cut etc.

Anyway, in the process I did learn some stuff I hadn’t known.

Like: if you are trying to drill into pine (or spruce) and you have the sap rings/banding (See Pic)  then you will have to force the drill to go through it otherwise the sap bands cause the drill to veer off to either side.

I actually got all the wood sourced, cut and ready to go in one day.  As you can see Bree had to help with the wood cutting!

As you can see it takes quite a bit more wood than is apparent at first glance.

Here’s one tip–if you’re going to cut a bunch of pieces that need to be the same size (on the band saw) tape them together (provided they’re small/thin enough). It helps to make certain they all end up the same.

The next day I started gluing & drilling. I had to clamp the side rails.

Glue always ends up stuck on my clothes and stuff and this time was no different.

Merrit & Verity helping with the headboards:

This is the place where I should say that when I finally move home (and want to make a new set of beds (and bunk beds, where you’ll see the underside) I’ll buy some good wire & make the faux springs & metal bottoms like the should have had. Buuuuut—they work (and will work if I choose to re-make the bottoms at a later date!) Or hell, they do work as bunk beds as long as I don’t focus on the undersides of them. LOL

Anyway  I don’t want to bore you all with the way I put it together.  Suffice that I did (at that point I just couldn’t be bothered to take any more pics. It was just easier to do than to document!), and then I had to stain it.   I wanted them to match the existing dorm furniture which is stained a dark color. It’s boring (you have to do a coat, let it dry, do another, let it dry etc…repeat. repeat.) I used some water-based varnish from B&Q. Only problem I had was that I would keep forgetting how many layers I’d already applied….oh well. Live and learn.

While the various coats of stain were drying I had to work on the mattresses. After all, I can’t use the old ones (wrong sizes) and I wanted to do them better anyway.  Besides, I don’t remember any dorm bed having super cushy & thick mattresses!

Karly & Eff are showing off the new beds. One is partly stained and the other needed to get stained.

You can see my attempts at mattresses. I wanted them to look a bit more like the industrial /old ones we had when I was at Caz, but I didn’t quite succeed. Part of this was because I only had a little bit of the fabric to make them out of and I tried to scrape by to get it to work. (thus one is actually a bit smaller than the other, and wouldn’t you know that they both shrank in size after I “quilted” them? D’oh!

And one of the other projects I started was trying to get the bedding done (the blankets, sheets & pillows for Nik & Merrit’s room.  So far all I’ve gotten done was Merrit’s comforter. He get’s plaid.  I still need to wash it to get it that crinkled/used look.  I did give it a few rows of wavy “quilting” like you sometimes see on older comforters/sleeping bags.  I took this pic to see how well that size blanket would work if in the future I want to use them as bunk beds:

Anyway, that’s last week’s projects done & dusted.

I’d like to say I’m going to take on 2 more projects but the situation with the house (trying to sell it), trying to research some options for us (just suffice to say some plans fell through) & some of the other joys of life means that nothing is stable enough for me to plan “hobby” time.  Heck — at this point I’m just fighting migraines and trying not to let acid gnaw a hole in my stomach. Ugh

Wish us good luck with the house stuff and I’ll try to keep updating the blog with something  doll or hobby related (since I’m pretty sure no one wants to hear about the house! LOL)

One good thing though: the repetition of cutting the same shapes out of fabric is getting easier the more I do!

Here are 2 quick snaps of Harley & Electra. As you can see Harley is looking much better than she did when we brought her home from the shelter!

And Electra:

Bearing that in mind, I decided to update the blog. Seems like a good thing to do. Besides, y’all might want to know what I’ve been up to the last day or two, and want a heads up about what I’ll be posting about later.

Last week I started working on some pattern making. I decided there were some things that I needed to make simply because I didn’t have enough of them.  This irritated me for a couple of reasons:

1. I had already drafted the patterns, tested them and made clothing from them.
2. I lost the patterns. No clue where, and I’m beginning to suspect the envelopes I kept them in fell into the trash bin.
3. IMO pattern drafting is evil, time consuming and no where near as fulfilling and satisfying as say, watching Holby City, or Come Dine with Me  (the pure hilarity of that show slays me!)

So, instead I hunkered down, drafted some patterns (and instructions since I can draft a pattern, make a piece and then come back to it months later and go WTF? How does that work??)  And I started sewing. And sewing. And the reject pile grew (hey, I have high standards, what can I say?).  My least favorite part of sewing is cutting out the pieces. How tedious. Yuck.

Did I mention that Sunday I fell down the stairs? Very unpleasant spill. Don’t think I’ve broken anything but I’m seriously bruised and standing and sitting in certain postures (like my unergonomic cutting space) cause me some sharp & unpleasant pains. So for now I’m taking Aleve, stretching gently and not cutting anything that I can’t do sitting down (also not ideal ergonomically but it doesn’t hurt so it’s ok in my book)

But I was starting to get a bit bored (and when you consider that sewing 1:6 doll clothes really isn’t one of my passions) that’s a baaaaad thing.  I have been itching the last few weeks to sew some “fantasy” clothing for a few of my dolls.  Specifically Raven, but a couple other girls & guys need some since I’m planning on them being part of a RPG & LARP group on the Quinlan campus.

So I decided to think about what I should make her and try to draw up some patterns for it. (I also figure that the dress/top patterns I make for her should be fairly applicable (with some tweaks) for Astrid since they have similarly sized chests.

You know, I think this post is getting a bit long.  I’ll continue it tomorrow evening (and I’ll try to make sure I have some illustrations to show you all the points that I’m talking about. 

I thought briefly about making them randomized–whatever color I pulled out etc.  But I decided I didn’t want my quilt to look like a bag of jellybeans!  SO things got re-arranged. For those that are curious, the hex-paper beneath is the rough size & shape I need to over-all quilt to be when done (including binding etc). It’s just there to keep me on-track.

Anyway, here are my first attempts at sewing some of the hexes together:

They’re not perfect by any means but considering it’s my first time doing them (and am actually surprised I got this far) I’m pleased.  I’ll update about them again soon!

Onto other news: I’m also back to updating my Quinlan Chronicles website. This weekend I want to get a few more profiles up, and re-arrange the way the profiles are listed on the site

It’s supposed to be a quilt for a twin sized bed and I’ve probably over estimated exactly how many hexes I need for it. I’ve decided I needed about 1000 of them although I probably only need about 800-900….or so (I kind of got that number by eyeballing the size of a hex vs. the size of the bed I want to cover.) I could be wrong (wouldn’t it be nice if I needed much less?) . I’m trying to wrap up making the hexes (they aren’t fiddly so much as they just seem to suck up time.)

So here’s what I’ve gotten made so far:

Can you guess how many hexagons are in those containers?

Last time I took a photo there were considerably less…….

It’s a lot of effort and you know, I have no clue how it’ll turn out or what mistakes I’ve made in the process of doing it. I’ll probably find out once I finish it. One thing I have to say is that in the process of making the hexagons I really do think that once I move I want to make a 1:1 hex quilt. I’ve found it to be good “busy work” for when I’m watching something or listening and don’t really feel like doing anything “constructive”. The nice thing about making them is I don’t really have to think about ANYTHING when I do them. It’s a nice way to sort of space out and relax.

For those of you who guessed–there are (currently) 904 hexagons in the containers. Ouch my fingers! I’ve got 96 more to go before I reach 1000, but I think at this point i’m going to hold off on doing those and see if I actually need them.

Anyway I’ll try to post more on the quilt as I make some progress with it.

The main goal for me was that the different sides of the dorm room reflect the different personalities of the characters.  I think (IMO at least) that I’ve been successful in that.

The Desks & Dressers are via Mark and were My Valentines Day gift (no chocolate, but I can handle furniture instead!! LOL).  I gave him the details I wanted and made him paper models–and they came out really well.  All the drawers work (and the desks were designed so that the side drawers could be taken out and use the area as book shelves instead). PS Mark made the window & doors– email him if you’re interested in some (mhmodelmakingATgmail.com).

If you want more info on anything just comment (I’m sorry I’d give you a detailed, blow bly blow item list but it’s late and I’m utterly knackered!)

So here it is:  (As usual—click on the white “X” to see full sized image)

First: Looking at Karly’s side of the room: Karly is a neat girl, with a love of shabby Chic.

Karly’s Dresser and a view of her desk set up.  Her desk is the same basic model as Astrid’s except that I’ve taken out one of the drawers and used that as a bookshelf area instead.

I made her comforter (and there are matching sheets & pillowcases underneath made of blue-aqua fabric).

Karly’s tie-quilt/comforter and you can see her “jewelry board”. One of the necklaces came from Nat at Milkshake Melody & the rest are either my creations or faff from mattel.

Would you believe how long it took to pull this set together? And then once I had most of the pieces….how long to actually set it all up??!! Just say it took a while LOL (it’s less depressing that way when I knock into it and things fall)!

Can you tell that two completely different people live in this room?

Looking at Astrid’s side of the dorm room (from Karly’s)

I realized along the way that Astrid is learning to play guitar. That’s a 1/8th scale takamine guitar made by F-toys which I can get away with calling 1:6 scale (because, hehe, there are 3/4 scale & 1/2 scale ones made in real life for musicians)

View of Astrid’s dresser & desk-top stuff.

The bast/Cat statue is an old piece of Yujin, the Ankh is from the Hot Toys Wong Ka Kui figure, misc bottles are re-ment & Barbie stuff.

Here you can see a close up of her “desk junk” (not complete since I need to add some papers). Re-ment coffee cup, bratz mugs (white ones), re-ment office stuff, colored pencils I made (you’ll see more of those soon), books (I made) and 2 more wonderful little egyptian statues from Yujin.

Please comment!

*edit: I’ve added the diorama page to the main website with some further details about the roomset. You can find it here:  http://www.corsetkitten.com/dioramas/

First, let’s take a quick look at the 2nd set of  “Fail” curtains. (The 1st pair is so bad I refuse to photograph them!)

Fail Curtains 2.0

These sucked for sooo many different reasons.

1) I under estimated the amount of fabric I’d need to use (mostly because I didn’t want to worry about honks of fabric wadding out)

2)The cotton used was very light weight. I’d used some cotton lawn (which was nice and I may try again with it).  If I end up being less lazy next time I would attempt to line the curtains for a better effect.

The only good point to these curtains are the fact that I got them the length I’d wanted.

White Curtains:

I’m happier with these although I mis-calculated when I did the top & bottom hemming and ended up making them slightly too short.  These are 100% polyester and I found sewing them to be a hassle. Like the previous pair they are unlined. They hang a but nicer and I think that for now they’ll suffice. (like I said, if I feel up to it I’ll try again with the lawn).

Plus side to these is that they are considerably more voluminous than you’d think to look at them.  Therefore they’ll also work to use in both versions of the student lounge. (and replace the other ((fail)) curtains.) 

Black Curtains:

These are probably the pair I am happiest with. (They didn’t photograph too well).

I think they look pretty decent (forget the elastic) although next time I take a photo I’ll make sure to thread the curtain rod through all the hoops (I only did it every-other-one instead of every-single-one like I did with the white ones directly above). As with the previous curtains I’d hemmed them too short and for some reason (also noticeable with the white ones) they seem to hang like the lengths of them are crooked. Eh. Whatever.

First: I’ve got an idea for a steampunk custom cg cy girl so I’m hoping to get to work on that this week. Found the body & head I think I can use…and now I just need to start thinking up clothing & props for it!

Next:  I’ve chosen the fabrics that I’m planning on using to make the bedspreads for the different students. Not a good pic, and it’s really just so that when I move them out of the way I won’t forget who gets what fabric! 

After that -concurrent with that: I’m working on in conjunction with the bedspreads is that I’m doing up a couple of headboards for the dorm beds.  These are pretty simple and I thought I might do a few with padding (those will be for the particularly fussy girl students).  The others will just be brown and well, headboard-y looking.

Finished: I’ve done a little bit of head rooting (which all need to be have been boil-permed/set now) & I’ve wiped a few painted heads (to re-paint them into something better I hope).  I’ll update with some photos and stuff when I’m more inclined to take pictures (and have boiled them!)

She’s got a lovely sculpt though she does have a slightly different coloration to her than the promo pics I saw online had.  I don’t feel it’s a deal breaker since IMO she’s lovely. Look at that face!

For now I’m going to leave her as she is but I think down the line she’ll end up  getting a re-root with something darker.

Maybe like this? *yes I know the pic is crap*

Maybe not? Maybe it’s too harsh? What if I did a brown mix like Viv has?

Anyway, she’s come with this poufy princess type dress. . . It’s really not to my taste &  looking at it you have to wonder wtf  Integrity/Wu was thinking.  I mean as far as evening gowns go–it’s just not much to look at.  It’s dull, the huge skirt is “meh” at best.

But having said that….. I was thinking that it might be salvageable.  With some tweaking/ re-imaging. It really gets me how many people dissed this doll simply because of her dress. I mean, hello, don’t you change the clothes? and Ok, can’t you use your imagination??

• First I decided to take off the haphazard black netting that was applied to the bodice. It doesn’t serve much/any purpose (except it tied in slightly with the black lace at the bust).
• then I decided that the gigantic, floor sweeping skirt had to go.

All you purists out there–go ahead an stare in shock! LOL

I CUT UP Fashion Royalty Clothes!!!

So we’ve got this now: (sorry it’s on Marissa now, I didn’t feel like trying to re-dress Natalia this morning for this post)

Put on a pair of panties and there you go! a piece of lingerie–or–if I can be bothered to make a pencil skirt out of the remain of her ballroom skirt–a nice outfit! One that no matter what will see a lot more use in my wardrobe than any ol’ ballgown!

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The slacks/ wanna-be-jeans had a lot of problems, the least of which was that the fabric tended to “wander” while I sewed it so the pants look like they’re on the piss. They’re baggy & kind of bleh in my overall opinion.

• To try to make the fabric/pants look a little more interesting I ran a double line of stitching down the front of each leg (one at a time since I have yet to know how to operate a double needle In the machine), and then a 3rd stitch with silver thread.  Not sure it works but it at least managed to tie inwith the top.

my 4th attempt at the jeans pattern came out much better (although still not perfect it’s workable).  Kyori (who needs to be named still is modeling the jeans (which will look better when I use some real denim instead of the twill I had on hand).

They look a lot closer to what I was looking for, and with the exception of having made them a touch too long they’re not hideous. You can’t see them in these pictures but the jeans do have pockets that she can stick her hands into as well as a front closing fly.

She also got a shirt that I started…..back in 2006.

Yep.

2006.

It sat in my bag of sewing trims & bits…

it needed:

• the sleeves finishing
• the neckline doing
• the back finished off and closures added.

I get the feeling she really likes it.

Anyway that’s what I managed to crank out this week. I tossed most of the “fail” pants & a fail sweater that I’d tried making for giselle that just wouldn’t work out.  Next Sunday is the final installment of October’s Sewing Challenge! YAY!!!

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About  Wrenwood Hall: at this moment it’s a costume drama set in Tudor England somewhere between the 1530′s-1540′s.

Giselle, Kyori (yet to be named) and some of my Hot Toys action figure guys act in it.  It is what the two of them do for a living & although their photostories don’t necessarily revolve around it I think it’s important.  And yea, I know a lot of costuming that I might never, ever use again. Hell, I might make it all and not even use it once.  Or I might just totally love it and want to dress the dolls up in it all the time LOL.

Who can say?

I do have a weakness for the Tudor time period, and nicely enough for Venice and Florence of the same time period (wasn’t the renaissance great!) so it’d leave me some wiggle room for introducing characters with farther flung geographical roots). Anyway, whatever.  Right now Wrenwood hall is a total figment of my imagination.  But I love the idea since it’s a story inside a story.  And heck, why not?

Back to the Costuming issues:

Tudor. Lots of layers. (for an example check out Ninya Mikhaila’s awesome site)

I’m using a hodgepodge of my online resources & my copy of The Tudor Tailor to work out some patterns that will work for the different body types.  You wouldn’t think it’d be that difficult except that I’m dealing with a plastic body that won’t conform to the silhouette of the time period.  Which means I have to “fudge” things. I really want to try to keep things as accurate as I can–I don’t want to end up making the kind of hideous mistakes that some costume designers have in costume dramas (sorry I do have a severe weakness for costume dramas but being a semi-authenticity freak I tend to tear them apart as I watch them). The other downside is that if I am dressing them as accurately as I can all those layers will add up (even if I made everything out of superfine fabrics) and well, eh.

I find it a bit funny that the scrawny, mostly flat chested  Nu Face body looks closer to “right” than the regular Fashion Royalty body.  I’m trying to decide if I am going to screw around with the profile of the dresses so that I can make them look ok on the “grown up”  FR bodies.   I probably will.   At the end of the day I figure it’s a “costume drama” and anyone who watches those at the movies or on TV will know that although costume designers might try to keep things close to accurate—they don’t always. And some of them go on some serious departures from realism!

Fabric: Another challenge has been finding fabrics that will look “right” for the costumes.  Rich, luxurious fabrics are the way to go… Unfortunately, although I’d like to make some velvet clothing I haven’t had much luck finding a thin/low pile velvet(or velveteen) that will work. I’m going to keep my eyes out but so far it doesn’t seem to be happening.  I’ve got some silk, and some cotton  (yea I know cotton wasn’t very common in the time period but I’m not shelling out $$$ for handkerchief weight linen so there! ) to use. I do have some various pieces that I hope will do the job. I won’t know until I get to the “making” part of it. I have been keeping my eyes peeled for some smaller patterned pieces that would work as damask but so far no luck on that score.  And my luck being what it is–the local shop that used to carry a pretty good range of upholstery fabric just scaled back their selection to almost nada. Grrr!

Accessories: Jewelry is the biggest one I can think of and it’ll take some doing on my part. I might actually break down and use the last of my savings and buy a casting kit. Then at least I could make what I want.  Am I insane, or what??  I could try to make the pieces out of fimo/polymer clay but my track record with the small stuff isn’t so great. Plus it won’t weigh properly and won’t hang right.  *sigh* I’ll have to wait and see on that one. . .

Ok, well–there you have it–the sewing considerations that are currently on my mind!
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I actually started a 2nd outfit (a pink skirt, and camisole but it wasn’t working out and I didn’t want to rush it).  Also I started working on some pattern drafting stuff this week too and that ate a lot of my time up (I find it pretty tedious and frustrating but usually worth the effort).

Anyway, not a lot to show for sewing this week but I did work on the fireplace & do some pattern drafting!

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I think these would be better if I didn’t do them on the Sunday that they’re “due”  but hey, at least I’m getting them done right?!!

This week Claudia Carsten-Kane got an outfit:

Claudia has always been one of my favorite characters (even before she was made I’d been writing her into the photostory scripts) and I found this week’s sewing challenge helpful in learning a little bit more about her.  I found out that she likes to look “well put together” and that she’s apparently a shoe-fiend! (She stole almost the whole pack of Barbie Basics Shoes that Carmen sent me!)

A little something about this week’s outfit:

• I actually started the corset about a month or so ago but like the other 5 or 6 of them I hadn’t yet added closures (my least favorite part of sewing aside from actually cutting the fabric out). It takes me too long & it is very fiddly. Ugh!

• The shirt was a pain in the ass.  I kept screwing up one of the arms repeatedly. After the 3rd time of stitch-ripping & do-over-ing I said “screw it” and just left it how it is.  I also made the same mistake I usually do with the facing and cut it too short so *sigh* it tends to show along the neckline. DURR! I swear I will learn! You can’t tell from these pics but the shirt actually reaches close to mid thigh.

• The skirt is very tight (it isn’t as lumpy as it looks — that’s my fault from the shirt. If I’d been willing to make the shirt end at the waist it would be fine).

She may wear jeans (barbie) with the shirt & corset for a more casual look:

Ok, so there you have it—the 2nd week’s sewing challenge completed! (1 shirt, skirt & corset!)

Next week’s may be a two-week project since I have something more detailed in mind so we’ll have to see. After all, the whole point of these challenges is just to make sure I’m doing something each week!

I’d decided to make him a hoodie (and then last minute–this afternoon–I realized it was supposed to be an outfit so I cobbled together some jeans for him too).

The hoodie has a working drawstring in the hood.  I wish I’d had a single piece of thick cord to use for it instead of thread.

Below is a shot including the jeans: they’re crummy but hey, they still work.

The one leg seems a bit baggier than the other and eventually,I’ll go back and try to take it in a bit (I didn’t bother today since I had to dismantle the sewing machine once Electra started getting all into stuff)

Did I mention Electra?

This was my first attempt making a hoodie & I had some issues with it.

• The fabric I chose was a cotton-spandex knit and it stretched all over while I tried to sew it.

• I miscalculated where/how I had to seam the front pocket and consequently it’s actually very tight at the sides for him to squeeze his hands into. (This is actually a good thing about the fabric choice–otherwise I’d have to of ripped out the stitches & tried again).

• I made the hood too big. You can’t really tell in these shots but when I put it on his head it was way obvious! I also had a hell of a time trying to figure out how to inset the hoodie.  I ended up cheating and cutting the back of the shirt open inserting & then sewing everything closed again at the end. I think the next one I do I’ll try to figure a better way. Probably more like sewing in a facing?

• One sleeve is narrower than the other.

As for the Jeans:

Not a lot I can say about them really.

I really need to find the  old pattern I’d worked up for Volks N body pants/ jeans.  I just couldn’t find it and I wasn’t feeling too excited so I pretty much sewed 4 bits of fabric together and hoped for the best. I did make useable pockets in the front but you can’t really see them in any of the pics. I know…I know…not the best of plans but it works–sort of?

That’s it for this week’s challenge!

If anyone made anything at all related to 1:6 this week come on & post about it in my comments!