Wearables Sewing Project: Monochrome [ Round 121 ]

I think I will probably join with my Dollchateau Zenobia because I'm restyling her for the third (and last?) Time as a faery / rave fairy? But there is an all white textured Pixie dress I have been meaning to make her. I will commit and post her image a bit later.

 

Very curious to see projects for this month. I don't have an idea yet but maybe I will join in if I find one. ^^

 

Once again, I'll join in if I get the chance but will probably end up cheering from the sidelines and living vicariously through everyone else's projects.

Teddy

 

Oop, got this round and the Masquerade one mixed up! I'll see what I can scrounge up out of my fabrics and put to use - I know I still have a bunch of pink for Tian Ni that I didn't get to for the Valentine's challenge. But we'll see what else I can find that I have a bunch of. (I know I've got some black for Tian Ni's bestie, but she's an OT doll so she can't be the star of the show.) Though right now, I just hope my cold doesn't wreck my sewing time!

 

I'm in for this round with Morrigan, who I made late for previous round retro-style summer dress yesterday/today. I'm planning a top and pants for this round in shades of teal- blue. Here's my model-

 

I am definitely going to try something this round, although I'm still deciding who FOR... My first thought was Charlie, because there's an outfit in Doll Coordinate Recipe 13 that I think will suit the purpose very well. We'll see though, I'd have to get more fabric I think for the jacket and I don't know if I'll find anything I like... But I have enough goths on hand over here to tackle this for sure.

OR I could break out of my comfort zone and do a white outfit for Sparrow--I haven't done much 1/4 sewing at all... Choices...

 

I would like to join and make an asian-style outfit for Anwen (FairyLand MiniFee Chloe) in shades of blue. I'm thinking something closer to men's or riding clothes - at least 2 layered robes a bit over knee-length, without long sleeves, and trousers. Will probably need boots.

 

I want to join this round!
I have no plan yet, but I'm sure I can come up with something.

 

Sorry about the double post, but I have decided what to make.

My model will be Beatrice, my Dollmore Narsha.

I will make her a pretty party dress and the colour will be light blue.
Here is a rough sketch of what I have in mind. I will start hunting for materials tomorrow.

 

Okay, finally getting around to posting pictures! I've got a couple with Tian Ni and Monday (the OT buddy), since uh. Really hard to get the various black fabrics to show all their details and textures while Tian Ni and her pile of pink is in the shot. I've got a lot of black fabrics in various textures and many shades of pink thanks to a pack of what seems to be fabric samples? But hey I wasn't gonna say no to massive packs of pieces of fabric in solid shades at the thrift store, they're just the right amount for most of my doll projects.

I'm really hoping to sew at least one thing per week since there's plenty to go around! I recently got Tiny Wardrobes by Hanon, and even if the patterns are a bit on the... cottagecore-y side? for Tian Ni especially, I want to give them a try and get at least some of them copied down. I've got some other patterns printed out, too, and I might see about grabbing some more and heading to the library to print them out.

I did get a skirt made already off the pattern in the book! Unfortunately I don't have hot pink thread, so I went with a black contrast. It still needs snaps and notions, which I'll do... some time. You know how it is.

Spoiler: The Dolls and Their Fabric

Spoiler: Skirt I Swear Isn't As Eye-Searing In Person

Also uh. If anyone has any idea what the shiny thick magenta thread in Tian Ni's pile is, I'm happy to hear it, because I don't know what its deal is. I thought I could be clever and knit with it, but it ripped apart just while casting on. The previous owner must have used at least some of it considering there's not a whole lot left, but for what?

 

@JaxxCapta Good progress!
If the thread is old it could simply be breaking down. Older synthetics can do that, so can rayon and of course silks can "shatter" and cottons can rot. It could be a thread inteded for embroidery, top stiching, quilting or even button hole silk.

I am happy to see some activity here, I have made some progress, but I felt like tripple posting would be a bit much.
Obligatory pile of fabrics:

Most of it is pale blue, but there is some white and mint green in there as well for layering. All these fabrics are quite thin on their own. I haven't decided exacty what to use yet, except that the soft tulle (second from the left) will be the main fabric for the dress.

To be able to start the pattern I need the proper under things first, so I have made a petticoat. It's silver gray, because it's the best colour I had in organza, but it tends to pick up the coulours around it and it's not really ment to be seen, so I think it will do.
It's hilariously puffy, but it's quite soft and the dress fabrics will weigh it down. ... I hope.

 

Here's a photo of my fabrics and possible trim. The darker blue is cotton for the top, and the lighter blue is silk for the pants. The wide teal ribbon likely won't be included in this outfit. I'm using a fashion doll pattern book as a basis for the patterns.

Materials in Blue

 

@Leo Pheonix Lovely colours!

 

I love the color @Leo Pheonix It's one of my favorite reminds me of things like a clear tropical ocean. It always looks good on doll clothes

(I'm still thinking of if/what I'm doing this time womp)

 

@Lillith , the sketch looks great, and I love the puffy potticoat. Looking forward to what you do with the fabrics.
@JaxxCapta , I'm not a big fan of pink, but I expect the black-pink contrast between your girls to look really interesting. Like the texture choices in black, and the ribbon and sequins.
@Leo Pheonix , nice color choice!

Meanwhile, I sewed an under robe for Anwen's asian outfit:
Blue robes - under robe finished by helgie, on Flickr
The fabric is synthetic, so I used a lighter to close seams against shedding. Which was convenient because the fabric is rather thin and slippery, so I did all the sewing by hand. I used starch spray to keep the fabric from moving too much, and it worked really well - the synthetic silk behaved more like thin cotton. The pattern is similar to what I used a couple years ago for my Littlefee, it worked even better in bigger size.
Next is another robe:
Blue robes - middle robe progress by helgie, on Flickr
This fabric is natural, so melting the edges is not an option, and the sewing is once again all done by hand. But the top is almost finished, and I hope to use the sewing machine to hem the skirt.
The outfit will also need trousers and probably a sleeveless over robe. I haven't yet chosen fabrics for them.

 

@Lillith @Leo Pheonix @PoeticSoul I love y'all's fabric choices, those are all so pretty! I'm so excited to see progress pictures and what those all look like as they come together.

@helgie Love how the under robe turned out! The colors and texture look like they'll pair fantastically with that darker blue fabric you've got.

The make of the week I've got is a coat, using up some more of my fabric sample bits. (Apparently I had a sample in the same color but a different fabric, too, and my bad habit of not wearing my glasses around the house to help tell them apart left me with half of another coat...) It also doesn't have closures, oops. I'll get it done, I swear! I also swear it needs something on that massive body to break up all the plain pink, but I'll have to mull on that.

Spoiler: Coat Pic Turned Out Huge, Oops

 

@helgie Very pretty. I'm looking forward to see the fabrics together on the doll.

@PoeticSoul Lovely fabrics, as usual. I always love seeing what you make.

Looks good! You could solve both in one go by doing contrasting buttons for closures. Maybe pick up the lighter pink from the sholes? That would give enough contrast to break up the colour block, while still keep both the monocrome theme and create a cohesive outfit.

 

Finished sewing the shirt last night. I'll take a pic of her in it tomorrow or the next day.

 

So... I've made an underskirt and that went well. I tried it on with the petticoat and it managed to tame it enough that I have no doubts about the over all skirt shape of the finished outfit. But the petticoat is too long. I'm not entirely sure how to fix it.
Simply hem it shorter would mean taking the whole thing apart and it would be easier to just start over. It may be possible to shorten it at the top, but that will change the over all shape and make it even more voluminous. The fabric is very fragile, seams tend to leave holes and the fabric likes to unravel, so I have a limited number of tries to get it right.
So, two steps forward and one back. At least now I know that even a light skirt is enough to force the current version of the petticoat into submission.

 

Oh, it's lovely to see progress on so many people's projects (I'm just catching up on all the posts wfrom while I ws away at EasterCon). Looks like we'll have a great crop of outfits made for this round.

Teddy

 

I understand your dilemma, still the shape looks great.

 

Thanks. If nothing else I got to see how the materials interact in reality.
I tried to shorten the petticoat last night, but it turned out a bit uneven. Right now I am leaning towards making a new one just to get a bit more control over the shape.
The dress itself isn't too complicated and I do have good base patterns for this girl so there should still be plenty of time to get it done in the time left.

 

Here's Morrigan in her sleevless top. Skirt I made a while ago, just so she'd be dressed, instead of in just her panties! Now on to the pants!

Blue outfit in progress

 

Nice! You can't have too many mix and match basics in your warderobe.
Best of luck with the pants.

 

I've had another battle with the petticoat and it's looking much better. It's not perfect, but it no longer hangs down past the under skirt and that's good enough.

Next up is adapting the pattern for the dress bodice.

 

This month I'm planning on making a reversible waistcoat for Isidore, my Sweetdoll Allison.

(Link)

Isidore is based on the TTRPG Changeling: the Lost (he's a dual-kith Shadowsoul/Palewraith Fairest, if you're familiar with the rules). He's a high-ranking member of the Winter Court, and I want the waistcoat to reflect it. One side has snowflakes on it, for when he's on official business or his Court is in season. The other is more neutral, for when he doesn't want his allegiance emphasized as much, but still matches. The last part took some work... I didn't realize how hard it was to match blacks and greys.

The next problem I've hit is that the pattern I was planning to use turned out to be too large for him; he's pretty petite for a 1/3 guy. So now I need to try printing it out at 95% and 90%, to see if that will fit better.

 

@Leo Pheonix Ooh that's a fun color for the top. Feels nice and summery.

@Lillith Glad you could get the petticoat problem handled! It does add some nice volume to the underskirt, for sure.

@Tira-chan That's some neat snowflake fabric! A waistcoat sounds cool, but ouch, misfitting patterns. Good luck with resizing it.

I've done a touch of sewing this week but I seem to be getting myself in trouble. This weekend and the last I went to the local thrift stores and brought back more fabric. I thought I was stashbusting my pink! But noooo I guess not. Not fast enough, anyways. So now I've got this:



(link)

The black and blue might show up next round, but now I made myself a problem with that pink and that... tulle? With the flowers on it. I keep overdoing it on poofy skirts, but I want to use the tulle all in one go, there's not a whole ton of it and the flowers are pretty spread out. I'm thinking of doing a selkie dress kind of thing with that as the sleeves and an overskirt, with the pink there as a top and underskirt.

 

I've had to break myslef of the habit of popping into every chrity shop I see to chekc out the mens cotton shirts - I have a huge stash of them already unpicked and waiting transformation into dolls clothes, and a crate and a half of ones that haven't yet been unpicked.

Teddy

 

@Tira-chan That waistcoat sounds like fun. I'm sure you can get the pattern to fit, waistcoats are nice in that they don't have any sleeve heads or other wierdness, so fitting it is basically just adding to the pattern where it's too small and remove material where it's too large and you can move seams around and redraw armholes and necklines as you please since there is no additional part it needs to work with. You can focus entirely on making it fit the doll. I'm sure you can manage it!

You can't overdo poofy skirts. This I firmly believe. The world would be a better place if we had more poofy skirts.
Jokes aside though, that looks like a very pretty fabric, it will make an adorable dress.

 

I always say that the one thing you can't do without when crafting; is something that makes you come back to it after something has gone wrong. Everything else can be compensated for. There are time saving workarounds for tight dead lines, there are workarounds for dificult fabrics, there are simpler methods when the "right" way is too complex. The one thing that you can't do without is the drive to get things done. Sure, good tools and nice materials help, but they are not enough on their own.

I'm always looking forward to what you make for these projects. Everything you make is so colourful and pretty!

 

Checking in to cheer everybody on! It's been super tempting to start something up as a de-stresser but I'm fairly confident i'd neither finish nor keep track of it across all the miles of the move, lol, so I'm trying to keep all my FOMO from this round in the bank to motivate me for the future! Everybody's projects and ideas are looking great, keep up the great work!

 

Oh no! What a pain.

Lovely choice of fabric and colour for Xandria though - I hope this one cooperates with you.

Best of luck with the move - I hope it proves as straightforward and easy as possible.

I'm unlikley to join in this round, much as i'm itching to, We lost my father-in-law jusrt before Easter, then came down with Covid the following week so the combination of covid-drain and things to settle and organise will probbaly prevent me settling to anything beyond the non-doll crafting projects I alreayd have on the go, and even they will probably have to take a back seat.

Although, my ribbons and trims boxes are a lot more tidy than thye were beofre I collapsed in a char beside them and just wound previously loose and tangled trims onto cards for an afternoon because it was within reach, a low-energy activity, and one I didn't ahve to put any thinking into whatsoever, so silver-linings an' all that.

Teddy

 

You're very right. Resizing to 95% got the length to fit right, and then I took in the sides for a more tailored fit. Luckily I decided to make a test version and practice the layering aspect; I think I forgot to account for the extra overlap from the seam allowance when I altered the pattern before. That's an easy fix, though.



The armholes still need to be finished, just have to decide how I want to do it. I'll probably just use bias tape.

 

@Tira-chan Not bad!

I am also at the mock up stage. No pictures, but I have more or less managed to get the sleeves to the right shape and to play nice with the yoke part of the dress. Next up is cleaning up the pattern and then it's time to start the actual dress.

 

@PoeticSoul Wow, that was fast. It turned out beautiful!

 

Yay!

Well done. It looks great on her and I love the jewelled pendants adorning the top.

Teddy

 

Bodice done! Well, mostly. There are still gathering treads in there and no closuers yet, but still


Now there is just the skirt part left and if I still have time, perhaps something for her head.

 

I’m loving this! The layers look SO good. What a pretty color, too!

 

Thank you!

 

It's looking so pretty!!

Teddy

 

I could not entry this month again. I'm working on a monochrome ourtfit but it's for a contest (next month) so I can't post images. ^^'
I can just say that it's orange theme ! XD Fluffy, party and galaxy !

 

Oh that's bad timing - but you could still post images here, aftee the contest, so we can see it.

Teddy

 

I've been so unwell all month I wasn't able to get myself together on this I could still make it because everything I do tends to be one sitting otherwise it will not be finished...
But! It's been lovely to see what everyone has been working on! I like the incorporation of textured fabrics I've seen in some material piles

 

Yes I will. =)

 

The dress itself is finished!

Now she just needs a few accessories and better pictures.

 

Oh wow, that is absolutely beautiful on her @Lillith

 

Thank you!
I am pretty happy with it.

 

That is ADORABLE!

Teddy

 

@Lillith So beautiful!

 

@Lillith That's gorgeous! That blue fabric makes for such lovely gathers.