Wearables Sewing Project: Mori Style / Dark Mori [ Round 99 ]

Oh! This one looks fun!
A cursory google search on what Mori style is inspired me a lot! ... I'd really like to see other people's idea/inspiration pictures in particular as we dive into this round as well!

 

so cool!! I love mori style so much. I think I already know which doll I want to make an outfit for too

 

I might just have to cheer from the sidelines on this one as, although I've been aware of Mori for some years, I just don't get it.

It just looks so ill-fitting, dull, and frumpy to me. I'm sure I must be missing something, but I don't see the forest connection. Just washed-out, charity-shop layering, like a bag-lady.

Teddy

 

Hello, I‘ve been lurking here for quite a while but never posted yet. I love sewing for my dolls, though, so if I may I will try to join in here. I will be sewing for my Resinsoul Ya, who is called Lark. She’s my first bjd and I got her last summer. She seems to have her own mind regarding style and gravitate towards darker styles, so I will try dark Mori for her.

This is Lark:




I also found some inspiration pics already, but I don’t know what to do about showing pics that are not mine; should I just paste a link?
As to patterns, I have some patterns in books that I‘m hoping to be able to adapt, and Missy‘s Imaginings has also just uploaded a Mori pattern, so I hope to be able to adapt something that will suit her. I‘m thinking very dark green with black, perhaps some brown and/or teal thrown in, for colours.

 

Mori isn't really my cup of tea either but I guess it won't hurt to leave my comfort zone sometimes. So I'll try to create something for my Soulkid Angel. Something that will look good with her animal parts (not pictured).


So far she only has one outfit and I think Mori will suit her just fine.

I don't have a concrete plan yet but I'll probably stick with light colors.

 

I kinda ran off to do some concept art for what I wanted to do. I had a couple dolls who I could imagine stuff for but I have one doll that is desperate need of a clothing redesign. That being my lightly modded Iplehouse Leonard (his name is Damien)

I found a couple pieces that immediately spoke to me in terms of clothing design. I don't know the quite the color scheme yet but I plan on using dark green, black, and maybe some browns as well. The outfit is really 4 pieces, that being the under shirt, the loose jacket, the hooded asymetrical over jacket, and his pants. You can also see some of the pieces that I used as reference to the left.

edit: finished design reference

 

I’ve never tried mori, so this will be new to me as well. Even newer once I attempt to do it on a centaur (Resinsoul Dawn). I don’t have a character or even face up on her, so there’s no major limitations besides the horsey parts. I haven’t had the chance to sew for her much yet, so fitting and design might be the biggest challenge. I want to use some beige/light tan crochet thread that could work for a belt or some lace as well as some green knit fabric that might look good on her. Past that, I don’t really know.

 

Oh goodness, I'm awful at keeping my creative pursuits to a schedule, but two of my girls fit right into this aesthetic. One is currently in something inspired directly by mori kei and one is literally planned to be a vaguely mossy forest spirit. If I can pull myself together and find where my ripped cream silk tablecloth has been hiding since I moved I might be able to do this...

Good wishes and cooperative supplies to everyone who's up to the challenge!

 

Well, darn my timing- I literally just finished two mori outfits! lol

Maybe I'll make another one? I do love the style, several of my dolls wear it, and I have a lot of fabrics that work for it... In case I don't find the time, a random tip: vintage lace! I got a boatload for practically nothing at a flea market, and it comes pre-worn and aged for that authentic look.

Good luck everyone!

 

Looks like this is shaping up to be an intersting round already.

Yay!

Teddy

 

I still don't hve my good sewing machine back, but mori is a style that can get away with a lot more hand sewing and perhaps some embroidery and crochet. (Crochet is ok, right? Even if it's supposed to be a "sewing" project.)
But I have two different dolls that I could enter...

I'll let you know as soon as I have some sort of a plan.

 

I don't see why not. It's forming part of the outfit, and contributing to the theme, after all.

Teddy

 

I would love to do this. I can’t post photos at the moment but I would love to make a Mori style outfit for my doll Chateau Bella. She’s the one I’ll be sewing for.

The outfit will be a 4 layer dress with clogs and socks. I hope it turns out. The colors are unknown at this time. I need to dig through all my sewing materials first.

UPDATE:
Here is my Bella on the left that I will sew for. I couldn't post properly from my iPhone earlier I had to get to my Mac to post.

 

I really like this look!

 

I was going to skip this round because mori is not really my cup of tea, and making something with a lot of layers for my tiny dolls without them turning into little balls of fabric seemed daunting. Then I got curious how other people fixed that problem and did an image search... I should not have done that. All those little frilly dresses! I love them!


Plans/inspiration: I'm in love with the super high waisted dresses with gathered skirt that a lot of mori doll outfits use as a base, so I'll start with that. Maybe add a cardigan or apron? No definite plans yet.
I have brown, beige and white cotton scraps, as well as some sea green and mint. I should have matching lace too. This sounds like I already have plans for two outfits, which is a good thing because...

I have four possible victims for this round.

Zuzu (Atelier murinae Mouseling) fits the theme simply by being a little animal. I'd like to try sewing more clothes for her, and she looks adorable in dresses. Maybe she needs a little bonnet too?
Sakiko (Fairyland pukifee Mio) looks good in everything I throw at her so why not try a new style?
Nameless (Granado Timtim) needs more of everything and maybe actually sewing for and playing with her will help me bond with her (or decide that she isn't for me, I really don't know what to do with the poor girl).
Mignon (Soom petit gem Minel) fits the theme too, and I've been neglecting her. She has very few clothes and mostly lives in her box. Time to give her some attention?

So... I guess my goal for this week is digging out fabric and lace and choosing who to sew for. And making patterns, but that requires settling on a victim first.

 

My doll's look just isn't Mori. First I thought I would make an outfit anyway, but after thinking about it, I can't really afford to buy a pattern and fabric for an outfit I'll rarely use. I think I'll just watch this month. Probably work on a blouse I've been needing to make. I'm excited to see what everyone does!

Oh, I can't wait to seewhat you come up with! Mori should be adorable on a little doll.

 

thank you so much!!

 

I'm really tempted, but I'm absolute trash for following deadlines. Hnnn. I'll have to think about it for a bit. X.x

 

DO IT! If you don't finish, then that's what the "unfinished business" round is for.

 

Absolutely! Some of us {holds hand up} rely on the Unfinished Business round.

Teddy

 

Everyone's plans for this month look fantastic!! I think I'll try to make a summery mori dress inspired by designer Ivey Abitz. My DF-H girl body is in desperate need of clothes, so hopefully I can get something finished by the time her permanent head arrives. For fabric, I'll be choosing from a selection of cotton lawn. I should probably stick to a neutral color palette for mori but I'm really enjoying the floral print and bright green and white stripes... I guess we'll see what happens

 

Thanks for the encouragement! I will set out a plan, and hope to complete it.

First, the victim! My Cheshire pipos only has the one outfit, so I'd like to give him something else. Ignore the cage, he likes to run away.

Mori Fashion Victim by Lonely Artist, on Flickr

And finally, some fabrics I gathered up that I might use. I...don't have much to chose from when it comes to the 'Dark Mori' style, but I'll try my best.

Mori Fabric Choices by Lonely Artist, on Flickr

 

I like the fabrics choices you have.

 

my pinterest search for mori- style showed me lots of ruffles and I thought @Teddy will be good at this... and speaking of unfinished business I never did get past my 'pause' last month because I liked the look of the pieces unruffled... so now maybe this month I will double ruffle them !!

DOA sewing by mare joy smith, on Flickr

 

So many lovely dolls and ideas already, this will be an awesome round!

I've decided on Beatrice for my model. She is a Dollmore Narsha and she has been in a few previous rounds, so some of you may have seen her before. Her personal style it pretty close to mori style as it is and she tends towards dark and muted colours with her favourite being dark green.

Here is a roungh sketch of what I hope to make.
First one is an off-white dress with a loosely shaped bodice, tied in the back to give a bit of shape. It buttons down the front so that the skirt can be unbuttoned to reveal an underskirt, or the whole thing can be worn open as a sort of a coat.
The other one is going to be black with the embroidery done in brown and green to tie things together a bit.
I also hope to crochet a large lace shawl.

And finally, the fabric. Or at least some possible fabric.

Sorry for the bad lighting, it's the middle of the night.

 

Oh this looks great! I don't know if I will participate but I will definitely be watching.

 

Sadly not - it just leaves me uninspired, but I'm enjoying following what everyone else is planning.

Teddy

 

Alright, I've decided to join! I've never done one of these before, so here goes nothing.

The subject: Auriel, my Island Doll Dove



Inspiration photos:



And my materials:



I have a huge pile of "mori like" fabrics, but I narrowed it down to these soft, springy colors that I think go well together. The idea is to make the bottom (pants? capris? shorts?) from the bottom fabric, a few layers for the top half from the middle three, and a scarf from the top fabric. And of course, there's plenty of lace for details. I make my own patterns, and I do have some finished, but others I will have to alter for these specific pieces.

I'm excited to get started!

 

I am really looking forward to this round.

 

I got the idea to make a crossback pinafore so I looked at some pictures and improvised a pattern. Then of course I needed to test the pattern so I grabbed a scrap of white cotton. The cotton had a frayed edge that looked perfect to make a skirt out of so I looked through my dress patterns to see if I had something I could adapt to the high waisted/gathered skirt model I liked.
Long story short I got out the sewing machine and stayed up late making a dress and an apron. The apron is a bit long and doesn’t really work with the dress, but the pattern works (only needs to be shortened a bit) and that is what matters. The dress is adorable (but maybe I’m biased).
So now I need to make an apron that goes with the dress and a dress that goes with the apron.

Dress and apron. The back straps of the apron cross over on the back and theoretically attach to the opposite shoulder strap. I haven’t made the fastening yet because this was only supposed to be a pattern check.

Sakiko in her new dress. Maybe I should dye it? Or give her fairy wings :P

Another discovery I did while taking the linup pictures of my tiny crew is that Mignon and Timtim have roughly the same size and their upper torsos have almost the same girth as that of Zuzu. This means that as long as a dress has a wide skirt to accommodate Zuzus big hips they can share!


In these pictures Mignon and Timtim are wearing Zuzus original dress (pink with dots and a bow) and dresses I made for her (the blue-green-purple evening dress and the pink dress with apron). They are a little bit wide but I might be able to make a pattern that works for the three of them.

 

I'll be sitting this one out, but watching everything else with great interest. I have a boy who needs some mori-style clothes but I still haven't quite settled on what to do with him (but I'm already getting a little inspiration from the plans people are posting!)

 

Or fabric paint it....?

It's nice you can make stuff so many of them can share.

Teddy

 

Oh, the hazards of creativity. Crafting accidents and self duplicating projects.

The dress looks very sweet! You could dye it, paint it or embroider something on it if you don't ike it in all white. Or you could give her a contrasting decorative apron to break up the all white colour block.

 

I love the ruffled split skirt look!

I think the dress is adorable in the white. Your doll looks so tiny! How big is she?

This is going to come together so beautifully. I can't wait for you to begin posting progress pics.

 

Thank you, let's see if I can live up to that.

Im off to a.. sort of ok, start.
I've started on the white dress and I decided that since I am not very used to this fabric and the machine seems to hate it I'll just improvise. No pattern and only a basic plan. I intended a very simple and loosely fitted dress anyway, so what could go wrong?

Well... So this happened. I made the bodice without a shoulder seam and in doing so I forgot to account for stabilizing the fabrig at the shoulder line. This being some sort of creped fabric it stretched. Of course. A lot.
This means that the arm hole slips down her arm and tha sleeves appear WAY to long. But, as you can see with the arm she is holding up, it's really is just a matter of the shoulder.

Two steps forward, one step back. I think I will leave this for now until I decide how to best fix it.
I may start on her shawl tonight.

 

@Teddy fabric paint could work too, add some details without turning it into one big block of another color.

@Lillith a contrasting apron sounds good. Or maybe a cardigan. I just don’t really Like the all not-quite-white look of the dress. You’re right about the self duplicating projects. There’s allways something else to make, I guess that’s what you call the joy of crafting.
I like the look of your dress! Maybe you can roll up the sleeves a little bit to shorten them? Or hand sew where the shoulder seam would have been and gather the fabric a little bit to keep it from sagging too much?

@Rubytinker Sakiko is 15 cm and the largest of my resin crew. I love the tiny tiny dolls as they are easy to take with me and craft and hand sew for. Unfortunately my sewing machine hates sewing small things (or I need to practice more).

 

Oh bad luck! Don't you just hate it when the fabric won't cooperate.

The easiest "fix" would be to shorten the sleeves, and put up with the shoulder seam being on the upper arm (like pirate shirts), otherwise it's remove the sleeves, recut the armholes to narrow te shoulders and set the sleeves back in again... which seems like a lot of faff for something that probbly going to be worn under other layers anyway.

EDITED TO ADD: Or work a tuck or two au and over each shoulder to narrow them and bring the sleeve head up....!

Teddy

 

@Enitnerolf and @Teddy. I think I will add som sort of a stabilizer, but I may remove and recut the top of the sleeve and the corresponding opening in the bodice as well. It's not that much work. We'll see. I'll figure something out.

 

I finished my patterns last night and cut my fabric today. I even got gutsy and decided to make some socks with a special mushroom fabric I got from spoonflower. It won't match the outfit, but it's on theme... Unfortunately, I made a mistake and cut one sock upside-down, so now I've got three. That's what I get for trying so hard to save space on the expensive stuff.



The floral stuff up top is something I'm considering adding on to the stripey pink piece. I need more ruffles!

 

This round I'm hoping to make something vaguely mori-esque for my girl Quinn, as she is in need of some flowy, summer-y attire.

 

That's OK it will look the right way up when the wearer looks down at it.

Back in my teens and early 20s I wore a lot of badges on my clothes and always wore theem so they were the right way up for me to read them when i looked down at them, not the right way up for anyone facing me. I even painted a slogan on a T-shirt that way.

Teddy

 

I've done almost exactly the same thing in the past. It's happens so easily. Once I made 3 1/2 pairs of socks by accident when I was making them for some clothes sets to sell. There was supposed to be three pairs and there I was, tired, stressed an confused, counting seven socks.
Oh, and I approve of more ruffles.

 

Sorry for the double post.
I've adjusted the bodice a bit so that the dress fits better and I've also tea dyed the dress, taking the opportunity to tame some of the folds while the dress was drying. I like it much better now, but I may still shorten the sleeves a little bit later.

 

That's looking a lot better! I love the color that came out from the tea dye. Adorable!

 

Well, nothing like I wanted and not even sure it falls in the line of Mori. Now I know why I never sew for Bella, her upper body is so tiny it's a challenge all in its self: I'm still going to make a few items to go with this as long as this is considered Mori, otherwise, back to the drawing board.

 

I don't know if it's mori, but I like it.

 

You’re so kind, thank you so much for the comment, I appreciate it.

 

The point of the theme is that it's whatever interpretation YOU chose to put on it. So, if it is Mori to YOU, then it's Mori enough for this month's theme.

Teddy

 

Your dress is looking good. The tea dye softens it beautifully. I like the sleeves a bit on the longer side. They seem to suit the Mori look, not that I actually know much about the style.

 

@LonelyArtist and @Rubytinker Thank you both. I'm really happy with the tea dye. It came out a very lovely shade of almost a pale muted peach, it's hard to capture well on a photo, but it works well for the look I had in mind.

I'm working on her shawl right now and I'll probably be starting on the other dress today.

@mydaffer I think that could work as mori, but as other have pointed out, it's your own interpretation of the theme that counts. It's a nice dress, regardless of what you call it.

 

Thank you, I’ll keep plugging forward, I sew by eyeballing so honestly, I never know what I’m really working on. I prefer that way of sewing because sometimes the mistakes are pretty cool, other times though, not so cool. lol

I adore it, the dress is really cute!

 

Thank you so much, I appreciate the inspiration in your comment, I was a bit uncertain but feel like I’m headed in the right direction now.

 

I love your diverse materials. Can‘t wait to see what you do with them.

She‘s super cute in that!

This looks great. Love the tea dyed look.

Today is the first day I‘ve had a chance to do more than just think about the project, and it’s been one of those days... as I‘m not really confident enough to make my own patterns yet, I was going to start out by making black Sarouel pants based on a modified version of Hanon‘s pattern in Tiny Wardrobe, and then decide on a tunic and some sort of hooded top once I saw how those looked on my girl and could gauge the length of the other pieces based on that. But then I realised I hadn‘t prewashed my black voile... so the Sarouel pants are now on the back burner until that fabric is dry.

I didn’t want to let the Sunday go by without doing anything towards the outfit, so I decided to just start with the hooded sweater part of the Mori pattern by Missy‘s imaginings at 70% instead, but all I‘ve achieved is to cut out the pieces from dark green jersey, so not much to show yet. At least it‘s a start.

 

I love this! It's like retro meets Mori, retro-mori! Fashion has so many sub-genres, there's so much freedom to create. Just think of "goth" fashion. There's cyber-goth, vampire-goth, pastel-goth....so I think Mori can have such similar themes too.

 

wow that’s a great way to put it! Thank you, I think I’ll keep adding to it and call it Hope’s Mori style!

Your kind words and enthusiasm has made my day! Thank you again so much for the inspiration.

 

It's a difficult theme for me as I am not really familiar with the fashion style. But I'll try my best to get it right. I guess I am feeling the same way that lolita newbies do . It's hard to tell what's actually "Mori" as an outsider. I've looked through different tags on IG but I can't tell the difference . At least it was inspiring .

Today I've looked through my fabric stash and instead of lighter colors I'll go with different hues of blue. Maybe I'll add some contrasting colors (pink or red) as well. But I'm not sure about that yet.


And because I've noticed that Angel's measurement (with the big bust) are not that different from another one who could use more clothes I'll try to make it fit them both. I didn't start sewing yet but at least I made a pattern for a basic top today. Let's see if I manage to test the fit tonight.

 

I’m excited to see what you make, your choice of blues are lovely! Have fun!