Taobao DIY sewing kits – Leqi and others

Good job. The dress looks lovely on her.

 

Thank you so much, @Cloudedmind

 

great job on the bonnnet! That looks super hard to make.

 

Thank you so much! The attempt I posted was my 3rd attempt since there were some problems I had with the other two that caused me to remake it 2x haha. Sometimes the directions should be loosely followed vs. followed to a T. I mostly handsewed that attempt, and I think it led to the best result!

 

That bonnet is beautiful, wow! I can FEEL the need to handsew... Ahhh one day I will get one of her kits. Great work!

 

This is so amazing & beautiful! Wow. I want to lay my hands on any kit like that for my RS dolls. They fall short of SD but taller than MSD. I remember ages ago there was sewing kits for American Dolls. But nothing so spectacular & well thought as this one’s.

 

@Idoru thank you so much! i think if people were much more proficient with maneuvering small fiddly parts on their machine, it would 100% work. Emily's guides show her doing that, but I am not that good that it's easier for me to hand sew or make some small changes to it.

@AbrakadbrA i can only speak to Emily's kits (although I have a few others I got directly from Taobao), but she will customize the patterns to your doll. My Doll Chateau Stacy and Lillycat Ellana have very dramatic proportions compared to other BJDs, and everything I've made for them have fit them both! (Edited to add - this requires careful measuring on your part.)

The two outfits I made my Stacy have adjustable bodices/parts, but the fitted outfit I made my Ellana fits her like a glove! I buy my customized patterns through her on Aliexpress. She's honestly so nice and friendly. If there is a kit you like from her Taobao and want sized to your doll, just send her a message, and she will create the listing for you. (And just to be clear, I am a paying customer and have paid for everything I've bought from her with no separate discounts other than what is promoted on Aliexpress to all customers. I'm just super impressed with the patterns, kits, and CS!)

 

I imagine if I did I'd have to remake it several times!

 

Ohooo this is cool! I love the idea of a sewing kit

 

Has something happened to the emily doll fashion store on aliexpress? I wanted to check their kits but the store now appears empty to me, and if I check listings through my wishlist it says they're not available for my location...

 

It's working for me, but I have had Aliexpress bug out like that for me in the past. I don't remember how I've fixed it other than sometimes it goes away by itself--try another browser or clearing your cache?

 

I would just message her and inquire. Some of her kits sell out, so they get removed from the store, but if there is one that you are interested in and it's still available, she should be able to make a listing for you! In the past, I had asked her about kits that I was interested in that weren't in her store. If they were still available, she made me a listing to purchase.

 

I tried from a different phone and from my laptop, still nothing. I just wanted to check what's available so it's not dramatic... But still puzzling

 

I am in the EU and I also get the "not available in my location" note. I've noticed quite a few bjd stores on Ali seem to be region locked like that? I haven't tried but maybe using a VPN could help.

 

My strong suspicion is it's your ISP. You may be location locked. Can you see anything else on the site? If you can't, then that's the reason.

 

EU here. I am getting the "not available in your location" error page on Aliexpress as well, for many items. I assumed that in these cases, the shop simply doesn't sell to my country or Europe due to lack of a service they use or something like that. Is it actually a random error?

 

@lutke no, I don't think it is random. I did a bit of searching about the issue and from what I gathered is that Aliexpress sellers can choose where they will and won't ship and might restrict regions that are too complicated to export to (tax forms, restrictions on imported goods, extra customs-related expenses, no reasonable shipping service available to the destination etc). EU has a ton of red tape and regulations around imports from China which is sometimes just too much work for too little gain for a small business to keep up with. It can be worth messaging sellers, though, in case they just don't know something is blocked or are willing to reconsider options.

 

Yeah, if you're in the EU you're probably going to notice a LOT less things you're able to buy in the near future - this is because of the new GPSR (General Product Safety Regulation) rules - basically the new laws demand you have an EU representative "responsible person", no matter how tiny a business you are, (and how many small businesses can afford that?!) there's a whole lot of new restrictive and really confusing safety regulations, and it seems like it will be REALLY easy for the seller to be sued or banned from the selling platform if they don't follow the new rules. (Which, again! Are really hard to implement and understand!)

Needless to say, I've had to stop selling to the EU on my Etsy store, and so have a whole heap of other sellers - the risks are too great, and Etsy itself certainly won't protect you. I feel like if there's enough pressure the laws might actually be clarified as to what happens if you are a tiny business like most doll accessory sellers - but at the moment, it's really vague, and it's not worth the risk, especially as things for dolls tend to fall under child safety regulations, even though BJD aren't for children!

Which is a whole heap of kind of off topic information, but these laws came into effect in December 2024, so if you're in the EU - your online buying options have probably dwindled really fast, sadly! It's not just this shop! Sorry to be the bearer of bad news!

 

To add to the discussion above, I've seen companies like Kikagoods announce a while back that they have suspended shipping to the EU due to the EU's new General Product Safety Regulation. The announcement can be found here.

 

It might be worth asking Emily if they will sell JUST the patterns on an instant download.

 

Well, that sure explains a lot!
Thanks for pointing out that change in regulation, now I know what to expect

 

Whoa whoa whoa, this sounds like a major issue. Has anyone in Europe experienced issues with incoming dolls from overseas since the new year started? I've just skimmed but these regulations are pretty scary to read about. It sounds like anything could be seized by customs.

 

I think probably the larger companies will be fine, they'll have enough money and knowledge about different countries customs and so forth to comply with regulations, and hire the EU representative - so maybe you'll have to hope things are available at the larger sellers, like Alice's COlections, rather than, say, buying from individual wig companies or whatever? But I guess we're yet to see how it plays out, and if customs will in fact seize things very often.

 

@morganatron I'm definitely worried because I've got a doll coming this month - as if customs weren't stressful enough already. This is only going to choke out the hobby even further in Europe. Wish they were half as diligent about our actual issues.

 

Agreed.

 

I think this is mainly to target the mass of tiny parcels coming in when people are buying single items from places like ali express and similar, because the sheer number clogs up the system and it's getting unsustainable. We've seen a trend in this direction for a long time, with countries updating their vat/moms systems and import rules.
One aspect is that china is still considered a developing country for shipping purposes and so they basically benefit from the subsidized international shipping costs that are supposed to be there to help people in truly poor countries to be able to compete internationally. I'm not very well read on the topic, but if I understand it correctly, that is very difficult to revise or revoke so instead other countries and the EU are trying to compensate in different ways.
And on top of that, there is the Chinese government subsidizing some industries to make them more competitive and take market shares that way, which annoys and have caused responses like firmer rules and higher import taxes all over the world.
There is a bit of a slow burning trade war going on, after all. I think we all need to be prepared for some turbulence over the next couple of years. If the worst we get out of it is a smaller selection on large shopping platforms and slightly more expensive import goods, I won't complain, things could be so much worse.

 

@Lillith That was a good read, thank you. And yes things could be worse - China surely won't enjoy that squeeze on its market from the USA and now the EU. I had no idea there were subsidized trading rules to favor developing countries in the first place. So I assume this will mostly affect Chinese sellers on platforms like Aliexpress and not much else. I wonder if dealers will pick more stock from smaller sellers in the future - they can probably work out the bureaucracy more easily.

 

That's my guess as well. I think we will see an increase in shopping services, reseller and retailers. The bigger, well established places like Legend doll and similar will probably not change much. A slight increase in prizes, maybe, but that's not the biggest deal in the world. The way I see it, we've been kind of spoiled for quite a while, getting used to being able to get our hands on pretty much anything we see on the screen and often paying prices that would be completely unrealistic if the item was produced where we live ourselves. While it sucks if things become more difficult for smaller sellers and it's usually those who can least afford it that are the first to be effected, it's been a long time coming and I don't think there is any reason for surprise or outrage. If anything, we could ask ourselves how we let things go this far in the first place, but that's far off topic for this thread.
Let's just see how things develop and adapt accordingly.

 

I've had a few shipments since late December, they were all shipped and delivered smoothly without any delay by customs. I've talked to some people in the mechanical keyboard hobby, and it seems that there are companies/agencies all over offering responsible person service to China based sellers. Anyone can somewhat easily get an EU representative for a fee. However, it is not a short or straight forward process, and the fee can also be steep. For smaller sellers who don't get many overseas orders, it's just not worth the effort. I'm not sure if they can get a bigger store to be their agent to bypass the process, I've heard conflicting information about this.

I've also been told that, as long as a seller has any connection with a willing person who lives in the EU, they can be a representative. Any legal/qualification requirements can be done with the help of a 3rd party service.

 

Heya - while the update of EU information is riveting, it's becoming way off the topic of this thread. If anyone wants to start a thread in General Discussion about the new set of EU regulations to give everyone a heads-up, not just aliexpress/taobao buyers, that'd be great, especially as the newer rules begin to play out in reality as this year goes on. Perhaps a more general title, in fact, to cover commerce regulations that affect our hobby, as who knows what this year is going to bring in the US, with King Joffrey T. in charge.

Please, back to the sewing kit topic in this thread.

 

Does anyone know if there's any other kit makers who make kits for dresses in this style?

I had meant to buy one of Leqi's in this style way back when the thread was new, but never got around to it.

It's now out of stock, and Leqi's shop doesn't seem to have kits for dresses in this kind of style anymore (or any of the other shops linked, as far as I saw a week or two ago).

 

I think she restocked it since I'm able to purchase it...? Hope it works for you as well lol.
https://item.taobao.com/item.htm?id=668357671018

 

Ooh I guess I misunderstood the site page oops. It used to look different for me when something was in stock but I guess the website layout changed or something. I tried google translating the buttons and it does seem to be in stock! Thanks!