Miniature fashion

I feel like a child again. My Barbie dolls are down from my parents' attic and I find I still like dressing them in their tiny little outfits. And most importantly, my daughter loves the novelty of playing with her mum's old dolls. Her fascination with the glitz and glam of Barbie's '80s and '90s fashion is quite amusing!

I played with my Barbies longer than most of my friends, but towards the end I suppose I used her more as a mannequin doll than a toy. It was a great education for me, as I made lots of clothes for my dolls from my mum's old McCall's Barbie pattern sheets. I would go so far as to say that I learned the basics of clothes sewing from making Barbie clothes. Because even though the clothes are tiny, the skills required are mostly the same - such as making darts, gathering waistlines, hemming and so on. And the pattern pieces for Barbie clothes from McCall's use the same termination as their human-sized patterns.

Most of these clothes were made in the early to mid '90s, using scraps from my mother's fabric cupboard. She also had some fabric swatch books from Laura Ashley, with swatches large enough to make a Barbie dress. I bought tiny buttons at a toy market, which I placed over snaps to make the clothes look more like the real thing. I must say, looking at these clothes again, that my early teen fashion sense was actually quite good. However, I suppose it couldn't have turned out all that horrible when what I had at hand was '60s patterns and fabrics...

A couple of weeks ago I had a fashion shoot in our living room, and intended to post them straight away, but due to illness and, well, everyday life, it has taken me quite a while to do so. I'll show you a few outfits from one of the pattern envelopes today, and then more later on.

McCall's pattern 7311 - front and back.

Wedding dress, made from parachute silk.

Shift dress, made from Laura Ashley swatch.

Long dress (wedding dress pattern), made from synthetic material and ribbon.

A baby corduroy suit for Ken, with real leather for the collar, pockets and elbow patches, based on the tuxedo pattern.

Blouse and slacks, made from scraps.

Tøybleier

Vi brukte tøybleier til førstemann, og mageboeren skal nok også få pakkes inn i bambus, hamp og ull. Men mannen i huset har ytret ønske om å ikke bare ha brettebleier til nyfødt, så her er det tøybleiesøm på gang. Noen har jeg sydd tidligere (i høst, for det meste), andre har blitt til nå i jula og på nyåret. Voldsomt mange er det ikke, men i kombinasjon med det vi har fra før, noen kjøpebleier og litt brettebleiebruk, tror jeg det vil bli en bra kombo. (Beklageligvis er noen av bildene nokså uskarpe - snø og begrenset dagslys kombinert med en latsabb som ikke gidder å finne frem speilrefleks og blits resulterer i denslags.)

Bleiene det er bilde av her er såkalte "extended tab prefolds", en idé jeg freidig har stjålet fra Megaroo's. Men det er jo kun til privat bruk, så det er lov! Materialene er ytterstoff/pyntestoff av bomullsinterlock, et lag hampfleece i midten og bambusfrotté innerst. Og KAM-knapper.


Ja, også bilder, kanskje? Der var jeg litt kjapp på enter-tasten.









Også slenger jeg med bilder av to hjemmesydde formsydde bleier (dvs bleier som krever et sperrelag utenpå, av ull eller såkalt PUL (laminert polyester, stort sett). Den lilla manglet visst knapper da bildet ble tatt, ser jeg. Materialene er omtrent de samme som til prefold-bleiene, dog med litt strikk i sidene og i ryggen i tillegg.

Dressing up

Spring is finally here! And seeing as I'm quite particular about the sort of clothes I want my daughter to wear, much of her spring/summer wardrobe will be home made this year. And every girl needs a couple of dresses in her wardrobe, right?





Yarn: Sandnes Duett, about five skeins in total
Pattern: Kaia Babydoll (Ravlery)
Needles: 4mm + 6mm



Pattern: Stoff & Stil 63005
Fabrics: Stoff & Stil 250409 and 270186

Don't eat your peas!

At least not when they're inside these:




In Norwegian they're simply called "pea bags" (erteposer), as they're filled with (dried) peas. They can be used for all sorts of activities; today we've been practicing throwing and catching out on the veranda. I've been thinking about making them for a while, ever since seeing this blog post. I did, however, make mine double in the sense that I made the actual "pea bags" from plain canvas and then made covers from various patterned fabrics - experience from my own childhood has taught me that these toys seldom stay clean for long, thus I want to be able to wash the covers.

And finally a picture of a happy girl holding one of her new toys:

Therapeutic work

The past few months have been rather intense. The new year started with us getting every conceivable cold and flu one after the other, then in late January our 2-year-old was ended up in hospital for a week thanks to the RS-virus. Also I found out I was pregnant in early January; last week I started bleeding and went for a scan at the hospital. I was bleeding because I'd had a missed abortion. I thought I was 13 weeks along, however the embryo hadn't made it past 6 weeks. So it's been a bit of a roller coaster ride lately.

In the midst of all this, what has given me solace and peace of mind is sewing, knitting and a bit of redecorating. I've finished a few UFOs (unfinished objects, that is), such as overlocking ready cut nappy inserts for our daughter's cloth nappies and buttoning an otherwise finished nappy, assembling a couple of knitting projects, and so on. I've also started (and finished!) a couple of garments for my daughter.

First the Bambi T-shirt:



Pattern (modified) from Ottobre 4/2010, fabric from Myllymuksut.

Then a pair of jeans:



Pattern from Ottobre 1/2010, fabric from Stoff & Stil. My girl loves everything pink at the moment, thus the pink button. I'm hoping that detail will make the trousers acceptable to her. ;)

Lastly I've built two Malm chests from Ikea for my girl's room. Up until now her clothes have been stored in a Expedit shelf with inserts, and we've changed her nappies on a separate changing table. However those items of furniture were bought for where we lived when our girl was born, and didn't work all that well here. So the Malm chests were a welcome change. More storage and a less crowded room. Hopefully we'll soon be able to remove the changing pad as well, as she's starting to get the hang of going to the potty again, after a long period of refusing to go near it.