Advent 2023 - Day Twenty Two

Serena has asked Helen to help her today

They look for the door

and quickly have the gift out ready to open.

Oh what are these?

The look like little toys for the sack.

Sure enough that is where the girls have put them.

Father Christmas is all ready to deliver the gifts.

These two are quite the characters.

Helen was my bargain find in a charity shop in NZ in 2019.

She is quite sassy.

 

What best to do on a blustery afternoon?

On this blustery, and definitely colder afternoon, Wren chooses some music to listen to.

She selects some of her favourite music and...

Sits back with her fit up to relax.

Elsewhere, some of the Friends are getting changed into Autumn wear.

My (still no name) Iplehouse BJD has chosen jeans and a sweater.

Miss No Name Not Supposed to be a Fakey Blythe has a similar colour top on teamed with a straight skirt and boots.

Helen Blythe very much likes the outfit she has chosen, especially as it has long sleeves.

Kiwi Sindy looking swish as teamed her outfit with some stylish boots.

Little Nancy is wearing the lovely dress gifted to her by Bella's Doll Clothes earlier this year and has teamed it with a little cardigan I knitted a few years ago.

The Five Friends all ready for the cooler days and nicely colour co-ordinated.

 

A Flower Garden of Dolls for May

 

A flower garden of dolls for May, with some little bees of course for pollination. 

I had a lot of fun this month joining in on a doll collaboration/challenge of which was 'Flowers'.  It was a lot of fun seeing what everyone else had done.

I made flowery dresses for a selection of my dolls including a doll I found in a disheveled state in a charity shop (the Disney doll with the bee dress on)

Molly was pleased to receive a new dress.  I had actually made this for Peggy Sue but then realized I  had used the wrong pattern, but not to worry, there is always a doll it would fit, so a happy ending.

This is Peggy Sue's dress.  It is made with a vintage fabric.

I made this dress for my smiley blonde Paola Reina doll.  I should have made her a headband to match as her stock one doesn't really.

This is a fake Blythe from Aliexpress.  I am not really sure if I am going to keep her.  I quite like just having the one, Helen that I found in a CS in NZ in 2019.    This doll is lovely though and has amazing hair!  She is wearing pansies on purple gingham to match her hair.

My CS Disney doll find who cleaned up beautifully is wearing a bee dress I made.  We have been having a lot of drama with bees in and near our garden this month, with our neighbours having problems with bee swarms.  They had six or seven I think it was in total, one of which came down to our place.  The bees were very aggressive, and over the course of a few weeks made going into the garden almost impossible without being stung.  I was stung three times!  Fortunately they have had the bees and hives removed as it was just making life to difficult for them and their neighbours.  Never before have I seen such aggressive bees.  Normally you can work in the garden quite happily alongside them.

I made a dress out of some beautiful liberty fabric for Rose, my Smart Doll.

I made a love blue and yellow sunflower dress for Everlee Rose Morgan 

Wren was thrilled to get a pansy dress.

Helen Blythe loves vibrant colours on black.

Kiwi Sindy wanted insects and butterflies on flowers.

I love the fabric her skirt is made from.  I made a dress using this fabric almost ten years ago for a Sasha doll which went to a Sasha collector in NZ.  

I only had scraps of the fabric left, so Madeline got a little bodice made from it with a gingham skirt.

This is similar to Kiwi Sindy's dress bit a different style with some added lace on the sleeves and skirt hem.

So that is the end of the 'Flowers for May' challenge and my take on it.  Sewing these dresses gave me some much needed distraction for one to two hours a day which I so badly needed.

A New Dress and a Doll Size Comparison.

I made a little Blythe dress today and thought I would see how many of my smaller jointed dolls it would fit.  I selected four and lined them up to compare body size.

From left to right:
Vera (Kruseling), Gigi (Ruby Red Galleria), Wren (Makielabs), Helen (Jecci Five)

It is interesting to see their different sizes, and will be fun to try on the dress on each of them.

First of all I tried it on Vera.  It fitted quite well, and is a good length on her, although the arm holes were a little tight. This was a surprise as she was the only one it was tight on.

Gigi tried it on next and it fits her well, although perhaps a tad too long.

Helen tried it on and it of course fitted her as I knew it would as I have used this pattern before.

Wren tried it on last. I gave her some new glasses.  Although I prefer her in black, she lost her original black ones, and the ones she was wearing in the top picture were a replacement pair, but they were always too big, and they just keep slipping and falling off all the time which is a shame.  The only other pairs I had that suited her were a blue pair and a white pair.  She chose the blue pair and is having a little giggle about them.

She also found a pair of blue shoes to match the dress and glasses.

I am thinking I might colour the white pair black as they too fit her and I do still prefer the black on her, but perhaps I just need to get used to the blue pair.  Shame the replacement black pair seem to have been printed at a slightly larger scale.

Anyway, it seems Wren won the trying on competition as she declared she wasn't going to take the dress off!