I’m not much for clothing – either the purchase or the manufacture. I am seriously envious of people who can do things with cloth, however. At one point while I was growing up, I actually wanted to be a clothing designer. In a nine year old’s mind, it didn’t seem too hard. After all, Gloria Vanderbilt’s designer jeans looked suspiciously like regular jeans, only with her autograph embroidered on the back pocket, and a large price tag to go along with the privilege of having her autograph on your butt.
Alas, I discovered that designing takes talent and lots and lots of skill and training. Being the lazy sort, plus having to deal with a high school home economics teacher I could not stand, killed that ambition.
It did not end my fascination with design. Most of the way through high school, I had a couple of Wonder Woman coloring books, some tracing paper, and colored pencils. During rare down times, I would trace Wonder Woman’s figure, and create costumes for characters in stories I was writing. Since I was never much of an artist, these designs were pretty lackluster, because I could not translate what I saw in my mind’s eye onto paper.
As an (alleged) adult, I still occasionally have wild ideas of something that would look cool, but no way to execute the outfit, either by drawing or by making the outfit myself. It doesn’t keep me, however, from having fun with a little cloth, or even, in this case, a piece of clothing.
I belong to a doll club called the OCD, which is short for Obsessively Collecting Dolls. There is nothing in life finer, I say, than getting together with other “chronics” and showing off. I have really learned to love fellow doll collectors in my time, because we mostly, if not as a whole, are generous, enthusiastic folks.
One generous soul (among many!) in the OCD is a fellow collector named Wil. He has impeccable taste in dolls, and collects a great variety of them. At our last meeting, he had a skirt that did not fit in his glamour gals. Since everyone knows I have been more avid collecting dolls than outfits, he asked if I would like this skirt, which was meant for one of the big girls. I presumed he meant Tonner’s American Models, so I said sure, since my lone American Model has one dress and the teddy she came with.
When I got home, however, I realized I had made something of a mistake, because I did not have a blouse to go along with the skirt, and sometimes, finding other clothing pieces for American Models can be not only tricky, but pricey as well.
I then wondered if there was some way I could use this skirt on my regular Tonner sized girls. Since I had just bought a doll from one of the other members of the club, and given the dress sold with her to another of my dolls, I wondered if I could make something of this skirt for my new, and now naked, doll.
It helps that I already decided on something of a personality for this girl – she looks, to me, like she might be a wild rocker chick of the Joan Jett mold, at least in personality. So I took the skirt, and tried to fasten it around her bosom. It was just a touch too short, but I always say that a safety pin is a doll’s best friend.
It actually turned out interesting, in that it looks like a baby doll dress. I will probably need to have someone help me style it a little bit, but it goes well with this girl’s perceived untamed personality.
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| Good girls go to Heaven. Bad girls go Everywhere! |
My good friend (and fellow FDR contributor) Kathie is always coming up with interesting projects for me. The latest was taking the accessories from the Hello Bolly! luxury wear accessory set, released in 2005 by Integrity Toys, and creating a new outfit to go with them.
At first, I thought I'd go with a dark chocolate brown dress to match the color of the leather in the accessories, but decided it would be much to dark to dress her all in brown. So, I decided to go completely the opposite and created her a dress out of some vintage, ivory lace that I pieced together to create the "fabric" of her dress. I did give her just a little brown satin bow at the neckline to tie the accessories to the dress.
Here is the completed dress, pictured on Tonner Doll's "Euphemia," from Tonner Doll's Cinderella Collection.
