Pattern: A Bolero for Gene

Is anyone still playing with Gene?  I have a few sitting around my house.  She still appeals to my inner starlet.

Gene in Mai Tai, an OOAK design for the 21st birthday of the ACFDC

The Alameda County Fashion Doll Club turns 21 next month.  And to celebrate, our esteemed members have created cocktail-themed OOAK dolls and fashions for the raffle.  I made two dresses for Gene.  A 50s Tiki dress and bolero named Mai Tai (the pun is "my tie" for the faux wrap design).  And Seabreeze: a striped, chiffon dress, and silk/cotton blend circle slip from a Randall Craig pattern published in Haute Doll Magazine, June 2009.  This dress is accessorized with a glass pearl choker and white sun hat.

Seabreeze:  an OOAK dress based on a Randall Craig design

I decided to post the pattern for the bolero here, for those who are still playing with Gene.  I suppose it will fit other 16 inch dolls, like Tyler or Ellowyne, maybe.  But I'm not too up on that, so cross-reference your measurements to be sure.  Here's a closer look at the little jacket.

You can see that it has a mandarin collar and is lined.  I used a Japanese cotton with silk charmeuse for the lining.  To dress it up, I added tiny, gold, glass beads before completing the lining.  This is a fairly easy project, and it can really look good with a simple sheath dress.  Gene's 50s Tiki dress is a sheath dress with a off the shoulder princess neckline and a faux wrap and tie on the side.  It is made of matching red and gold Japanese cotton and lined with a very fine white cotton to protect the doll (though this fabric did not evidence any bleeding).  Accessories include: Gene's own pearls, a red hair ribbon and tropical flower, and red mules.

The pattern for the jacket is on Scribd:  A Bolero for Gene.  I hope that it is easy to download in the right scale that way.  I did include a guide line for you to make sure it is the correct scale.

Happy Sewing!

As a parting note, I'm including shots of more OOAK designs by some of our talented members.

Happy 21st Birthday ACFDC!!!

Peanut Butter Love!

Recently, we have discovered the organic grind your own peanut butter available at our local organic market.  There are two types available-- the plain peanuts and the honey roasted peanuts.  The honey roasted peanuts make awesome pb&js.  We've been using some imported French strawberry jam available in the same market.

The plain variety is so excellent in cookies!  Making them just over the top peanutty yummyest! I've adjusted my recipe just a little.  So, once again, here it is (with the revisions).

 

My Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from the Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker ©1975

½ cup unsalted butter

½ cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 egg

1 heaping cup freshly ground peanuts or Extra Crunchy Skippy Super Chunk Peanut Butter

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

1 cup Guittard chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350˚F.

Beat butter until soft.  Add sugars and beat until creamy.  Beat in the egg, peanut butter, salt, soda, and vanilla.  Add flour and mix just until combined.  Mix in chips.  Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.  Roll the dough into balls and press a cross thatch pattern into them with a fork.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes.  Cool on pans to harden then move to a rack.  Makes approximately 2 ½ dozen cookies.  Store for several days in container.

Lati Yellow Hat Pattern

School has started!  That means more time for me to work on my stuff.  Importantly for you, that includes doll clothes.  Which means that I will finally be getting around to those Lati Yellow projects and patterns that I promised you long ago.  Here is one that I worked on this summer.

Lati Vamp and Pipos Rooney in a dress pattern by Shelley Selwood.

I ran across this cute dress pattern online, maybe Flickr.  It is a free pattern from The Little Owl Blog by Shelley Selwood.  It's listed at the bottom of the knitting patterns page under "Free Lati Yellow Pattern."  What else?

I had not knit in nearly 2 decades, but I picked it up fairly easy.  That's how easy this little dress is.  It will fit Lati Yellow, Pukifee and Pipos Rooney.  Easy to make in just an afternoon, even if you don't know how to knit.  Just pick up a basics book from your local library.

After making several in different yarns and sizes of needles, I worked on a pattern for the little hat to go with the dress.  It came out cute!  And again, very simple.

Here are the directions, but please keep in mind that this is my first pattern.  Let me know if you are confused, and I will try to help.
 

Materials

Fine (2) weight yarn

Size 2 (2.75 mm) needles

Pom-pom maker, 1 inch (25 mm) diameter size

Directions

CO 30 sts

Stockinette st for 8 rows

K2 INC 1, repeat to end

P 1 row

K5 INC 1, repeat to end

P 1 row

Stockinette st for 11 rows

Seed stitch 2 rows

Cast off in pattern (pearl)

Finishing

Leave a long end on yarn, and use it to join the sides together with a narrow seam.  Tie off.  Then weave the yarn in and out through the top (cast on) and edge and tighten to gather closed.  Tie off.  Make pom-pom as directed.  Attach to top of hat.

So Here is that pattern in PDF for you to download and print. 

Enjoy!

BlytheCon Schwag!

So much shopping, so little time. . .

Seriously, I became so overstimulated from all of the awesomeness available and frenzied shopping that I had a hard time focusing on the demos later.  I hope to be able to pay better attention next year.  Ditto for pictures of other dolls.

We got lots of cool stuff at the swap and room sale on Saturday night:

these cute overalls, t-shirt, and cowboy hat.

All this stuff, plus . . .

The next morning, we got to the line-up just after 7 am and our numbers in line were 76 and 77, so no Eurotrash helmet for us again this year.  Aargh!  As usual, Bridgette's luck held out strong with her goodie bag.  Check it out:

Too cute hat!!

Goggle kit, monster helmet, 2 pairs of socks, Texas Monthly mag, paper rose, tiny chicken, pins candy and cards.

 

Here's what I got:

Sunglasses from MimiWoo, a goggle kit, pen, and the other standard stuff.

In the mad dash to get in and begin shopping, I made my way to Devout's booth and got my pick of her little rag dolls. . .

More for my collection

And we didn't get one of Erica's shirts in our bags, so we bought a couple:

3 shirts by Ericaduh

I couldn't resist a few new dresses with headbands from PommePomme:

Such a retro Mexicana design.

This is the
BlytheCon special release.

You might notice there is one other dress in my new collection-- it is for a middle that is on her way right now!  I just had to have one after seeing all the cuties at the show.  My first Middie!  YAY!!!  Too bad there wasn't one for sale from Toys Paradise.  But here are some shots of the doll we did get.

 Bridgette's third doll!  

I discovered a fantastic new seller-- Modmoiselle.  She had a collection of very detailed steampunk outfits.  She sold out of everything at the show.  We ended up buying two dresses with a flying hat and goggles.  The goggles have steampunk minutiae in the lenses.

The top hat is just a base from Hobby Lobby.  I still need to dude it up.

At the end of the evening, Bridgette won 2 great items from Blythe Fifth Avenue in the raffle!

A great little popcorn knit dress with a tutu.

And this pretty cardigan!

The glasses are from my goodie bag!

Kitty Charlie gets cozy with all the loot!

My collection of BlytheCon shirts.

I'm looking forward to getting another BlytheCon shirt for my collection in NYC next year!  Hmmm, I wonder what we'll make for the goodie bags?  Maybe tights?  What would you like to get?

BlytheCon 2012 in Dallas

BlytheCon has come and gone .  .  .                      *sigh*  

Time to reminisce about our favorite dolls and moments of our time in Dallas. On FB, there was a bit of concern over the prediction of an uncomfortably hot weekend, but the Gaylord Texan Resort is an amazing, domed, temperature controlled microcosm of Texas.  And the heat was great in the pool areas.  We spent 5 days soaking in the water and the Texas sun!  We even went off-campus to enjoy some wild slides at a local water park NRH2O.

While the Con was only scheduled officially for one day, there were get-togethers scheduled all day long the day before.  On Saturday morning, we dropped off our 100 headbands donation for the gift bags and got a sneak peek at all of the goodies going into the bags, not to mention meet all of the wonderful people working hard to get the Con underway.




Then we quickly got dressed and made our way to Paradise Springs waterpark where everyone was meeting under the umbrellas by the lazy river, on the left in this picture.  It wasn't hard to spot them with all the dolls laid out everywhere.  And I got my first glimpses of middies in person, though we spent all afternoon in the water and our girls in the locker room.

Riverwalk Cantina

Our girls in attendance

After our sunny day, we got dressed and went to dinner at the Riverwalk Cantina with about 60 other BlytheCon peeps.  Here are a few highlights.  This is in no way a comment about the best of the night, just eye candy of that eve.   

OMG!!!  I LOVE this girl!  One of my favs of the whole show!

 After the dinner, there was a swap and non-vendor sale in an attendee's room (announced on FB).  We got a lot of cool deals there: shoes, hose, outfits, and toys.  But more on the schwag later.  On the big day, Sunday, we got up at 7 am to get our badges, and we were numbers 76 and 77, which totally blew our chances of getting one of the coveted 30 Eurotrash helmets.  Again!  So I made my way to Devout's table first and got my pick of her incredible little creepy rag dolls.  Bridgette got a new doll, Prairie Posie, from Toys Paradise, an Australian company.  This is the first time a dealer was vending, and there were 6 or 7 different dolls available at a significant savings from online prices.  After much shopping, there were several demos.  Honestly, I was so overwhelmed by all the dolls and shopping that I had a hard time paying attention to the demos.  The raffle was huge and had to be divided into 2 lots, afternoon and evening drawings.  I didn't win anything in the first raffle and joined Bridgette in the swimming pool during the dinner break and next round of demos.  We got back in time for the second raffle and Bridgette won a great outfit from Blythe Fifth Ave.  Here's a brief glimpse of some of those moments.

Our girls in attendance at the con, waiting for the doors to open.

 Our girls took time out to get some exercise rock climbing.

 

Bridgette was so excited about getting her new doll!

Wow!  What a day!  I developed a new obsession with middies and was so disappointed that I didn't win the Melacacia custom middie in the raffle.  The day lasted until nearly 10 pm!  We were so exhausted, but still had to get something to eat since we swam during the dinner break.  We are already talking about BlytheCon in New York City next year!

 

Up Next:  

All our Schwag from BlytheCon!

Summer Reading: Just Kids and Charlaine Say It Ain't So. . .

I'm a bit behind in my summer reading, but here are my impressions and inspirations.  Lover Reborn, JR Ward's new installment in The Black Dagger Brotherhood Series is Thor's story.  It's an engaging read, but the back story seems to have shifted focus away from the Lesser threat. And Anita continues to put Jean Claude on the back burner in Laurell K Hamilton's Kiss The Dead.  I don't know why he remains so devoted.

*Spoiler Alert*

There has been much speculation that the Sookie Stackhouse series is winding down.  Charlaine Harris admits that she does know how it will end but not when.  Sookie and Eric are testing each others' love and commitment in Deadlocked, and neither of them seem willing to acknowledge the other or make any concession.  Too bad, because I think Sookie and Eric could be good together.  I don't expect Eric to cowtow to Sookie's emotional fluctuations.  Sookie on the other hand cut her bond with Eric and keeps pushing him away by telling him to physically go away and cutting off any opportunity for discussion.  As far as I'm concerned, relationships are all about concessions.  Sookie is going to have to learn to give a LOT more if she is ever to find her HEA.  But now it definitely looks as if Eric is going away.  I suppose he will take most of his vamps with him, and the fairies are gone, too.  So Sookie will end up with Sam, have babies, and grow old in Bon Temps.  And what has all of this been after more than 12 books?  Maybe nothing more than the story of someone sowing their wild oats for a few years before they settle down.  Ugh, what a let down.

Far and away the most engrossing read this summer has been Patti Smith's Just Kids.  This book has been out for 2 years, so it is not new.  And it has been getting a lot of deserved attention.  I have been so focused on fiction that I was a bit late on the uptake with this one.  Though I have been a fan of Patti's music for decades, I was unaware of her history.  She is an incredible poet, so it is no wonder that the book is such a great read.  Her tale of how she came to be so much a part of the New York art scene is truly epic, rather random and, honestly, surprising to me, as a much younger punk arriving in The City almost 2 decades later.  Wow, it took me back to those years, reminding me of dreams maybe not yet abandoned.  Time and again, her story is of finding herself, her talent, her voice.  Are we ever too old for that?  I have spent many hours this summer exploring the music and art of her life and my past, too.  What a gift, both personal and prosaic.  Thank you, Patti.