As I have mentioned previously. my neighbor is a restorer of antique dolls. She knows how to do everything, from making the body parts to putting in the eyes and changing the wigs. But she is not as keen on the sewing part of things. I guess there used to be a lot of ladies who sewed for antique dolls and now it is kind of a dying art. Recently she brought me a very challenging project -- make a new dress for this Karen Ballerina doll. I copied the original as closely as possible. I had to make a pattern from the original dress, sew a prototype, dye the polyester mesh fabric myself to get the right color, and be accurate to within an 1/8 of an inch on all my sewing so that it would fit right. It was super challenging. I was glad that I was making 2 of them (for two dolls) so that it would be worth all the effort to figure out the pattern and fabric.
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| Color matching the original dress against my many dye swatches for the best possible match |
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| Karen Ballerina - Dress Update |
Each dress took about 6 yards of gold ric rac and 1 yard of fabric to make the 3 layers of the gathered skirt!
The drape of the polyester mesh fabric is lovely. Much more like the original material than the alternative option - stiff tulle.
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| Madame Alexander doll - new dress |
Wow! Amy the doll dress is amazing! You did a great job.
ReplyDeleteI love seeing the kiddos with the chickens, so fun.