Project memory Lane - the embroidered coat project

 Don't you hate it when you get those emails warning you how full your Gmail is? I've had that address since 2013 and I used to email a lot. I had pen pals, PMs on MBs, and of course, the random junk that one gets from just being online. I try to keep it cleaned out - ever so often I go in there and delete several hundred emails mostly from Promotions/social. I used to be better about cleaning out my Primary, but I don't do it as often as I need to. Where am I going with this?

Since my email has been around as long as it has, I figured I could just go in there and delete stuff from those early years. This took me down a path of nostalgia. I reread some of my old email chains from one of my pen pals - she was first a customer and we got to be good friends. At least good online friends. And then I also happened to stumble onto emails regarding a commission that I got via Den of Angels. Lucky for me, we had moved from the DoA PM system to emails to allow me an easier time of sending her WIP pics. 

I was thrilled, beyond thrilled to find these pics again. I think this project was likely 3 laptops ago, ha ha, and sadly, with the passing of each laptop, so too was the passing of many of my commission/project pictures. Just rewards I suppose of not bothering to update Flickr like I should have. I do feel the regret still. But any ways, I am so happy to have these pics. I've downloaded them and will mostly likely post them to IG and Flickr so I keep them while those platforms are still standing.

I got this project in the Spring of 2014. I honestly don't recall if she PM'd me after seeing my Open to Commissions thread (which I no longer have) or I responded to a Want to Commission thread. She was looking for a coat to fit her Luts CP Delf Type 1 doll, and it needed to be embroidered with a feather motif. Her idea was for the feathers to be similar in style to a parakeet. The coat was going to be in colors of burgundy and gold. Now, I have veeeeeeery basic embroidery skills, and because of that reason, I was a little hesitant to take it on. With that thought, she had to have PM'd me, as I don't know if I would have pursued an embroidery heavy project. I told her that I wasn't super skilled at embroidery and I wasn't sure if I could pull it off well enough. I remember that she really wanted me to make it for her and so I went ahead and took it.

This was tricky. She had drawn out on a computer program the idea of what she wanted for the motif idea and where these feathers needed to be on the coat. My job was then to take these general ideas and design a motif to fit into the spaces she wanted embroidered onto the coat, within the confines of my pattern. I had to redesign the basic idea for the front she was at first hoping for, as I couldn't get the various motifs - neck, front shoulders and across the back of the coat to seamlessly blend together. Let me also just say here, she was absolutely fantastic to work with, and was open to my suggestions as I really was committed to doing my best work for this project.  Here's my redesign of the front motif. I don't have the pics of her designs that she sent to me, unfortunately. 

I drew all of these motifs onto copies of my pattern pieces to make sure that they fit. Now, the next thing to figure out was how to transfer this to my pieces. The fabric I was using was a darker burgundy twill. That's not the easiest color to draw on with a transfer pencil, and so the journey of trial and error began. To do the embroidery work, I sewed my coat pieces onto cotton, but left the back of the pieces exposed so as to not catch the cotton in the embroidery process. If there was an easier way, I don't know of one. I ended up getting transfer sheets, where you go over the transfer paper with a pencil to transfer the design. That wasn't quite good enough, and so I got a white pencil to go over the blue lines from the transfer paper. While it worked okay, if I hadn't had good lighting, it would have been a struggle. I would occasionally have to re-go over the lines. The original plan was to outline each feather with black embroidery floss and then fill in with the gold thread. That didn't end up working, as it was far too bulky for the delicate design, so I took that out and just went at it with the gold.

The trickiest thing at this stage of the work was getting those neck feathers to go seamlessly from the shoulder motif onto the neck. 

And sadly, this is where my pics come to an end. There was a talon motif somewhere on the coat - I think it was right above where the coat's tails begin. I remember clearly what they looked like, but I just don't have the pics. We must have switched back to DoA PMs at this point. After all the embroidery was done, I still had to line the coat and sew it all together. I ended up going with a thin shiny fabric that matched the embroidery thread. I think the point where I was the most nervous was the lining. I had to be really careful sewing the coat together. Imagine if I had somehow messed that part up and had to fix the embroidery? Thankfully, it all went smoothly.

The embroidery involved nearly 90 feathers. Each feather took an average of 2 hours - more for the biggest feathers, less for the smaller feathers.  It took a LOT of hours to finish. I could only work on it for about 3 hours at a time, and at that point, I was juggling several commissions, which is really how I prefer it. All in all, it took me a few months to finish the project. This is one of the projects that I am the most proud of. I do wish that she had sent me pics of it on her doll. I remember that her doll was in the process of being painted with a lot of tattoos, and so he probably wasn't finished when she got the coat, and well, life has a tendency to just move on. 

Vintage Ginny has come to town

 I seem to have been on a vintage doll kick. Over the past couple of months I have found while thrifting at either the Flea Market or Goodwill Lesney Ginny (AKA Skinny Ginny,) 1971 Malibu Barbie, Tuesday Taylor, Madame Alexander Little Red Riding Hood, and finally, Ideal Doll Tammy. Malibu Barbie has shoes that she can wear and my little MA came with her shoes. None of the other dolls mentioned above came with shoes. I figured that I could just slowly gather up shoes for them. I found an auction of 4 pairs of shoes for my Skinny Ginny and won them for cheap. It was while I was looking for shoes for her that I really got to looking at the earlier versions of Ginny.

And that was when I found the most adorable little Ginny doll that had a starting bid of $5.00. In the listing, the seller described her as having such terrible hair that she almost threw her away! Thankfully she did not. I figured I could handle bad hair and the next day, I won my very first 50's Ginny for a whopping $8. 

I was so excited for her to get here, and the seller shipped her at a reasonable time. She arrived yesterday! I was a little horrified to see that she was simply wrapped in bubble wrap and put in a thin shipping envelop, but she was fine. Upon examining her, yeah, her hair is pretty much shot. I'm assuming her hair is mohair as it feels more like mohair than some of the other materials mentioned that they used on early Ginny's. It was tangled, balding and yeah. Pretty bad. It didn't deter though from how absolutely beautiful and magical this little dolly was! Her eyes were shut upon opening her, but I was able to very gently move the lids up. Her body is practically perfect. No real major stains or blemishes. No cracks or splits. Her walking mechanism works flawlessly. To say that I am madly in love with this dolly is an understatement!!

Now, for her hair. Her hair was meant to be in braided pigtails. You aren't supposed to saturate mohair with water as it is glued on, and you don't want to soften the glue and have the hair fall off. I also read that you aren't supposed to brush mohair, but this mop of a disaster desperately needed detangling, so I very carefully combed through it to get the knots out. I did get it damp and conditioned it, but not on her actual scalp. Maybe that was inviting danger, but it just needed a little cleaning. It didn't cause her hair any more hurt than she had already suffered, thankfully. Now, the bald spots are not possible to hide, but I did my best. I tried to comb it into place to cover up as much as I could, and then I braided her hair. Her bangs are pretty thread bare. My solution was to dampen a comb and then comb what little bit of bangs that remain to cover as much of her forehead as possible, and then I secured that with a paper towel and plastic wrap to hold it into place. It worked pretty well, and while her age and wear hasn't been fixed, it's so much better than it was. I think she looks pretty darn good for a gal her age!

I'm really enjoying gathering as much info as I can on these dollies. Here is what I have learned thus far from other collectors. My Ginny has the painted lashes and is a straight leg walker. This doll was only made in 1954. She also has GINNY on her back. Dolls with painted lashes who are strung (non walkers) are earlier - I think 1952/3, and have VOGUE on their backs. After 1954, the painted lashes were replaced with the molded lashes, and the walkers became bent knee walkers. I'm thinking the bent knee walkers are more like 1957. I'm still learning! I can see the appeal of the bent knee walkers. The knee joint must allow them to sit, as I see that the straight leg walkers are permanent standers. 

With my collection - yes, I am definitely planning on expanding my collection eventually, ha ha - I want to focus on the dolls with painted lashes. I've been looking for a friend for my Ginny, hoping to find another steal. We'll see how that goes! A couple have caught my eye. 2 on my watch page are the 1954 dolls, and one is from earlier. Fingers crossed I can find a friend for a good price for my Ginny!

Awesome Market Finds - some of my BEST yet!

I started this post on April 7th, but I just got around to finishing it today. 

We ended up going to the Flea Market today as 2 of my party had a craving for DQ, and the only really good one (out of the 3 we have here) just happens to be by the Flea Market. And so 2 of us decided to take a quick walk around and see if anything jumped out at us. I keep hoping that the Dollhouse booth there will restock some more furniture kits, and before today, she hadn't.

I always like to approach the Flea Market the same way - start all the way to the right and make our way up and down each row. I know where the good spots are, but if you only go there, you might miss out on a randomly placed treasure. 

 I was surprised that we came across a dollhouse in the furthest side of the Market that was really cute. But with a price tag of $125, it just wasn't worth it to me. It wasn't in bad shape, but the inside had wallpaper, carpet, etc. etc. and would have all had to be redone any ways. I found a Moxy girl for a family member who has started collecting them (and her hair was an utter disaster! I'll post before and after pics of her hair repair later.) I was so excited to stumble across 2 of those big 24" craft cows made in the 90's by Wang International. I know, it's an odd thing to love so much, but I have dearly missed my beloved Sorcerer Moo since I regrettably sold him off many years ago. These cows were in dreadful shape. And I mean dreadful! Covered in layers of dirt and grime, with discoloring on the hooves and mildew stains all over the muslin body. The price was a little higher than it needed to be, but I wasn't leaving the Market without him. I picked out the one I deemed in better shape (which really wasn't by much, if any) and was feeling so pleased. I have great confidence in the possibility of cleaning anything up.

And finally, as we made a loop towards the end of the Market, there it was. I, of course initially missed it, as my focus was really on spotting Barbie dolls, so luckily my eagle eyed companion saw it. A dollhouse! This one had most certainly seen better days, and whoever put the house together didn't exactly do a stellar job. But for a price tag of $20? Oh yeah. It was coming home with me. I actually got so excited I just grabbed it and started to take off towards the check out before I even looked at the inside. 

The house was painted on the outside, and the color palette screams mid 90's. (I later found out it is the Brookefield made by Duracraft in 1992. I have no idea how long the kit was available.)  It smelled really musty, and it started to quite literally fall apart on its journey home. Not that anything was all that securely glued into place to begin with. Trim fell off. The inside wall divider fell out (and somehow ended up in a bag - I truly have no idea how!) And upon closer inspection I noticed that the outside wall is also coming apart. I think it was put together with hot glue. Never a good idea. Hot glue should only be used to hold pieces together while the wood glue dries when not even copious amounts of tape do the trick. (I had to do that with my Orchid. Just put a dab of low temp hot glue on a couple of places, and then peal off carefully when it's job is done.) 

I know they say that if a house has been put together like that, you need to take it apart and re-glue it together with wood glue. I am not doing that. I would most certainly destroy the dollhouse in the process. What I will do is go in there and carefully reinforce the pieces with wood glue. 

I'm now officially out of space for dollhouses, and getting this fella to fit is going to be interesting. But I am so thrilled to have it. I didn't have a house for the 2 little resin dragons that I got specifically for my Orchid - which didn't work out. Dollhouses have a mind of their own, after all. So this one is absolutely perfect for the Dragon lair. The dragons are the perfect scale and the plans I have are going to be epic! Now, if I could just feel like working on any of my many, many plans, I'll be a pleased panda.