Iplehouse SID coat commission FINISHED!!!

This was finished several days ago, just now finding the time to blog about it. Let's just say this one was an experience! I worked off of a tape form, which is something I had never done before, and something I am still a bit on the fence about how well it works. I have another project lined up in the future in which I will be working off of another tape form, so I am not opposed to using one. It's just a matter of checking measurements.

I was all set to make a simple shirt to put on the tape form to ensure that the coat fit properly. And then the obvious occurred to me to compare the tape form's measurements to the company's doll measurements. Come to find out, the tape form was at least 2 cm larger than the body, which is pretty much the right amount of space to allow for the clothing to fit under the coat. So this step wasn't necessary. I made a test run of the coat, sent it to my buyer to fit on her doll, and went on from there.

This coat was to be made out of black velvet, with a brocade for the lining and a satin for the edging. Three beautiful fabrics. A tricky combination. I had never worked with velvet before, so was excited to get this opportunity. Velvet and brocade both ravel out really badly. Velvet has a lot of movement to it, brocade does not. I found the only way to create neat seams was to first baste it by hand, and then go over that seam with the machine. If you find yourself needing to take something out, these aren't very forgiving fabrics to make mistakes with. Consequently, I ended up having to redo both the coat and the lining as it sort of dissolved when I was taking out some seams. (I was being gentle too - no medieval sort of surgical techniques here. It's just delicate fabric.) It really wasn't too much of a pain to re-do them, and I got both done in maybe a couple of hours. The coat in itself was fairly simple. What was the daunting part about it was the edging. That satin edging.....

Satin is wirey. It doesn't really want to neatly fold. It was a little tricky to figure out the best method to edge the coat with it, what with all those corners and tips. In the end, success! I think the trim overall took at least 6 hours, maybe more. I did this part all by hand, and finished the underside with a neat, blind whip stitch, taking care to check every time I put the needle into the fabric that it did not go through the velvet. I had to redo nearly one entire sleeve edging as I didn't see I was going through the velvet, which left tiny red stitching visible on the outside of the coat. Bad lighting - I shouldn't have been working on it that late any ways!  I am very pleased with how it all turned out in the end!

Okay, now for some pics! The lining. The sleeves are fully lined with this as well. I don't think I got a good picture of them...

The coat before I re-did it. Thankfully, I was able to re-use the same collar, which was a relief as for some reason that collar gave me a great deal of grief.

The trim. So far, so good!

The underside of the trim.

The finished coat!!

The back.

The underside of the tails.

Tips for when you work with velvet/brocade together, or even separate.

1) Be patient and don't use a heavy hand

2) Baste everything (and use large stitches to it's easier to take out!) as these fabrics slide all over the place.

3) Don't be afraid to fray check the edges. This is the only way I was able to handle the coat  to sew on the trim without  it fraying to pieces

Berry, berry sweet vintage Strawberry Shortcake Dolls

I finally succumbed to the sweet berry scented charm of vintage Strawberry Shortcake.  When you first get into collecting something, it can be a little confusing as to what release is what, and when it came out. Finding a thorough resource for vintage SSC can be a little hard, at least all in one place. Maybe I just assume it is far more complicated than it is, and so I am expecting to find all this information when there really isn't much to be had after all! My first vintage doll is a clothesless, shoeless Angel Cake. She was different than the other vintage Angel Cake that came in the same bag. Her limbs are a whiter plastic, she had no holes in her feet, so my first thought was that she could possibly be a fakey. There's always fakeys for every kind of doll/toy, so it seemed a possibility. I couldn't really find any info on the subject pf knock off SSC though, beyond finally stumbling onto the Jelly Bean Lanard dolls. (Which are cute BTW, and would go perfectly in my collection.) So, I ended up posting pics of my Angel Cake next to the other doll on a facebook group where someone confirmed she is legit. Here's some pics. Mine is the taller one on the right.

You can see the differences. There is also differences with the rooting and painting of the scalp - one has white factory paint on it where the other does not. Thus my confusion. I could never find any information of the differences of the individual releases of each doll, and I would really like to know!

My Angel Cake, whitish limbs aside isn't in too terrible of shape. Her hair is pretty good, she just has some faint marks on her head and limbs which I think are just there for good. She has a slight smell still.

My next SSC purchase was a set of 2 Sweet Sleeper dolls that had been sitting in a locked case at the Flea Market for pretty much as long as I have been going to it. I didn't pay too much attention to them as I hadn't been interested in these dolls before this point. When I realized my life just wouldn't be complete without them, I made a mad dash down to the Market and bought the set for $8. They are in REALLY good shape. Here's a pic of them with their eyes closed:

Lemon Meringue still has the plastic tab attaching her hat to her head! Blueberry Muffin has some moth eaten tights and no shoes, but even still, they are in really great condition and even retain some slight scent. :D I am over the moon with these dolls. I'll need to hunt down their pets. I once found an auction that had all the Sweet Sleepers sleeping bags, but didn't go for it like I should have.

This is only the beginning of my collection. I have since added a dilapidated Strawberry Shortcake, who I really, really, love, and a Butter Cookie.