The American Girl Lolita Project

I started sewing AG Lolita clothing about 2 years ago, lost interest in the dolls, and pretty much phased out sewing for them. (I kept one doll as I am still working on some historically more accurate Marie-Grace dresses for someone I met on the AGPT forum a couple of years back by responding to her WTC for this project. She has since become very dear penpal.)

Before Christmas I got a message on Etsy from a lady who was looking to have some dresses made for her AG doll. She had recently fallen in love with Loli fashion herself. As someone who loves Loli fashion for dolls, meeting a like minded dolly owner is always a treat! After discussing some ideas with her, she settled on going with the pattern I had already made, only instead of the pale butterfly print I had sewn it in before, she was looking for a pale icy yellow solid. You'd think that would be a simple thing to find, but alas, butter yellow is what is so easily found right now. Colors really trend through the years. I was finally able to find ONE option, which thankfully turned out to be perfect.

Here is the dress. I couldn't be happier with it.

My buyer wanted to add some pigtail bows to match it. She is also wanting a large single pony tail bow. I had meant to have this finished by the time she got back from vacation, but I had forgotten to settle on the exact size with her before she left. I want her input before I sew the actual bow for her.

The second dress is pretty much her brain child. It was fun seeing the dress come together. We started with an example of a human dress, and it went from there! She wanted it in lavender with a lavender print. I LOVE this fabric combination. This dress will also have the pig tails bows, and the still unmade single bow.

I am presently working on the third dress, the pink. It'll be made out of a pink printed with little white vines with hearts mixed with a pale pink solid. The bodice will be pretty simple, but the skirt is more of a challenge. I'm really wanting it to have several ruffles, so I'm working on some concepts to see what is possible and what is not. Hopefully I can post some WIP pics of this design soon! 

Princess Project - Girl #3 Finished! Pic heavy

Third girl is complete! I spent all afternoon sewing up the backs and sewing snaps on all the remaining pieces. I'm so excited!

These dresses are for the Lady Ophelia. She is the most practical of the 3, so I went for more lines for her's in the designs to go with her more serious nature. Her color theme is browns and creams. I believe her dresses ended up being my favorites of the 3, although Annmarie's blue Sunday Best vies for that place as well.

First up, we have her Summer Dress. This one is a mix of cream silk and a lovely brown linen. There is ribbon detailing around the square neckline, the front and back of the over skirt, as well as the sleeves.

Up next is her glorious Sunday Best. The brown silk was hand dyed. The sleeves alone on this dress took me a couple of hours to make, and oh was it worth it! I love this dress very much. :D The belt is made of some pretty gold and white trim.

And last but never least is her Ball Gown. I love this one too! The silk is all hand dyed. There is a lot of bead work on the shoulders, and down the front of this dress. The underskirt is has machine sewn stripes down front. 

All done! I'm going to take it to the PO on Monday to get it weighed. I can't wait to get it all boxed up! I have everything neatly bagged up, ready to be packaged. :)

Princess Project - Girl #2 finished!!! PIC HEAVY

Following the world's most frustrating photo shoot, I have gotten pics of the completed Crown Princess's wardrobe. These belong to AnnMarie - the elegant dreamer, who has a love for embroidery. In designing her dresses, I wanted to include one dress that featured embroidery, and go with an airy more fairy tale look. Her colors were pastel blues and mints/greens.

For some reason, while taking these pics, my doll would NOT stand. I think he might be protesting the many hours he has spent playing princess while helping me with this project. I owe him big time, lol, but he needs to hold out just  a little longer! In reality, I need to restring him. He is the kickiest, falling-est little guy. I have to carefully adjust his legs under the dress to get him to stand, and in adjusting the dresses I would either knock him over, or he would just crumple. For that reason, I don't think these pics turned out quite as good as my last ones, but hopefully, they still show the dresses off well.

Okay, enough complaining, lol! On to the pics!


This girl being the crown princess, needed a crown. I sculpted it out of polymer clay, then painted it. I will seal it before I send it. She wears it with a wimple, which was made out of cotton due to the necessity of providing the right hang. Silk would have been pretty, but too stiff. The veil is a panel lace.

First off, the one I am the most proud of I think out of all the dresses, Annmarie's Sunday Best. This one has the embroidery in 2 places. I went with several different colors for the flowers - a very white blue, a purple, and then for a pop of color, a deep red.

 I initially had designed the sleeves to be sewn onto the dress like some of my other ones, but once I started drafting the pattern, I realized it would hide too much of the dress, so I changed it to these detached sleeves that snap close. This dress has a lovely 3 layers that have an elegant train in the back. The dress silk is hand dyed, the corset was a store bought silk.

Next up, we have her Summer Dress. This one is made out of a mint chiffon. I sewed some white trim on the bottom of the skirt which matches the belt, which is attached to the dress in the front.

Last, but never least, is her beautiful Ball Gown. The silks were both hand dyed. The underskirt is in a spearmint, the over dress is a mix of spearmint and pistachio. I love the shade! I cut out pieces of lace to sew on the front center of the skirt and the bodice. Onto that, I sewed some dark mint colored seed beads. These also line the bottom edge of the underskirt. The sides and back of the skirt feature little puffs created by tiny pin tucks. I don't think I captured it very well....

And that finishes up girl #2! Next up, girl number 3! 

Princess Project Update - Girl #1 is finished!! PIC HEAVY

I am so excited to have one third of this completely done sans snaps for the backs. These 3 dresses are for Marianna, a Zuzu Delf Bichon Iron Fan LE. She is the younger princess, much more playful, and would rather be outside playing with her animal friends. My designs were really influenced by this as it has to fit her character. Her dresses are simpler than her sister's for this reason. Her favorite colors are pink, so we went with that for her theme. I did venture out a bit with the ball gown, opting for white and almost an orchid color for a little more variety. Her head dress I just finished today. I just did the final photo shoot for her beautiful dresses before I get them packed up to go to their rightful owner.

First off, the head dress. It is made out of silk and decorated with a lovely ribbon. I was lucky to have already found this in my stash after organizing a couple of weekends ago. I needed something that tied in with all of her dresses. This works perfect!

This next one is her Sunday Best. The silk is hand dyed. It has some little pearly white beads at the neck line.

This is her ball gown. It has quite a few beads. The orchid silk is hand dyed. I had fun mixing my dyes to come up with this gorgeous color.

The final one is her Summer dress. Silk is hand dyed as well.

I will be updated this blog with the other 2 girls finished clothing as soon as I get them photographed. :)

Princess Coiffe finished....

So, one head dress done out of three! Yay! I had gotten all the gold trim sewn on before Christmas, and let it sit until today to figure out exactly how to go about finishing it. It's like that for me when I have never sewn something before. I have to let it sit until a clear direction of going about it crystallizes in my head. The perks of being self taught, I guess. I have to figure things out, and whether or not I am doing it the "right way" as long as it turns out looking good and finished neatly, I just go with it.

I had initially planned to gather the bottom edge like human sized coiffes are finished, but for this size, that did not work. I pleated it with tiny pleats instead, and the hang was much better. I ended up finishing the inside with a facing, which did 2 things: hid the raw edges, and also gave it a better form for fitting the head. The top part of the coiffe I finished with a cream silk. I really am pleased with it. I had planned to add bead detailing, but I think I had better omit that on the white part of it before I make it too busy. I might add it to the cream though as I think it could use a little something more. After I got it finished, I held it up to all three of the dresses it is meant to go with to see how they all look together. They look great!. Its enthralling to see it all come together. :D Later on when the lighting is better I will do a nice photo session with the coiffe with each dress.

Confessions of a Crafter......

You know you really have a crafting addiction when the dreaded time rolls around for you to re-organize your crafting space and supplies. This is my weekend project, whether I want it to be or not.

I have too much craft supplies! It's not so much that I have an overabundance of one particular thing (the likely candidate for this is my fabric stash which has already been once again cut waaaaay down. I have to do this every year.) I just have so many kinds of things to store.

There's my polymer clay, which is stored conveniently in one of those flat square containers you get for scrap booking paper. (I have one of those full of mostly Halloween paper - god knows what I will actually do with it.) And now I have a nice little container of all the supplies I will need to go along with it. My tools, TLS, clay thinner, a couple of molds I can't live without (tiny ghosts and bats) and then my sealers. I'm thrilled to have it all together in one convenient place.

There's my catch all container where I have my MSC and other sealers, my punches and molds for making 1/6 and 1/12 paper plates, the scrap booking markers in metallics for edging said plates, the triple thick sealers for them, glitter fabric paint, mediums for various things and my stash of glitter.

Oh, that glitter. I love it. I have a good selection of holiday colors. You know the sample packs, the ones that come taped to card board backs in neat little plastic bags? Well, recently they were used for some Christmas decorating, and in the swirl of throwing out old storage things that simply did not work, that fine little glitter made it way out of those little plastic bags and onto literally everything. It is EVERYWHERE. All over the floor, all over my desk, all over everything.

Several hours later, and it is mostly under control. I have my embroidery floss neatly in its own container. Beads have been sorted and organized with my jewelry making tools and supplies. My buttons have been sorted and organized. :) The majority of the glitter as been cleaned, but its evasive, and I know I will be finding it for months to come in surprising places.

My brushes have a new home away from their stained up bag in the container my clay extruder came in. I swear I love that tool, but have really no good use for it. Its tucked away neatly in my clay tools waiting for that moment to shine. I really need to replace my fine tipped paint brushes. They are the same ones I have been using for years, and the fine tips have started to curl.

My liquidex paint I bought many, many moons ago has been mostly thrown out. Its so dried, and the white, blacks and medium brown are all used up. I saved the ones I will need for the princess crown I sculpted. I'd love to order another big set of them like I did before, but for now, I'll just get single tubes in the colors I need for face ups and what not. I've really been needing to do this for a long time now. I'll need another container for those when I get them.

I still have a ways to go. I need a container for my millinery supplies, as well as a few other things such as my knitting needles, tiny crochet hooks and closures. But, its taking form. And you know it has to get worse before it gets better. That's the only thing that helps one cope with the piles. Soon it'll become a visage of order instead of a constant state of mayhem where you cannot find a thing that you need.

(I'm not even going to go into my pattern disaster that has to be addressed as well. A blog post can only handle so much chaos.)

As I worked through everything I got to thinking how much more free of clutter my life would be if I had managed to hold myself to one or maybe two crafting hobbies, or really none at all. But, how boring! I can't help myself, I love to try many different things, and my creative ADD really doesn't help me out any at all. In reality, the majority of my crafting is because of my dolls. If I didn't have them, then I'm not sure what I would do nor not do. So many things I started just because I want to make everything I can for them. But, it's all worth it - the space it takes up and the arduous process of sorting, throwing out, and re-organizing. Once its done, one can sigh with relief, and get back to the fun process of creation. And hopefully do a better job of keeping things organized.....