A Mound of Patterns

I am digging out from under a mound of patterns for dolls, fabric for dolls, and accessories for dolls. I have almost found the surface of the bed that serves as a cutting table when a cardboard mat is placed on it. If I stack all the commercial doll clothing patterns in a closet, I might die from the avalanche when the door opened. We are not counting hand drawn patterns or indie patterns.

Once upon a time, a pair of denim pants tried to strangle me around the waist. These hybrid jeans had a waistband that was half elastic and came up too high. I tossed them into a To Do pile and ignored them for months. A couple of months ago I chopped off the waistband and a bit more, and the pants fell off. Today I took in the waist and gave the pants a band cut on the bias. Better. Not great, but better. They neither fall off nor strangle.

When sweatpants the same color as some I own and love turned up at a 2nd hand store, I couldn't leave them there, even though they were much too small. Enlarging sweatpants takes time, fabric,  and a seam ripper. The stash spat out a cotton knit that does not scream too loudly with the lavender of the sweatpants, and I was able to piece in a stripe at each side. I had to remove elastic at waist and ankles, add strips, and put in more elastic. This is not worth the bother until you look at how much all-cotton sweatpants cost compared to acrylic and polyester sweatpants. Costly and comfy vs. cheap and itchy. The pants will never be lovely, but will always be comfy, unlike clothing with more than 20 percent polyester. I tried to take a picture, but the pants refused to cooperate.

Yes, it is possible to find 2nd hand pants that fit pretty well for a good deal less than it costs to buy the fabric to make my own, provided I search through several thrift stores and am not terribly picky about color. On the other hand, once I have the fabric (and I have a basement full of copier paper boxes of fabric), there is nothing to stop me from using a tried-and-true pattern to make pants day or night. I want corduroy pants, but I have a box of velveteen. I now have a pattern that fits tolerably well but cannot be considered tried and true. Progress has been made.

Traditions of the Season

Dashing through the malls? No.

Candy canes? No.

Staying up all night to finish sewing or baking something? Yes.

On Wednesday, Dec. 14, eighty dolls in sizes from 6 to 18 inches left my house and were delivered to Catholic Social Services. Why do I redress dolls? I can turn junk dolls into nice toys. My nieces and nephews aged out on me, so I do it for kids I don't know and will never meet. The idea of children without toys in the darkest days of the year worries me. This is romantic and naive. I saw a parent walk away from CSS with two trash bags of gifts he'd chosen for his family. Next time I will close my eyes and preserve my illusion that each parent is choosing one or two things for each child. 

One would think I'd be tired of making doll clothes, but a few dolls missed the cutoff. I'll save them for another year. The nude vinyl Madeline with 2 books needs a dress and red tie to go with her shoes, socks, and hat. A one-legged doll needs mending, as does a doll with bad hair. Vampire Ken's 1980's clothing is obscenely tight and his cape won't stay on. Generic Male Action Figure requires a chef's apron and barbecue mitt to go with his chef's hat. He can transform into Dentist Guy with a change of shirt. Camo Max is still fussing about his shirt and demands mossy green socks as well. I'd like to give him a mossy green gag.

I'm not the consumer the ads are aimed at. Years ago I went into a mall pre-Christmas and was scarred for life: the interminable caroling, the cloying odors, the hordes of people, the same merchandise at all 240 stores! The only stores I go into between Thanksgiving and Christmas any more are grocery and 2nd hand stores. I shop in my basement for fabric to turn into tote bags; nearly all of us take our own bags into stores, and even fabric totes eventually wear out. And I make cookies, because this allows me to sample several kinds. They get given away and do not stick around to tempt me into sugar shock and worse. 

My family is on the odd/eccentric side of Christmas as well. My mother says that anything that cannot be thrown away after a reasonable amount of time, or eaten, is not a good gift. My brother claims that anything he really wants is so specialized and expensive that he can't ask for it as a gift, so he gives it to himself and lets the rest of us supply what he really needs: new socks. A cousin believes we can never have too many refrigerator magnets. What do they want and expect? Christmas cards.

I haven't mailed Christmas cards I wrote out 2 years ago. It's the last week before Christmas, and I have not started to construct a good many things that I had thought I'd get around to. I avoid the entire Christmas mail-by rush and mail presents after Christmas. Think of it as my New Year's celebration. Who knows, I might get it done by April 1.

What do I want for Christmas? Space. I'd like to see the floors in my basement and garage. I'd like to move the car into the garage and not have to dig it out after the rare Dayton snows. Oh, I know! I'd like an e-mail mailbox with more mail than spam. Send me emailed greetings and a silly joke, and I'll be happier than if you spent hours searching out the quintessential wonderfulness. 

Christmas Sewing at Clutter Haven

Note: if the pants you need to alter are black and you live with cats, you will not get them altered fast enough to prevent them from turning gray with cat hair. I pieced in waist adjustments at the side seams with wide grosgrain the precise same shade of black. If you think that is not an accomplishment, think again. There are greenish blacks, brownish blacks, gray blacks and navy blacks as well as coal black. By the time I had marked the hems, the pants were fuzzy. By the time the hems were done, the new and unworn pants looked like dust rags.

I try to be organized so that I can do my sewing in short spurts, but it may be a lost cause. All the in-between times allow me to lose  pieces. Why do I have 3 bodices and 2 skirts for 3 dolls? Why do I have 10 pairs of pants and 3/4 of a shirt?

Putting the pre-Christmas sewing in the sunniest room in the house was a tactical error. My mother came for a visit. That's the room she sleeps in. When she's out of the room, we are together. I'm frustrated. I have stacks of boy doll pants cut out. They've been moved. When I find them, I can't use the sewing machine. The stack gets lost again. 

I borrowed back a machine I had lent, but forgot to get its box of accessories. Half the stuff I can do with the newer machine is not possible with the one I borrowed, and I've had to set it up in a room that has lousy lighting at night, a room that I've never before used at night. I managed to sew hook & loop fasteners to a lot of things. The older machine refuses to sew knits. Just eats them into the hole in the faceplate and growls at me. Half the shirts are knits, and itty bitty garments at that. Argh.  I can't bear to think of what it did to tiny necklines.

There are recycled 4x9 envelopes into which I've stuffed every pattern for dolls I developed over far too many years. Many are dupes, because I take patterns out to use and some never find their way back to the original envelopes. Commercial patterns have pictures on the fronts as reminders. All I wrote is doll sizes: toddler 10 inch, skinny 8 inch, Lady 18 inch. I think I need subcategories and sub envelopes. The last time I tried that, I had to recreate the entire series of patterns.

I am suffering from TMS: Too Much Stuff. I keep thinking that I ought to organize it and give some away, but when I spend time sorting, acquisitive lust takes over. My clutter is much better organized, though.

2nd Hand Dolls , New Clothes

If it's November, it  must be doll sewing time.  I plan and sew clothing for dolls to be donated to Catholic Social Services.

Second hand girl dolls are most often found nude; boy dolls are often found with a pair of pants and nothing else. All dolls get washed, and face paint is touched up. Theoretically I could count the number of  dolls and make the same outfit in a variety of colors. One year I made a dozen karate outfits. Yes, I cut them all one day, sewed the next and dressed them the third day, but it was a grind and it was boring.

Boy dolls (more properly action figures) usually have camouflage pants, all in different camo patterns and colors, and need camo shirts. I bought a mossy green nylon and all the camo boys are getting mossy t-shirts. Live with it, kids. Most of the dolls are 12 inches, but  Mattel's Ken is less bulked up than that company's Max Steele, and Max is smaller than Hasbro's GI Joe. Joe is smaller than a couple of male dolls from Formative. Those dolls are so much wider that it is easier to cut down patterns from 14 inch dolls than to widen those for 12 inch dolls. This years crop includes a fireman, some military men, some Louts About Town (droopy drawers and bomber jackets), and an Earring Ken with a vampire cape

 I  like to alter or incorporate bits and pieces from commercial and home made outfits which landed in second hand stores  or in bags of scrap fabric left on my doorstep. These clothes may have outlasted the dolls they were meant for, but there are so many dolls in so many sizes that judicious use of Velcro fastening will make most wearable. Then all I have to do is fill in the gaps with some of my standards.

The girl dolls range from 6 to 12 inches. Even dolls of the same height have significant differences in arm length and waist sizes, but I can make multiples and cover up the  difference with judicious use of Velcro. I have tried and true patterns I developed, a wrap skirt,  sleeveless blouse, and pants. I also have a vast and terrifying collection of commercial patterns for dolls, but I tend to stick to a couple of tried and true Simplicity doll patterns. Their ease is such that any child can play with  the clothing. Some of the newer patterns are for adult dexterity.

No matter what I do, there are some dolls who insist on individual treatment. This year it was Get Real Girl, a multi-jointed female action figure who came out about 10 years ago. I wanted to stuff her into a t-shirt and gathered skirt, but the  doll would not cooperate. When issued, Skylar of Get Real Girls was a snowboarder. Nothing less than  sweatshirt and pants would do, she informed me. I spent more time on her t-shirt, pants and jacket than I did on clothing for a dozen other dolls. Also had more fun.

I wrote this 4 weeks ago, hoping to persuade the camera to cooperate. It has not.

Sewing from My Stash

There are online seamsters who sew something new every week, but I'm not that sort. While I need clothing and own more fabric than I can make up and wear, I approach each project with the speed of an arthritic tortoise. 

When I'm sewing for myself, I'm very picky. I rummage through my patterns and winnow things down to 20 or more possibles. Deciding on a fabric is also a production. My basement is full of boxes with fabric. Some fabrics are bits and pieces, but a few boxes are marked "Dress and Pant lengths." I haul upstairs a bag of patterns and a box of fabrics, and cogitate at length. Eventually everything gets taken back to the basement, and sometimes is even returned to the correct places. More rarely,  I've even cut and sewn something.

Jacket with darts, but before shortened sleeves and sleeve linings.

The magenta plaid jacket has simplified things. Refashioned with lots of darts in the body and linings for sleeves, it is my focus. My stash yielded two moderately astounding fabrics. The brighter one will be a jumper or a dress, mostly because I need a success and dresses are easier to fit than pants. It's lightweight cotton and rayon, and will require a lining. I've settled on an eye popping scarlet batiste because I've already got it and won't need to visit the fabric store where temptation lies.

The darker fabric is heavier weight, and will be pants when I achieve a reliable pants pattern. I approach each attempt at pant making with great trepidation because of  past unhappiness. There is hope. Last spring I happened upon Make Your Own Clothes by Marie Clayton and PatternMaker, a book and CD combo, gave it the pants test, and discovered that the wearable muslin for pajama pants needed only minor adjustments. 

Despite this success, it took awhile for me to approach the software again. This time, I mastered the "move" command, and achieved better use of paper. It took me a couple of weeks to approach cutting the pants after I printed out the jeans pattern and taped the bits together, and even longer to baste them together. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that once again, alterations will be minor! The waist is too big and the back rise is a hair too short, but I can fix both things by redrafting the back yoke. Right now I'm croggling at the near-success. Soon I will undo the basting, put in the zipper,  and inch toward a wearable result.

Technically, the pants are "jeans cut." The fabric is not a twill or denim, but an olive greenish cotton waffle weave from the clearance counter somewhere. I'm not cutting decorative back pockets. My rump doesn't need the attention. Belt loops? Don't be silly. The last time I wore a belt was 15 years ago. If this pattern works, I will use  jeans cut for many many pairs of pants, I hope.

Make Your Own Clothes  came out 3 years ago, and is still available in stores and online for $25 or less. If you have no patience with commercial patterns and passed cutting and pasting in kindergarten, this book /CD will work for you. It is a scaled down, training wheels version of PatternMaker software. I don't think I'm a serious enough seamster to blow the budget on the full version, but things may change.

Fur Magnets, or Why Magenta Is My Neutral

Wardrobe advice from 1940 to date demands neutrals and a Little Black Dress. Whoever made these rules probably had a personal maid to take care of clothing. Black is not a neutral color; black is a magnet for pet fur. All the suits in stores for women seem to be black, burgundy, dark green, or charcoal. Fur magnets, all of them. Why would anyone want to own  and wear something that will acquire every piece of lint in three counties?

I disappear when I wear neutrals such as  beige, tan, caramel, and ecru. When I wear black, I acquire so much fur I have fuzzy edges. This is not the look I was going for. Some people have such colorful personalities that they can wear black and tan and still be vibrant. I'm not one of them.

Clothing ought to provide a few clues  about the wearer, other than the fact that they live with animals. I try to conform but can't quite manage it. Every time I read about LBDs, I have to translate it into my wardrobe experience which is no black, no dresses, precious few dress pants and two pairs of jeans. 

I want purple, magenta, teal and burnt orange. I own pant lengths of fabrics in those colors. (Actually, I have no pant lengths in orange. A person has to draw a line somewhere.)

The line stopped at magenta with a black pinstripes about an inch apart. (I might have called the color fuschia, but dictionaries confuse that with the flower fuchsia, and I'm really not up for long discussions with  a spellchecker.) By a happy coincidence, a trip to the thrift store yielded a magenta plaid jacket. Its boring boxy shape was easily modified to that of a 1940's suit jacket. If I  shorten and line the sleeves, it will be a very satisfying piece of clothing.

Chez moi, magenta is a neutral. I have turtleneck jerseys, mock turtles and even scoop-necked Tees in magenta. Not all the same shade or intensity of magenta, but you can tell it is the same family.

I took photos to go with this, but the computer does not wish to recognize the storage device.

Red, Bloody Red

Oh, the horror! Every unworn item in my closet is red. All my "new" clothing is second hand,  but why am I giving house room to things I don't wear?  

Sometimes I am seduced by fabric. Oh hey, that's linen! Linen is comfortable! Color didn't matter. It was linen, glorious breathable linen, and the sun outside was brutal. 

Sometimes intricate seaming  persuades me that living without the skirt is not to be borne. The only way to make it work for a short person is to eliminate a good many of those delicious seams. Feh!

 And sometimes, I think an alien being was practicing mind control on me in the store, because I'll never wear red linen pants with a striped and embroidered top. Too costumey! Bring on the swansdown mules and cat's-eye glasses, and we'll have loungewear circa 1956.

A Guatemalan jacket in roughly woven, riotously striped cotton is something I might actually wear. It sat in the closet until I took it apart, cut it down, and put it back together.

Sadly, you can't see the seams.

What about the skirt with multiple godets and fascinating seamwork? Once upon a time things were only 6 inches too long. This skirt is a foot too long. It will lose all its flare, not to mention flair, if I cut that much from the bottom. I must remove the zipper, cut a foot from the top, put the zipper back in, and, I hope, decrease the waist.