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A little success goes a long way

Written on July 19, 2010 at 11:45 am by Michelle
Filed under: Musings with tags:

Occasionally, I get a ‘what on earth am I doing?’ feeling when I’m sewing. Especially when it’s on a machine and I haven’t touched it in a few months (or, erm, years?). But then I find a pattern that I want to try, and it has great and clear instructions and I happened to have a new iron that’s not finicky and doesn’t make me want to throw it out the window along with some new fabric that I actually think is cute. Then I decide to give the whole ‘sewing thing’ another try, and I end up with something like this:

Empire dress #1

And while it’s not the fanciest dress ever, and everyone else has probably already tried and been successful with the pattern, it was an accomplishment for me because I followed the pattern, sewed the neckline and it didn’t come out looking wonky, and (best of all) it fits! Which is the most important part, of course.

I looked up a lot of sewing tips too, mainly on Plastic Paradise. I used a fray-stopping product on all the raw edges, I ironed the fabric before cutting, I ironed the bodice piece after inverting it and the hems for the skirt portion before sewing. I even snipped along the curved parts on the bodice so it would curve better. All in all, I think I may have caught the sewing bug!

I used the Blythe Empire Dress pattern from Puchi Collective.

What’s Up With: Looking Up Skirts?

Written on July 16, 2010 at 11:30 am by Michelle
Filed under: Musings with tags: ,

I know I’m not alone in the Blythe community as someone who brings a doll to work on occasion. I work in a cubicle, so I usually have a Blythe sitting next to my computer or sitting next to the other toys that I have on my desk. Everyone else has photographs of loved ones on their desks, or figurines, I have toys.

My coworkers are always interested in Blythe, mostly because she doesn’t look like ‘normal’ dolls (must be that giant ego, or that head). Now I’m perfectly fine with explaining to people the history behind Blythe or, as I explained to my engineering coworkers, how the eye mechanism works. What I’m not fine with is coworkers who pick up my doll and then look up her skirt or dress like it’s an everyday sort of thing to do.

Take Thursday (yesterday) for example, I got back to my desk after my lunch break and my (male) coworkers (all engineers, by the way), were at my desk and talking about my doll that I had sitting there and they were holding her with her head upwards, but the skirt of her dress was completely lifted up to expose what underwear she was wearing. Fortunately, she was wearing underwear (if it had been my Love Mission, Belarus, who goes commando, I guess they would have been even more shocked – as it was, they were pretty surprised that my Velvet Minuet, Kindred, was wearing undies).

Even my own mother has looked up the skirt of one of my dolls before. And the majority of my coworkers who notice one of my Blythes’ presence on my desk. Some people don’t even notice the pullstring or comment on the big heads before they go and turn the doll upside down to take a peek.

Has anyone else experienced this? Non-dolly people just deciding to take a look-see up the skirts or dresses of your dolls? How do you react? What do you even say to people when they do something like that? Share your experiences!

Spotlight On: Blythe Livejournal Communities

Written on July 14, 2010 at 1:10 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Article with tags: , , ,

To me, the Blythe community is pretty close-knit. If you’re part of the community, you know someone, who knows someone who knows whoever you’re wanting to buy and sell with. Which is great, because word of mouth positive references is always a good thing when you’re doing sales online and not on websites like Ebay or Etsy – where people need to have accounts and have feedback listed right then and there for you to check.

The problem comes in when you’re dealing with someone that you haven’t dealt with before, or you don’t know anyone who’s bought or sold things with this new person. That’s where Livejournal Communities come into play. There are three in particular that you should really go and check out when buying or selling to someone and for all of them, you can do searches for someone’s username.

The Dolly Deals Communities

Bad Dolly Deals – This is a community where people post up their negative interactions with other sellers. You can find out what the story was behind the transactions and if the seller was able to quickly resolve the issue (with a refund, partial refund or eventually came through with the item). If you have a negative experience with a seller, be sure to document it. Also when you’re attempting to buy something, save all of the messages passed between the two of you until the item has been received. Take screenshots, if necessary, of the original item listing and save them onto your computer.

Good Dolly Deals – Where all the happy transactions come out in the open! If you’ve had a successful purchase (or was able to successfully sell) of a doll, clothing or anything else related to the doll hobby, be sure to post it up here! It acts as positive feedback for the seller. Make sure you mention the person’s username, where you bought/sold to them (i.e. forum name, community name) and what the item was – was it a doll? stock clothing item? Be sure to share your experiences!

Failed Dolly Deals – This is a different sort of community where people post about their failed dealings. If you made an agreement for something and the other person backs out at the last moment, this would be the place to share. People who constantly flake are a pain to deal with, especially if they drag it out and lead people on. Be sure to document the correspondence and the lay out the time line for everyone when sharing your failed dolly deals!

Just so you know, you do not need to have a Livejournal account to view the postings – some people do make their posts on the Livejournal communities private, the majority of them are for public viewing. If you wish you post up your own BDD, GDD or FDD, you will have to make a Livejournal account to post it up or find the contact information of one of the administrators.

And it’s not always about selling…

So you don’t think that all the Livejournal Communities that I’m highlighting today are just about dealings and transactions gone south and haywire, there’s also one more Livejournal Community that you should check out…

The Blythe Doll Community is a place where people post up when they have new Blythe stock in their Etsy or Artfire shops, they post questions about what fits what and queries about Blythe and some people even post up when they have a doll they’re looking to sell or customized dolls they’re looking for feedback on. The people who post there also talk about when they get a new doll or post up photos of their dolls, just because.

In closing…

How often do you check out the BDD, FDD or GDD communities? Do you check out every buyer/seller that you’re trying to strike a deal with?

Rob & Sioux Headband Giveaway: The Winner!

Written on July 12, 2010 at 12:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Giveaway with tags: ,

I’m sure you’re all eagerly waiting to find out who won the two headbands made by Rob & Sioux, but I do have some things to share first!

First of all, thank you all so much for reading the first interview that I’ve done and showing your support for Rob & Sioux, I know those two really appreciate it!

There was a total of 155 entries into the giveaway. 155!

The way I organized the entries was that I opened up an Excel file and wrote down everyone’s names. If you commented, followed blythelifecom on Twitter and tweeted the information about the contest (and you let me know on the post that you did all three), you got three entries into the draw and I wrote your name three times. If you happened to tweet the information and you didn’t comment back to let me know, I’m afraid that that entry wouldn’t have counted. But if you commented at least once (and even included your Twitter username and a mention of the tweet), I would have counted that as at least one entry (two if you followed and included your Twitter username, three if you mentioned tweeting and I could verify it!).

And the winner of the fabulous pair of headbands by Rob & Sioux is…

Click to read more of this entry.

In excess of…?

Written on July 10, 2010 at 3:00 pm by Michelle
Filed under: Musings with tags: , ,

Sophie's tired of her stock outfit - 4/6 What are you in excess of? Do you have too many hats for your dolls? Too many pairs of shoes? (Wait, no one can ever have too many shoes, right?) Maybe you hoard every single doll’s stock pieces and never put them on anyone? What do you have too much of in your dolls’ wardrobes?

When I first started in the Blythe hobby, I had one Blythe doll and just the clothes that she came with. She wore her stock outfit for a few weeks before I broke out the knitting needles and made her a little sweater and then crocheted her a hat from some leftover yarn that I had lying around. Just over a year later, I have 6 dolls, 6 dolls worth of stock, a bag of shoes that I bought from a closet clean out, some Skipper outfits, some great clothes I got from organized group swaps and some clothes from a few dress designers.

So while I’m slowly building up the amount of shirts and pants and dresses that I have to go with the amount of dolls and shes that I own, there’s one thing that definitely sticks out to me as being the most abundant in my dolls’ wardrobes. Some people have a lot of dolls and not enough clothes. I would be the type who doesn’t have enough dolls nor enough clothes. But there’s just one thing that I have enough of that I kind of wish I didn’t have so many of…

For me, it’s definitely the hats. Especially the crocheted ones. Kind of like these ones…

All the little critters in a row.


This is probably because it’s my go-to project when I’m feeling like crafting something for Blythe. I’m a big fan of making the little crocheted helmets for my dolls and, as a consequence, I now have upwards of 30 of them. They also used to all fit neatly into a little cardboard box that I had for them, the lid no longer goes onto the box and stays closed. But I love making them, I like coming up with ears to put onto them, or different designs or what to embroider onto the surface of the hats. I like testing out different yarns – I was trying out a new yarn and wanted to try felting it, so I made a Blythe hate and felted it. I find Blythe hats to be relatively quick to make up and then it’s sort of like a not-quite-instant gratification.

So my question to you is…

What do you have an excessive amount of for your dolls (or do you have an excessive amount of dolls)? Did you make all of them or did you buy all of them?

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