I remember when I was new to Blythe and I found all the information very overwhelming. I couldn’t tell the difference between an SBL and an RBL, I had no clue what “boggling” or “gaze lifting/gaze correction” was. Here’s a round up of some of my beginner friendly articles on Blythe:

A Beginner’s Guide to Blythe is an irregularly published series geared towards people who are new to Blythe or people who just want to get some information about their favourite dolls. The series began with an overview of the different types of dolls (all the full-sized dolls [Kenners, Neos, ADGs], the Middies, and the Petites).

If you’re new to Blythe, you might be confused about the various words that the members of the Blythe community use. What is a FBL? How is that different from an SBL? What part of the doll is a T-bar and do all dolls need a gaze lift? If any of those terms confused you, head on over to Blythe 102: Commonly Used Abbreviations and Words (recently updated to include RBL+).

Dolls can melt. It’s a crazy thing that can happen and you might not realize that it was even possible! Check out my article entitled The Cause of Doll “Melt” – I include the common reasons for why the plastic of dolls can melt and deform.

I have a very tongue-in-cheek flow chart that goes through the thought process of answering the question of “Should you get a new Blythe?” – just something for a giggle and to put a smile on your face.

For many people, Blythe is a personal and very internet-based hobby. Check out some of my suggestions for Protecting Yourself Online. Doll people may be amazing, but it doesn’t hurt to take measures to protect yourself online by not putting too much of yourself out there!

One of my favourite things about the Blythe community is when people share their photos of the dioramas, room boxes, and general ‘scenes’ with the cute miniature furniture, the tiny dishes and food stuffs, and the animals. A favourite, that I do not own, is a certain Re-Ment cat in a litter box – hilarious! This love of seeing photos of amazing doll room set-ups led me down a rabbit hole of looking at miniature blogs and into the fascinating world of traditional doll houses. The 1:12 world is a beautiful and detailed place, but it is also much too small for Blythe as she is defiant at 1:6 scale – playscale, just like her fellow doll Barbie.

That doesn’t, however, stop me from being terribly fascinated with the world of traditional doll houses and all there is to learn about doll houses and making miniatures. I personally own a fair bit of books on creating doll houses and the furnishings that go into them. Much like my love for sewing patterns/books for Blythe, these books often serve more as eye candy than as how-to guides as I don’t get to the point where I want to pull out a saw and a sheet of plywood to cobble together something that resembles a room box. These books are amazing, and I am always in awe of how detailed a miniature world can be.

So while I currently don’t have the time (or funds, or space) to put together miniatures and a house for my Blythes, I do have inspirational materials on my shelf that are really beautiful. The majority of books and other resources out there are primarily for 1:12 scale world, but I figured that things can be extrapolated and still used to make things from the playscale world as the instructions for how to put something together still applies. I feel that the dollhouse books pull together many of my interests together: dolls, miniatures, crafting/DIY-ing, and a love for good photography in good books.

This accidental collection does make me very happy though, mostly because it makes me thing that such things re potentially possible one of these days!

Do you have a doll house or a room box? How much of it (and it’s furnishings) did you create yourself?

I have many collections that came to be because of Blythe. The shoes, the ribbons, the miniatures. I’m sure if I really thought about it, I could even connect washi tape to Blythe (I originally created an Instagram account due to Blythe friends, and some Blythe friends post photos of their washi tape collections and planner addictions, which led to my washi tape collection – that was a very easy connect-the-dots for me, actually!). And then there are the doll clothing patterns.

Let us forget that I rarely, rarely sew for Blythe, and how I’m kind of bad at sewing in straight lines, and the necessarily supplies add up when it comes to considering prices (the thread and the notions and the fabric, oh my!) – and then there are the patterns.

I’m not even entirely sure how this collection came to be, I’m sure it started off innocently enough and eventually just ballooned out of proportions with my sewing capabilities. But ballooned it did and now I have way too many Doll Coordinate Recipe books for someone who has a sewing machine that is gathering dust more often than not. I am, without a doubt, a collector of doll clothing pattern books – a curator of my own sewing pattern bookshelf (or part of a bookshelf). I do love flipping through them though, and gathering inspiration of what I would one day like to accomplish and create. These books have beautiful photography of what the pattern should look like. Should being the operative word as when I have attempted some patterns in the past, they have not turned out quite like I wanted them to…

Do you buy clothing patterns for Blythe? (Or Middie, or Petites?)

With the cooler weather, I think cowls are a wonderful thing. They’re easier to make than scarves, and it’s a lot easier to do things without the ends hanging into things (or food). Somehow this also translates to cowls being a good idea for Blythe, because this is an easy beginner’s knitting project. All you need to know is how to count, how to cast on, how to do the knit stitch, and how to bind off. And if you don’t know how to do any of those things, you can learn online at Knitting Help (except for counting).

You will need:

• Knitting needles (2.75mm/US2)
• Fingering or sock weight yarn (small amount, I used Knit Picks Palette)
• Scissors
• Yarn needle

Directions:

Cast on 12 stitches (I use the long-tail cast-on).

Knit back and forth (garter stitch) until the piece is 15cm (~6″).

Bind off. Seam the edges together.

Turn cowl right-side-out.

Slide it up Blythe’s legs, be careful around her hands (don’t get her fingers hooked into the stitches!), and have it around her neck.

With this past weekend being both BlytheCon UK and Blythe Fest, I can’t help but wish I had the funds to travel. Not just for the Blythe conventions (although that is a fantastic reason to make a trip as well), but just to travel and see the world in general. Funds have always been the primary reason why I don’t travel as much as I would like to. Sure, I’ve gone on road trips but never for too long. I’d love to travel to Europe again (I was last in Europe in 1999 and so much has changed!) and I would love to go to Australia and Middle Earth New Zealand!

Storefront window in Hong Kong.

When one considers my current financial status, such trips are a bit of a pipe dream. Despite all of that, it would be fantastic to go to Europe again and be there when it’s BlytheCon Europe, or BlytheCon UK. Perhaps take a super long flight to Australia (all the way across the Pacific, and then south) and pop in for Blythe Fest between going to tourist attractions. I’d also just love to go back to Asia (and stop by BlytheCon Japan, perhaps?!) and go to real brick-and-mortar shops to choose a Blythe doll and buy one in person. It’s so much better than obsessively checking a tracking number when you can just hold the box in your hand from point of purchase.

In the mean time, I will stick with the local day trips and having a doll in my bag for when I go places, because you never know when the need to photograph a doll with strike!

For those that do attend BlytheCons and its derivatives, do you often stay long enough to soak in the sights? Or is it more of a get-in, BlytheCon, get-out? When I went to BlytheCon Seattle in 2014, I was unable to afford to stay longer than that one day and I keep meaning to go back down to Seattle for a weekend but just keep pushing it off (although now I have a much better excuse, because the Canadian dollar is doing so poorly against the American dollar).

Eden’s wearing: dress/Plastic Fashion, helmet/chelleshocks.