It’s been a little while since I mentioned that I wanted to challenge myself to sew for my Middie dolls. I made the unfortunate challenge to myself that I would craft Kitty Brighton’s outfit by myself and that challenge didn’t go away when Lydia Melbourne joined the dolly family. I haven’t made a lot – unemployment and job searching takes a lot of time and effort, which really took away from my general crafting energy. However, I’ve found my crafting mojo and I put my sights on creating this for my dolls:

It seemed simple enough and I could figure out the steps by looking at the diagrams. If you’re stuck on directions, one great thing about the Google Translate app is that you can take a photo and then select the text to have it translated. You do have to keep in mind that Google Translate will translate text very directly and literally, so the translation might not make complete sense. But if you just need a general hint or push in the right direction, it might work out for you! It works better on printed text than handwritten text in terms of recognizing words.

Some things I noted – the body of the coat is a bit tight when Lydia is wearing a knit dress (it may be due to the thickness) and the sleeves are just a touch too long. The pattern gives fairly generous seam allowances and I did them a bit smaller than the pattern called for, and any little bit extra in length is obvious when it comes to tiny doll clothing. But still, it is fairly cute! I still need to add button holes and beads for buttons, but I’m really pleased with it!

I hand sewed this felt coat. From start to finish (start being tracing the pattern onto a separate piece of paper), it took approximately 2 episodes of Gilmore Girls (approximately 85 minutes). I’m definitely going to make the Blythe-sized version of this, I think it’d be cute as a winter ‘wool’ peacoat!

The pattern book I’m using is often referred to, in English, as the Hand-Sewn Doll Coordinate Recipe. I used the Google Translate photo option and it translated the text as “Hand-Stitched”, which is fairly close to Hand-Sewn – you’ll get more search results with Hand-Sewn over Hand-Stitched if you want to get your hands on the same book! The Hand-Sewn DCR has seven basic patterns for each doll size (Middies are the 20cm size, Blythe wear the 22cm size): dress, top, pants/shorts, skirt, romper, coat, and cape. There are photograph tutorials on pattern usage, it’s quite handy and easy to understand with just the photographs. It is very beginner-friendly! There are also some accessories patterns like head kerchiefs, hats, eye masks, bags, and socks.

Lydia Melbourne’s wearing: knit dress (chelleshocks), coat (chelleshocks).

Part of the challenge with dressing my Middies is knowing that I challenged myself to develop their wardrobe myself. This means no buying Middie-sized clothes. If I happen to buy a bag of doll clothes at a thrift store and something happens to fit Middies, that’s a little different (because I was likely aiming for something to fit the Neos), or if I receive a Middie-sized gift – that’s okay too! I don’t have to craft shoes by hand (thank goodness!), but anything clothing wise needs to be made by me for the most part.

Sometimes I kick myself for issuing myself this challenge. But the other day I was looking through one of my Japanese doll clothing pattern books and I pulled this one off the shelf:

I bought it when I was in Hong Kong in 2012 because I went searching for a craft store that carried Japanese pattern books (score!). It does have Middie-sized patterns, as well as Neo-sized items (and some even patterns for an even taller doll, but let’s pretend those don’t exist). Felt is relatively inexpensive, and I could learn how to hand sew a touch better (straighter!), so I decided that I would make the Middie-sized items from this book to start off with.

Fingers crossed I don’t end up poking my fingers too much with the needle!

So this going to be an incredibly embarrassing post. You remember way back when I challenged myself to work on a wardrobe for my Middie Blythe doll, Kitty Brighton? (If you don’t, it was back in April…) Back then, this is all Brighton had for clothes (and shoes):

Jogging some memories now, I bet! I told myself that I would make her wardrobe by myself. So no buying things, except for shoes. And what have I managed to get done from April until now?

Two nearly identical dresses. Both knitted.

I’m a bad dolly owner, poor thing should really go into Dolly Protective Services. Hopefully the next update will be better, and she’ll have more than dresses to wear. Or at least another dress to wear. I’m so bad at this! Hopefully the next update in a couple of months will be a lot more fruitful for her.

Kitty Brighton is the only Middie currently living at the BlytheLife Headquarters. She is a stock Jackie Ramone (I don’t trust myself to do very much customization on the big Blythes, I’m not able to fiddle around with the innards of her little Middie head!) and she has a woefully small wardrobe. So one of my (new?) goals is to focus on building her a wardrobe. Some things that I’ve have decided that I will do include:

• Knitting and crocheting her some cardigans, hats, and/or dresses.
• Sewing her some clothes (e.g. pants, dresses – the thought of sewing sleeves puts me off)
• Finding her some more shoes.

I know that there are some amazing creators of tiny Middie-sized clothing out there, but it’s sort of a personal challenge for myself as well. As she is my only Middie, I don’t have to worry about clothing more than one doll – which is a blessing in itself. While I’d love to get my hands on that adorable Yellow Marshmallow Middie (who doesn’t have yellow hair…?), it’s just not in the cards for me at  the moment (unfortunately…). So instead of thinking of the Middies that are being released, that I love, and that I cannot afford to bring into the family right now, I focus on wardrobe building for the Middie that I do have!

This is all that Brighton has right now, seriously:

And the poor thing doesn’t really get her stock boots all to herself because they also fit her big sisters. I will hopefully have an update soon of how much I’ve been able to make for her! Hopefully a few little projects here and there will start to add up to a cute little closet full of custom-made goodies for her!