Dolly Clothes

I recently had the chance to make some Blythe doll clothes for my partner in a craft swap on Craftster.  I had big plans for an outfit plus coordinating accessories, including an embroidered headband and a necklace, but alas, I ran out of time, so I just made this skirt and t-shirt.  This is my Blythe doll, Bonnie modeling the clothes before I sent them off to Florida.

The t-shirt is from a pattern from Puchi Collective.  I just happened to have a brand-new t-shirt I got for free when I bought several cartons of Coke products; the t-shirt was too small for me, which meant it was perfect to cut up for doll clothes!  I did several practice shirts, sewn on the machine, but they tended to end up with unpredictable wonky areas, so I sewed this shirt by hand.  It's so small it really didn't take long at all.  Because Blythe dolls have such gigantic heads, their shirts all open in the back, and close with snaps or velcro.  (I used snaps.)

The skirt pattern comes from a website called miseducated.  The skirt itself is very simple, so I made it special with applique and embroidery.  It is made from wool felt.

I think Bonnie needs an outfit just like this.  Now that I know the tricks to making it, maybe I'll make her a few!

Cute Outfit

I didn't intend to sew another outfit for my Blythe doll, Bonnie, so soon; but when I was working on a dog-themed heart for my heart blog, inspiration struck--I had seen dolls with headbands with an ornament of some kind... and a flat heart is an ornament...and I have cute scottie-dog fabric that would be a good doll dress...and I could put a scottie dog on the heart...and it became something I HAD to make, quick!

The dress is made from the same pattern as the one in the previous post.  The pattern includes two pockets, but I decided to make it with just one heart-shaped pocket (I wonder what a dolly would carry in her pocket?  I always have a ChapStick and a tissue in mine!)

To make the scottie shape, I simply took a scrap of the fabric with the dog on it, placed it on the black felt, and cut around it with small, sharp scissors.  I sewed the finished heart onto paw-print ribbon, and voila!  A headband! 

It looks cute, but the ribbon doesn't stay on her head very well, and the paw prints are rubbing off from being handled.  I need to come up with something better the next time I make headgear for Bonnie.

Meet Bonnie Blythe

I'm excited about something new--it's a doll named Blythe.

I first noticed Blythe dolls on the swaps board on Craftster;  the doll owners were making and swapping clothes and accessories for their Blythes.  The clothes were really CUTE, and the accessories were FUN, and I wanted to make some too!  But first I needed a doll.

Takara, the company that makes Blythe, is in Japan, and they don't distribute the dolls in the U.S.  There is only one reliable Japanese store that sells them online--Junie Moon--but the prices there are pretty high.  The best place for me to get my doll was eBay.  I started watching all the Blythe listings obsessively, and reading all I could about collecting Blythe.  It turns out that there are a lot of fake Blythes on the market (made from inferior materials), so you have to be careful who you buy from.  Within a few days I saw the particular doll I wanted--"Raspberry Sorbet"--offered by a good seller in Hong Kong; and I didn't even have to play the bidding game, since she was offered as a "Buy it Now" purchase.

While waiting impatiently for her arrival, I continued reading about Blythe collecting.  There are Blythe blogs and online Blythe forums, and there is even a big Blythe convention taking place in Texas in August:  Blythecon 2012!  (Maybe I'll go next year?!) 
I also decided on a name for the doll:  Bonnie. 

Earlier this week, the mailman rang my doorbell, and I had to sign for the package.  I expected it to take two weeks or more, but she got here in about a week--wow!  The box was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string, and it was strangely pristine--I've gotten local packages that look like they've been on a long sea voyage, but this didn't have a mark, dent or crease!  Removing the brown paper revealed a plain brown corrugated cardboard box, and inside that was the prize:

And here she is (below), right out of the box and wearing her full ensemble.

I love the hat, coat and boots she came with; but the shirt and shorts she's wearing needed to be ditched fast.  Time to sew an outfit--yay! 

There are a ton of sewing patterns for Blythe online, most notably at Puchi Collective. That's where I found the pattern for this empire waist dress (below).  This is the first time I've sewn doll clothes since I had a Barbie as a pre-teen!  I chose these fabric colors to compliment Bonnie's hair and eyes.  Did I mention that Blythe dolls have changeable eye colors?  They do!  Each doll has four different sets of eyes, and they change when you pull a string on the back of her head.  I'll get busy sewing something to go with each color to show you in the coming weeks.

You might have noticed that her head is "slightly" large in proportion to her body.  All the more reason to make cute hair accessories for her!  I'm dying to make some pretty headbands and fascinators.  She also needs a bed... and a chair...and a table...and a house... and a...

If anyone reading this is a Blythe owner, I'd love to hear about your girl!  Leave a comment below or send me an email (leslieandersen4@gmail.com).