DollsArtCats

Last January, when K was here, we discussed what the perfect bjd would be. In general, K's answer would be "any tiny cute thing", and mine would be "Huge princess Barbie I can sew for". We did find an overlap in the person of Tauriel. I would be the custodian of the large "Tauriel" bjd, and K could design clothes for her. Also, there was a good chance that once I had done a small version of a dress, I could take my expertise and scale it up for Cosplay Elf K. So I looked around. Originally I thought maybe an Iplehouse girl would work, but Marilyn (Iplehouse Jessica) seemed vaguely resentful of the project and I wanted someone who could sit around in half-finished clothes but in persona all the time, and who I wouldn't be petrified of sticking a pin into. And just at the same time Impldoll had a new series of Looks Like Elves dolls (My minty Midshipman Christopher Kipling is from that series as well, which is why he has elf ears. The Minty color i...

It went from ice on the pond yesterday morning, to having the suction cup on the window snowflake heat up enough to have it pop off the window-- and hit the floor with a bang and scatter little bits of crystal everywhere. It's above 60 degrees outside right now and the cat has spent most of the morning sitting on the back porch, watching birds and looking at the grass. I even opened a window and got a start on cleaning out the pond. I also discovered that ants love powdered sugar--J made some cookies last night and I thought that I had gotten up all the crumbs from the floor, but I was wrong, and this morning it looked like Disneyland on Memorial Day weekend. But the kitchen is very clean right now and the cookies were great--linzer cookies with bunnies: I also got the horns turned around the right way on Tara, and almost finished the dress for her--I think it may need an underskirt, though. Here's Herself: I also did some fan art for K, a portrait of Kili: and a sort of ...

Silicon ones from the Internet (I will update with the link later). And here is one with no ears: (Posted for K to look at).

We ended up getting a costume pattern to make something like the rest of Tauriel's outfit--the plaid belt you see here is the back of what will be the "real belt", which will be made of the same soft pleather the bracers are made of. The pattern was designed to be easy to sew but I hated the way they handled the waist elastic, and be sure you buy single fold , not double fold, 7/8 bias tape for the casing or you will be messed up. The belt and bracers pattern parts are cool, though. K did most of the work cutting out the squishy jersey fabric, and I just assembled. The pattern makes the skirt long, and then expects you to just cut it to whatever length you want; and it's good to get fabric that doesn't need hemming as the pattern assumes you won't put in a skirt hem on this view. The other views would make a cute nightgown or even a crop top (it has some Daenarys stuff put in there as well as the "coincidentally looks like Tauriel" version A. G...

They should have had fasteners that can be done one-handed, and the topstitching could have been smoother, but they are all done!