chinnie totes
chinchilla + silkscreen + fabric
Cute, yet functional! I did the drawings for the tote bags tonight; just need the time to mock up a tote bag muslin before we buy all the supplies. I'm rather fond of the light blue & red color combo; the bag will be blue, and the print, lining, and handles will be red.
silkscreen fabric
Steve and I are thinking of a fabric-related project, concerning chinnies and silkscreening.
I might post sketches later, but it's just useful links here for now. You know, just in case you guys need a custom t-shirt for your punk garage band.
-silkscreening fabric
-fabric inks
fuzzy and blue
Felt makes bad sneakers and excellent bedroom slippers.
zines, zines, nothing but zines
Zinebook is an excellent resource on producing, printing, and marketing your own zine: http://www.zinebook.com/directory/fanzine-help.html
These links by the editors of Bust are pretty good for printing and mailing:
http://www.zinebook.com/resource/printbust.html
http://www.zinebook.com/resource/mailbust.html
The top level page even has info on creating comics and ezines, how neat.
What do you think about the title Dress*Up, for a doll zine?
momoko first outfit
Momoko models her chic new couture outfit, a cargo pant and ruffly v-neck sleeveless top.
I finished the pants this past weekend and over the last few days put together a feminine top to contrast with the boxiness of the pant (so she didn't have to take topless pictures for the blog ... yesterday, someone got here by googling "naked momoko" -_-)
Details on construction: pants have a fly and real pockets with flaps. Those tiny pieces took a really long time to hand sew. Shirt is sleeveless, with bias binding at neck and shoulders, gathers under the chest, and a ruffle at the bottom. It closes at the back with velcro. Things to fix for next time? Make pant front lower-waisted, and the shirt looser and longer.
lava burst
Looks like the mini-orchid is happy. It lives on the bathroom windowsill and gets soaked in water every few days. Each flower is a little smaller than the tip of my index finger.
We got this one at the farmer's market last fall, in bloom, so it took almost a whole year for the thing to bloom again. This particular orchid is called lava burst (puanani).
towel pants
I tried to start those momoko cargo pants a few days ago, by making some simple measurements and guessing at the correct shape. And if I had bothered finishing, I would've ended up with bunchy pants that were too short. Oops.
So, I started working on it the right way, by creating a pattern from all the right sorts of measurements around the body. Sue's Tiny Costumes is a good resource on drafting doll clothing (although a little confusing on what specific measurements are.) These two sites helped with that, explaining what things like hip depth! and waist arc! mean.
First, I drafted a basic pants pattern, following her measurements very closely. This will give me something I can create all different sorts of pants from. I mocked it up with paper towel (a muslin, in dressmaking terms) as suggested by another doll site. The waist hung a bit loosely, so I fixed the pattern by adding a dart, and then drafted a cargo pant pattern off of that.
basic and cargo pant drafts
After that was yet another towel muslin of the cargo pant butt part, since I had added a waistband and a fly. The hip curves were a bit bubbly, so I think I've fixed it in the pattern, but I'm not sure if the fly will work correctly. We'll see after I start sewing it!
front & back views of cargo
leggggs
Interesting tidbits from fashion illustration class:
Legs, American style:
original from unknown source
Legs, Japanese style:
original from unknown source
The bottom set of legs are more petitely proportioned versus the Amazonian American legs and oh-so-demurely closed at the knees.
kokoso launch
Steve & I are starting our own business on the side, mainly for website consulting and implementation, but we'll also cover software and graphic design. We're open to working with clients long distance, so tell your friends and family! Our lovely webpage is here, done by yours truly, and you can see funny drawings of us on the about page. We may also create products for sale under this company; fun stuff like our chinniesoaps from last year.
We're calling it "Kokoso", which is a nonsense word that just so happens to mean "coconut" in Esperanto. Random, eh?
For those interested in nuts and bolts of a business, here's a list of the boring stuff we are having to do for it to be legit -- sign partnership contract, file fictitious business name, get permits and licenses from county and city, file for an EID from federal, run an ad in a local paper, open bank account... and of course, almost every item comes with a fee.
fabrics from eddies
Was in Mt. View for dinner today, and hopped by Eddie's Quilting Bee right before they closed. The nice thing about places that sell quilt fabric is that they always have small rolls of them available in baskets, and this particular place sold smaller yardages than other fabric stores (1/8 yard vs. usual 1/4 yard). The browns and black will be for Momoko pants, the speckly blue and red for a little top, and patterned green for lining a coat in the future.
my momoko
Guess what came in the mail today, dum dum dum. My very own momoko! In a matte black box with shiny silver letters. I am now blissfully happy. The package came at work, so I couldn't open her there, but I did take peeks at the box every now and then. Here are lots of pictures, per nokii's request:
She came with a gothic lolita type outfit of white eyelet fabric and lace made up into a poofy skirt with kimono sleeves. A little crinoline skirt helped poof up that skirt, and check out those mile high zippered and buckled boots. There was also a funky waist-cincher, sort of a cross between an obi and a corset.
After I was done looking at her, I followed the time-honored tradition of girls worldwide, and took off all her clothes. Hehe, she had a tiny little pair of white underwear.
You can see poor momoko is not happy being naked. But, you can also see that she has an articulated body, so you can bend it into more poses than Barbie ever could manage. I wonder how far I can rotate the joints before I accidentally break her. (Once, Ken tried to do some karate kicks and now he is a sad gimpy man.)
I put some clothes back on her for modesty's sake, and took down the weird pigtails (trying some saran wrap around the hair to see if that'll help the curlicues stay down). I am now planning all sorts of fun street fashion clothes -- a trip to Jo-ann's will be happening soon. (Cargo pants and cute tank top, too ambitious?)
dollybird doggies
I specifically wanted to go to Japantown this past weekend to pick up a copy of that doll magazine I had admired a while ago (sad, I know!). I picked up Dollybird issue 3, the only one they had there. The theme for the issue was "Sexy?", and inside, there were articles, photo spreads, and patterns for pinup poster outfits, corsets, and babydoll dresses. Very well designed, and I especially liked the spread of all the dolls lined up by height -- I'm a sucker for those kinds of layouts.
Inside the magazine, there was also an insert on a little red dog named Mitten, as well as a pattern on how to make him. Adorable! I had to try! Especially after having seen Loobylu's very very cute version of it.
Unfortunately, I first tried with this fuzzy blue fake fur I had leftover from an old Carebear costume, and the poor little doggie that came out was very sad. His fur kept clumping off while I was making it, and those tiny legs just would not unstick when I tried turning him right-side-out. He also keeps falling on his face when I try to stand him up.
The second try was with random bits of black felt, and you can see the legs came out much nicer (even though it was still really hard to turn something that tiny right-side-out). He doesn't look much like a dog though ... more like a little black lamb. Why?
See the size of that pen cap relative to the dogs?
collared ruffles 2
This seems to be turning into a sewing blog ... but I only have so much free time! In class, the teacher helped us check the fit of our patterns. Remember the trace pattern I made? I pinned together the seams and darts where it would be sewn for a front and back piece, and tried it on. A lot of people find that they have to adjust the length or width, change the shoulder slope, or alter the darts for a higher/lower/bigger/smaller boob than what the pattern dictates. I got lucky, and everything was perfect, straight from the pattern! This means less work for me (yay) but also less learning about how to adjust patterns (boo).
In these lovely blurry pictures, I hadn't pinned the center line of the trace pieces to my tank top yet, but you can see that the fit looks fine.
