At last: Asha! (Made To Move Barbie)

The other day I was sorting some old pics I'd saved on the hard drive and came across the first one I found of the then-rumored new body with 18 points of articulation that Mattel was claimed to be releasing soon. Well, now it's almost exactly year later, and I finally have my first Made to Move doll in hand! Asha arrived last week, courtesy of a fellow doll collector with access to a timely sale. By now I think you're all familiar with the abilities of the Made To Move body, so I'm not doing a review or anything. But of course there are pics - grainy, pseudo-nude ones.

Asha showing off her articulation while technically wearing underwear.

She came disassembled, which resulted in even more body horror than usual.

So far I've only noticed two problems: I wish that her upper arms would come in closer to her body so she could fold her arms properly, and her ankle joints probably shouldn't have passed QC: they're a bit floppy, and while that might be ok in most joints, ankles need to be tighter so they're able to carry the weight of the body without folding. A little floppiness goes a long way to severely diminishing a doll's posing ability. :( Well, luckily it can be fixed. I haven't tried the superglue trick on these kinds of exposed joints before, so I just wrapped a couple of rubber (or rather silicone) bands around them to give them more traction, and it's working so far.

Ankle joints fold at the slightest weight :(

Solution: silicon bands! Not the prettiest, but it's reversible - and it works.

Apart from that she's practically perfect - and practically glue-free! Her head is completely soft and squishy, the only trace is a small hard lump that seems to be hanging on a tuft of hair inside her head and can only be felt if you squish the head practically flat. While this is making me happy, it also makes me mad - because apparently Mattel are perfectly able to make dolls that aren't self-destructing straight out of the box! They just... choose not to??

I don't know, maybe it's time for another petition.

A blurry profile

I knew straight away I'd try to get a hold of Asha first, because I was pretty sure she'd never be sold in Sweden (sadly the AA dolls often never make it here) and I didn't have a doll with this mold. I liked her curly hair and that her hairdo was pretty realistic instead of the oceans of hair on some dolls, but apart from that I didn't have much of an opinion on her. But she quickly grew on me and now I'm completely in love with her. <3

Since she can't be wearing that neon yellow top all the time, I made her a blouse. The pattern is the blouse of a clone doll that I took apart and modified slightly. I'm often prone to perfectionism, and something that's helped me is to look at badly made massproduced doll clothes and realize that they look pretty ok, even if they aren't perfect. Hell, the clone doll's skirt is literally coming apart and I still love it.

Pictured: not quite ok, but within the acceptable range

Pictured: pretty ok. Although with some room for improvement.

I found this polka dot fabric scrap for cheap and as usual I've been hesitating to use it, because what if I waste it on something that turns out ugly? Well, my fabric crate is a mess and I couldn't find anything better, so I decided to take the plunge.

Former clone blouse; new bluose-to-be

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out: pretty ok.

Asha, on the other hand, looks like she's considering leaving this modeling job out of her resumé

It's still a bit of a mess, mainly since some of my modifications didn't turn out, and the back was mostly... missing, really, from the original blouse, so I had to figure something out and I'm not great at that.

But yeah: it's recognizable as a blouse, looks a bit like something you could buy in a shop, and the pattern is pretty. So I'm happy. Pretty ok. :)

Clone Loot: Who Wore It Best?

Side not: I always thought of this sculpt as Nichelle, partially due to Mattel's confusing naming practices, but also because it makes the doll look a liiitle bit like she's about to sneeze: slightly wrinkled nose, squinting a bit, mouth open, plus sometimes they give her those angry eyebrows... But the name of the sculpt is actually Asha. But I keep thinking of her as Nichelle. But naming her that would be confusing... I think I'll compromise and call her... Neisha?

New fabric store and a shirt for Lottie

Good news: I found a fabric store that sells thin cotton fabric with cute prints by the decimeter! Not only that, but they had the exact red-and-black striped fabric I've been looking for for years. I don't know anything about the fabric business, but it's a pretty generic striped fabric so maybe it's just been continuously in production for decades? I only had a tiny square, probably from one of those discount scrap bags, and thought it would make a good Ken shirt, but I messed up when I cut it and didn't have enough for a second attempt. Well, now I know where to find it. For now I just got some cheap white cotton fabric, the thinnest I could find. It really makes a lot of difference when sewing in 1/6 scale.

While I was out and about, I took the chance to go look at the newest Lottie dolls in the flesh plastic. I'm afraid I have to report that Finn looks even more like a troll IRL, and the shoes in his fishing accessory set don't look as good as in the photos. Oh well. The Lottie doll I was mostly interested in is School Days Lottie, who comes with big black glasses and - surprise! - some kind of school uniform. The outfit looks a bit cheap unfortunately, although the backpack with the cat on it is really cute. The doll itself looks pretty much identical to the one I already have (Pandora's Box Lottie, dark brown hair and brown eyes) so I think I'll go with the Robot Girl instead if I get another one.

(Also, there's a hair care set for Lottie now. I don't know what they were thinking, since the brush has what looks like thick bunches of bristles set really far apart - it doesn't look like it would be at all suitable for doll hair. Just give the kid a comb instead!)

When I got home, I decided to take some inspiration from the less-than-inspired Lottie school uniform and use my new fabric to make a simple shirt for Lottie. I was too lazy to make a proper pattern, so it took a few failed attempts, and I never got the collar quite right. Most of the mistakes are cleverly hidden in the back though, so it's all good. The skirt is just a scrap held on with pins, and a decorative safety pin like on the dress I had when I was a kid.

Cheating with pins!

Also, here's the Dora the Explorer kitchen section from last week! The clear plastic in the oven was missing, so I just cut a replacement piece from some packaging material. Like I mentioned, the ...burners? light up when you press them, but they require those weird AAA batteries so I don't know if they're working or not. (Come to think of it, isn't it kind of weird to have a toy that actively encourages children to touch a hot stove top?)

NOOO Lottie don't touch that

Hey, guess what? I'm not dead! I just haven't been in a very dollieh mood lately. While I'm waiting for inspiration I thought I'd just pop in to assure you the zombies didn't get me (yet) and to clean out the moderation queue a bit.

In the meantime, if you're interested in sewing for dolls, I recommend visiting Dare To Dolly to look at the amazing historical outfits (from authentic patterns) she makes for her 1/3 BJDs.

Zombie's new dress

Since I'm broke and not buying any dolls this month, I thought I'd sew some clothes for the ones I already have instead. I'm to lazy/tired to wite anything tonight, but basically this was supposed to be a simple, medieval/renaissance/1840s?-ish dress suitable for a zombified peasant girl but things got out of hand a bit. Good thing zombies don't care about historical accuracy. 

Belle's dress on the left was sort of the inspiration/starting point.

Several more badly-lit photos behind the cut. 

Doll talk...

Never mind me, just talking about doll stuff... (and dumping some photos).

Fall is here, and that means it's time to dress your dolls in warm clothes and arrange them in a cosy, fall-like diorama! I'm lazy, so I just put mine (or as many as can fit) in the IKEA Huset couch and pretend it's facing a fireplace.

In which case construction paper would be a really bad choice of flooring.

The little doll on the right is Evi Love, little sister (or something?) of Steffi Love. I got her from a friend - unlike Steffi she has a great facemold, perfect for a kid doll. There's a new version now that's more bland, but I still look for them in thrift stores to mug for clothes and shoes. The clothes are usually very simple and kind of ugly - I copied the pattern of one dress and made the one she's wearing here. I tend to get stuck on details when I sew doll clothes, so to combat that I try to make something really quick and simple once in a while.

Lottie and Evi

If you squint they almost look like school uniforms - fitting, since it's fall and all!

Also, I decided to give the Super Model Bel body back to DeeDee since it fits her much better than OHC Briana Joy. I'll have to come up with something else for her.

Also, I need to buy a bigger couch.

DeeDee looks a bit cold in that summer dress, but at least she got Momoko's heavy boots.

Speaking of Only Hearts Club - I just discovered that those pink tights from the party dress fashion pack fits my Volks mini guy perfectly!

Left: Volks mini with OHC tights, Right: OHC doll

I forgot to take pic, but the dress fits him really well too. Kind of typical, considering this is my only boy doll and the one doll I thought I'd dress in something other than pink dresses for a change. Oh well, it's good news since I'm planning to rebody the OHC doll next to him on a Volks EB-mini A (if I can ever get my hands on one - they seem to be perpetually out of stock) so it's nice to know some OHC clothes will fit. Most of them are a pretty loose fit on the original body and way too big for the Volks kid. 

Oh, and I finally had a go at Disney Store Rapunzel's hair:

Yes, this is the "after".

Fabric softener, conditioner, hot water... I did manage to get it mostly untangled, but large sections are damaged beyond repair, so I'm not sure recycling it for rerooting would be worth the effort. I also had a closer look at the hip joints and it seem like switching out the legs would be harder than I thought, so maybe I'll just give her a haircut and release her into the wild again. Or I could keep her around as the resident Cousin It.

Random updates: Ken reroot, shoes for Lottie, and another sweater

Just some doll stuff that's been going on this week: 

I finally finished Ken's reroot! Well, I finished rooting about 6 months ago, but I procrastinated on the cutting and styling. Luckily I found a couple of good tutorials and it didn't turn out quite as bad as I feared. 

I took a billion photos and dumped on my Flickr, but here's the before&after: 

I don't know what I did with this picture, it just looks uncannily real somehow:

Spooky! 

I used nylon in color Nickel (at least that's what MyLittleCustoms call it) and a reroot tool since I couldn't get his head off. The thing is, I always thought it's nylon that fries easily in boiling water, but I may have gotten it wrong. This took a couple of boil perms (wrapped head in a strip of fabric, poured boiling water over it, then cold, then set to dry) to make the hair lay flat; it wouldn't have worked otherwise. 

Since the boil perm worked without seeming to damage anything, I tried it with Young Sweethearts Michael's hair too. I haven't mentioned him but I got him used and his 70s hair looked, well, like this: 

"My hair is a bird - your hot tap water treatment is ineffective!"

Using the same technique as with Ken, he now looks like this: 

Much better! 

The little 21cm Volks guy needed some more clothes in his size, so I made him a sweater. I learned a lot from the one I made for Darren and from stuff I've sewn since, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Some day I'm going to see if I can replicate it in a more interesting color (somethig which would've been easier if I'd saved a proper pattern...). 

Of course, when I say it's done there's still a random seam or two left. 

Oh, and my package from Amazon arrived today. Hunter and Ashlynn will have to wait, but Barbie Style Teresa (is that the name? It's what amazon calls them) has already been deboxed, undressed and had her body donated. Somehow I've run out of floating heads in that particular skin tone, so I used it for upgrading Diva instead. 

The weird thing is Teresa's necklace looks exactly like the one Dreamhouse Midge is wearing in the box art. Midge the doll wears a pretty ugly simplified version without the painted blue dots, so I don't know why they put the "real" version on Teresa?? 

LITD Midge left, Teresa right. 

Also, Lottie has two new shoes that came with robot accessory pack! The interesting thing is, it's not an outfit pack, just a robot buddy for Robot Girl Lottie - but it still comes with twice as many shoes as the outfits do! And since shoes are the hard currency of the doll collecting world, it was an easy choice. 

Pink and green! The stickers are for customising the robot. 

Sewing for Lottie, OHC sale

What I usually do at the beginning of each month is, a: stock up on toilet paper and rice, and b: go through my dollieh wish list and check if anything's on sale, or about to be discontinued, or if maybe something I've wanted for a long time just happens to be on ebay that week. While my wishlist is practically endless my funds aren't, but having to choose between buying Cool Thing A or Cool Thing B is hardly the worst problem you could have in this world. :)

There's finally a sale on Only Hearts Club at one of the few shops that still carry them. Still not super cheap, but the alternative is paying ridiculous money for shipping, so... I got two clothes sets, the pink party dress and one of the riding outfits. 

Unfortunately the shoes didn't fit the dolls I had in mind: the rubbery pink party slippers do fit obitsu, but they're rather wide and clumsy-looking. The low riding boots (shoes? I'm unfamiliar with the terminology here) look really nice but were really tight even after I'd extended the slit in the back all the way up. 

The most annoying thing is they were sewn to the packaging, so there are two holes in on one side, and of course one had to be placed just where the wider doll feet put extra stress on the material... Since I don't want the plastic to split the Super Model girls and their notoriously wide feet will have to do without riding boots. I might go back and get one of the sets with sneakers, we'll see. 

On the other hand, the pants from the riding set fit Fashionista and Super Model really well (although a bit shorter of course), and the pink party tights were aaaalmost the right size for Howleen (a bit too short, but you can't tell under the skirt). My dolls hardly have any tights, and I haven't had the courage to try and sew any, so that's a plus in my book at least.

There should have been pictures but I got lazy, sorry! Here's what I've been working on instead today: 

Lottie's new clothes!

I found a bunch of fabric samples I forgot I had, and those little strips were just big enough for a skirt for Lottie. Not big enough for a pleated skirt, but I wanted to try something simple (and there's always the big sample bit if I decide to make something more complicated later). 

I thought I'd make something similar to those Licca clone clothing sets by Daiso I've seen. Out of curiosity I ordered a couple from a place that sells them at a reasonable price (www.foundinjapan.com) but they haven't arrived yet and Lottie was getting cold, so I decided to make my own school uniform inspired outfit.

(Dollar store doll clothes are actually great for sewing inspiration: they can be low quality, lopsided with wonky seams, but still look pretty good as a whole. For someone prone to perfectionism it's a much needed reminder not to get too caught up in details.)

Not so sure about that snap, but I didn't have anything smaller. 

I didn't have any plain white cotton fabric that was thin enough for a shirt, so Lottie gets some kind of t-shirt/blouse thing instead (made from a human sized dollar store t-shirt). Something I'm really proud of here is how the sleeves came out, even though it took a couple of tries to get them to cooperate. 

To make it more school uniform-like I thought of adding a collar and some kind of decoration (bowtie?) but I'm not sure if the fabric is too bulky for that. We'll see. 

What I'm not so proud of is the skirt, partiularly the waistline. That's what happens when you just wing it. But hey, I have fabric to make a different skirt for each day of the week, sooner or later I'll get it right. In the meantime, the top covers the mistakes. :)

Lottie's only shoes are the beige and pink gumboots she came with, but I found that these Obitsu mary janes will work in a pinch. 

Random sewing and wig buying

And now for something completely different: 

After I put that headband that came with the mini BabyBorn clothes on Lottie, I realized she needed a white dress to go with it. Super simple model, made from a cheap white t-shirt. I quite like how it came out, although I still need to close it in the back. 

Currently looking at shoes for her (she came with gumboots/wellies). The accessory packs get a bit expensive with shipping, but there is a set with a little robot (to go with Robot Girl Lottie) that comes with two pairs of shoes that I think are supposed to fit the dolls too, but I haven't been able to unambiguously confirm it.

ETA re Lottie shoes: 

The robot set comes with the robot wearing a pair of pink shoes, but the promo pics shows it wearing the second green pair as well. This reviewer apparently managed to change the robot's shoes: http://pleasegivepeasachance.blogspot.se/2013/11/lottie-dolls-review-and-giveaway.html 

This reviewer on the other hand says she couldn't get the first pair off the robot's feet, although she mentions the second pair fits Lottie: https://rebeccahains.wordpress.com/tag/lottie/