HI everyone,
After I read the comments from everyone, I decided I CAN use those pink fabrics this year… no need to wait! Actually it was Dorothy’s “Charlotte Noelle” who convinced me that I can do pretty pink dresses that might have been for Valentine’s Day in MAY! I’m sure Dorothy (or Charlotte Noelle) can tell us how many days I have until May 1st!
I have read some blogs and it seems like the authors just kept giving excuses for why they don’t have anything new to post or anything new they are doing, so they just keep saying, “I’m sorry…” or “maybe tomorrow” and I DIDN’T want to become one of them, but I felt like I was edging that way… My life does seem very busy right now and my time does seem limited, but I’ll try to just make it as interesting as I can with what I have to share… OK?
I had to go to town today and stopped by our Joann Fabrics, which I haven’t been in for about 2 months, and just looked around but not at fabric… just to see what was new in the store. I eventually wandered back to the patterns and every brand of patterns were on sale… $1.99 for Simplicity, McCalls, Butterick and Burda… I didn’t think to look and see if the Vogue patterns were on sale. I did buy a doll coat pattern but I’ll have to resize it… I’ll show you later. Anyway, I was looking at the costumes in the back of the books and look at this!!!!
I hadn’t seen this picture and look at the NAME OF IT! BEE’S KNEES!!! :o)
Today we do have something fun AND pretty at the same time.
Sissy sent me some pictures of her Ellowyne dolls (16″ tall) modeling her hankie dresses she’s made in the past. They are VERY nice. Ellowyne is pretty well known as a Fashionista and these dresses are prefect… dressy and feminine like Ellowyne is most of the time!
So, enjoy Sissy’s pictures!
This next picture of Sissy’s wouldn’t load, so I took a picture of it with my phone and added it here. Aren’t these pants just the neatest? I had never seen anyone make pants from a hankie! Well done, Sissy! I love them!
That’s it for me today…
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Oh, good; I’m glad we can look forward to some pink dresses in the near future, Jeanne!
Well, what do you know?! Butterick borrowed your idea, or at least your name (The Bee’s Knees). How fun!
Sissy, as always, your hankie outfits are beautiful. I especially like that bright yellow one, although the white with little red flowers is really lovely, too. The last dress you showed….I have two hankies of that style (where it looks partly opaque and partly semi-sheer), on in very pale pink and one in peach, which I still use as hankies. I just love them. But this one….ooh, that is Such a gorgeous color! Pink with a tinge of lavender. So pretty!
Thank you, Charlotte, so glad you enjoyed them. I like to give Jeanne a little hand up when she seems to need one. I made so many of the hankie dresses years ago.
Jeanne, I knew you would agree to “think spring” or Easter with those lovely fabrics you showed us yesterday! We will all be looking forward to see what magic you will do with them!
Oh, Sissy, how simply beautiful each and every outfit that you made is! Each one is prettier than the last! I just love how delicate the dresses look and how perfectly they are made for each doll. The pants pattern is just lovelyand looks so comfortable! I would love that for myself, if ever a hankie was big enough! 🙂
Thank you so much, Linda. So glad you enjoyed them. That hankie pants pattern is one of Magalie’s. It is the only one I have made with a hankie.
The dresses are wonderful! Beautiful! Are they made with just one handkerchief or do some of them require two of the same design? Such clever use of the fabric designs. They are all from my favorite era. So happy to have won Bee’s Knees! Thanks for sharing the pictures.
Here’s a little story about sewing for a granddaughter. I made a dress for Riya when she was in First Grade when they lived in WV that was very like the ladybug dresses Jeanne made. I asked her if anyone noticed her dress and she said one boy said, “You look like a farm girl.” So much for wearing that dress again. I had a dress like that when I was a child and loved it!
I found that sewing even with no-iron fabric that things didn’t look good. A little research revealed the finished clothes are heated at a high temperature in oven-like equipment to set the fabric. Can’t duplicate that at home. Regarding ironing, I asked Riya where Mommy kept the ironing board. She asked, “What’s an ironing board?” Mommy is an anesthesiologist and certainly doesn’t have time to iron. Scrubs come from a laundry! But they really do have an ironing board now.
😂 I think no one irons anymore.
I have gone out with wrinkly clothing, blouse really, and no one says a thing. Rumpled is cool now. …that is kind of okay with me.
that is very cute and funny what Riya said. haha
For Jason and Stephanie’s wedding the men wore white western shirts with gray vests. Skyy was a Jr. Groomsman so he wore that too. When I saw him I cringed because his shirt was straight out of the package. I would have been glad to press it for him but was never asked. Then I looked at the other groomsmen and their shirts were straight out of the package also. Maybe I need to change my mindset because wrinkled clothes don’t seem to bother most other people these days.
My son, Sean, had an ironing board and iron and used it regularly. After he married Dionne she had no use for ironing at all so she put the ironing board and iron up for sale saying “I don’t care what you pay for it, just get it out of here.” When I sewed for Jaiden her clothes had to be ironed. One Sunday she showed up for church with her clothes looking like she’d slept in them. They lived next door to us at the time so I volunteered to iron anything that needed it. I was never taken up on it and the kids still show up in wrinkled clothes. Once when Jaiden was visiting I was ironing an outfit. She asked me what I was doing. Weird question for me since at her age I was already ironing pillow cases. Sean is such a neat freak he’s opted for blue jeans and t-shirts that don’t need ironing in place of Dockers and Polo shirts. The ironing thing was a battle he knew he wouldn’t win.
Thank you, Susette. Only one outfit has 2 hankies that is the one with the top and skirt picking underneath. The rest are made from just one. The one with pants was a really large hankie.
As for ironing, I seldom do any except when I sew, then I do a lot.
I know that this is supposed to be a doll blog, but I consider it a life blog — think of the recipes and decorating and building and chickens and yard and church activities and antiques.
The Ellowyne dresses — and pants — are lovely. Thanks for sharing — one more thing about the life blog — sharing experiences and talent.
We don’t do political things here, but this is too funny not to share —
https://denmarkification.com/
Denmark wants to buy California, complete with ideas like bringing hygge (Danish coziness) and cocoa to California beaches and California avocados to Denmark to reduce the price of avocado toast there.
Note that California already has a Danish town, Solvang. Here’s the bakery there
https://www.solvangbakery.com/
Glad to hear that Jeanne, found some things at Joann’s. And patterns to boot. Here, the store has the cleaned out look unfortunately. I believe that they are filling it with whatever shows up in preparation for closure. They are in bankruptcy. Ugh
Thanks Sissy and Jeanne for the fun photos. Wow, those outfits are so special. The Ellowyne here is very jealous. The detail and style of the dresses is amazing, and to think that hankies are the key ingredient. So creative. And, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such perfect shoes for Ell. I was almost trying to see the shoes even before checking out the wonderful outfits. Lots of fun.
We were supposed to have rain by now this morning, but not a drop. Somebody goofed. But, it does look like rain should be approaching tomorrow for sure. Hope everyone is prepared for it. I did send Jeanne, a pic of our last big storm with the waterfall coming down the front steps. Hope that we don’t have that much this time.
So glad that Jeanne, is going to try some spring dresses with her fabric. They should be lovely and will sparkle in Dorothy’s “May.”
Joy, thank you for enjoying the photos. They are from long ago. I haven’t had one of those dolls in years, so i guess the shoes were before you had the doll.
Looking forward to seeing your Valentine outfit!
Sissy, your Ellowyne looks so beautiful in these dresses. Incredible really that they are made from a simple hankie! Her shoes are really pretty too! Very fancy, all of these.
Is JoAnne Fabs going out of business? Well, keeping up a store front these days is difficult I imagine. $1.99 for a pattern is great.
I just gave a lot of old patterns away to charity. they were not very exciting really.
The doll clothing patterns I have saved.
we received over 5 inches of snow in the past 24 hours and it looks pretty. I am glad I do not need to be anywhere.
Yesterday I packed one box of fragile items in my dining room. Then I got rummaging in the china cabinet and found so many things of my mother’s from WW2 in Holland. She worked with underground, helping bring food to Jewish families in hiding. Very dangerous business. … then looking at tea cups. So many tea cups. I better pack another box today.
All of you dears, keep busy and doing fun things
Wow Rosemary, your mother was amazing! I would love to hear more of that story!
Thank you for enjoying my hankie dresses. That was a fun time of my sewing.
Hi Sissy, What lovely hankie dresses for Ellowyne. I think my favorites are the yellow and the white with red roses.
Thank you, Laura, I appreciate you enjoying the dresses!
Sissy…Thank you for sharing the hankie dresses and the hankie slacks outfit! Excellent use of the hankie designs and edgings! Those are truly one-of-a-kind outfits!
Jeanne…I remember stopping in at the Jo-Ann’s store weekly when I lived in Indiana! Now that I live in Texas and no longer drive, plus the closest Jo-Ann’s is a distance from us, I don’t visit that store but maybe once a year when my daughters and I gad about shopping! They take me to breakfast and later, dinner, always on my January Birthday, and then we shop till we drop! Hobby Lobby used to put their patterns on sale for $1.99 too, every few months, but I don’t think they do that often anymore. The last time I was in Jo-Ann’s, I looked for thin, stretch, narrow lace to use for doll socks and slips, and always check-out the remnant fabric pieces…regular fabrics too, but they are pricey these days for even one yard of fabric. I used to sew dresses for my daughters when they were growing up….seems like it costs more today to sew a child’s outfit by the time you purchase the pattern, fabric, thread, buttons or trims…compared to finding ready-made clothing. I also used to make Halloween outfits for my girls….a brides dress and veil (which we altered for 3 years so they kept using it!), a clown with a large embroidery hoop sewn into the hem of the skirt with suspenders, so the skirt “moved” in a comical way, and I remember making a lion costume by tracing my daughters body on a double piece of golden-yellow fabric, and making elastic casings at the wrists and ankles of the fabric for a one-piece “bodysuit”, adding a long fluffy yellow tail and creating a headpiece from cardboard and paper loops glued onto each other so they cascaded down to her shoulders! If I can locate the photos, I will share! With pattern prices these days, I am sooooo glad to have saved doll patterns, tote bags and stuffed animal patterns. I have a Great-Granddaughter due this May, and another Great Grand child due in September…so will make use of those stuffed animal patterns again. Plus, I have a book on quilted patterns that incorporate a puppy or cat done in large squares for a baby quilt. Goodness…my sewing machine will be put to good use this year!
Enjoyed the ironing board stories! My full-size ironing board is out in the garage! I do keep a tabletop ironing board near my sewing machine to use when making doll outfits, and a year or so ago I ordered a tiny tabletop ironing board from Walmart which I can fold up and keep next to my sewing machine for doll clothes and all of those little seams and curves! I tried to find an in-between board a little larger than the tiny one and the tabletop one, but no luck yet. Thought about one of those wool, felt ironing mats but wasn’t sure about the steam-moisture going thru onto my art mat on my work table or if they turn musty after a while, so nixed that idea. The tiny board works fine for doll clothes! About the only other item I have that occasionally needs pressing is laundered placemats and dinner napkins for a family dinner!
Jeanne….thank you for keeping your site going so we can enjoy “keeping in touch” with other doll and doll outfit lovers! And thank you for having “show and tell” days for all of us….so often it is something to look forward to each day! Can you imagine what it would be like if we all lived in the same neighborhood and could gather for coffee and chats about our dolls and such?! The internet really keeps us connected!
Thank you, Elizabeth! I really enjoyed making them at that time, years ago.
Dear Sissy, you outfits are so pretty. I have several dolls who were oohing and aahing over them!
Dear Jeanne, thanks for showing us Sissy’s doll outfits. They are lovely!
I told Charlotte Noelle that you liked her idea. She said, “Oh, Mama, that is so nice.” Then she said, “Can I have a cookie?” Just when I think I have reached that girl, she turns it all around (laugh).
I am happy that you liked our idea. Everyday can be Valentine’s Day because we all love our dolls. (Well, sometimes I wonder about Charlotte Noelle – smile).