The rumours....weren't true

For a while now the Blythe community has been buzzing about the release of Simply Vanilla and Simply Chocolate this month, hoping and praying that Chocolate will be the fabled dark skinned Blythe.

Well sorry folks, but she's not. She's another creamy skinned caucasian type Blythe.

Actually I feel a bit sorry for this girl, as imo, she's really kinda cute. Not drop dead gorgeous "Oh I must have her" cute, but cute all the same. I wonder if the disappointment that she wasn't black will affect her sales?

Meanwhile, the illustrations of Vanilla look amazing and I'm very interested to see what she looks like in person. I don't have a really light haired Blythe yet...And I do like bangs!

She is mine!!!

And for once, that does not relate to a new Blythe. Yep, I bit the bullet, outlaid rather a lot of money and bought the bike I've been covetting for the last few weeks. For people really into bike riding my bike is bottom end, but seeing as all of my previous ones have come from Kmart, it's a BIG step up, both in quality and erm...price. I still feel horribly guilty about it, so girl/s and sundries are going to have to go up for sale to alleviate my conscience.

I have to say though, that it was definitely worth it. I've been riding all over the place in relative comfort and just enjoying the weather. I am far from the fit, skinny exercise loving type, so I'm going to take full advantage of my bike-riding enthusiasm while it lasts. It is early spring here right now, and just amazingly pleasant (apart from the swooping magpies!), and I just haven't felt the urge to sit inside and sew. Which is why the shop has gone temporarily quiet. Also, poor Miss B has had a horrible toothache, which has led to her needing a bit of extra coddling (and very expensive and traumatic trips to the dentist). The dentist visit was much more terrible for me than for her I think. She was so terrified that they gave her happy gas, meanwhile I had to sit in the room and watch the entire procedure without the benefit of any sedation. I think I could have used some too! On Friday she has to go in for a root canal and I am just dreading it. Apart from it just being insane that a 9 year old should require such a thing on a baby tooth that had been treated by that same dentist 6 months earlier, it's shockingly expensive. To make things worse we discovered that to our horror our health insurance (for which we pay almost $300 a month) will not cover it. Damn you to hell MBF!!!! You are a bunch of thieving crooks! I am more than a little cranky about that.

So to that end, I need to rifle through some Blythe bits and bobs that I'm not using and give Ash a little spa and a photoshoot to prepare her for sale and put a little money back in the kitty. And now I will go and bake some cupcakes, just because I feel like it.

Mohair and wool reroots

I'm in the throes of tracking down a supplier of wool/mohair for Poe's reroot, and thought I might share some of the info that I've gleaned for anyone looking to do the same. There's a lot to take into account!

A natural fibre reroot has a lot going for it - it can be curly or straight, in a natural colour or dyed any colour of the rainbow, full or thin, long or short and even heat styled (straightend or curled) just like you would style your own hair. The reason why I'm keen to use this technique on Poe is for it's camoflaging properties - curly hair tends to hid the scalpline to a much greater degree than saran and unlike saran does not need to fill every hole of the scalp. I am hoping the technique I plan on using will make the reroot go quicker...but I do need to use 10"+ locks.

A search on etsy or ebay will turn up a wealth of choices to wade through. Beware though - any fibre described as roving or batting is not suitable to reroot a Blythe (even if it's tagged as doll hair, which they sometimes are). It's made of tiny tiny pieces and will disintergrate rather than separate when you try to make the plugs. Here's the lowdown on the different hair types as researched by me.

Mohair

- Mohair is the fibre from an Angora goat.
- Curly or wavy in it's natural state and lustrous.
- It lends itself to both big and poofy styles and does
straightened and whispy equally well.
- It comes in a range of natural colours and is greatly prized by reborn artists and personally, it's for this reason that I believe it's so damned expensive.

The gorgeous mohair prepared for Reborns is usally washed, dyed and combed and looks like this. This is the good stuff!



Beautiful huh? And perfect for a Blythe. Sadly, it is usually sold in bundles of about 1/2 an ounce - from what I've read you need about 2 ounces for a Blythe reroot. All that painstaking work comes at a price - a bundle this size (4-6inches long) will cost anywhere from $18 - $30 and as you can imagine the longer the locks, the higher the price. Mohair this length can only be used with the knot method of rerooting and will result in a shortish head of hair falling somewhere between the shoulders and back. Keep in mind, that like curly hair on humans, the shorter it is, the poofier it will be. The prepared mohair is also available in longer lengths as well (although it's harder to find), so if you chose to go this way you can also use lock and loop if you wish.

Pros
Absolutely gorgeous and shiny.
All the hard work is done.
For some reason this kind of mohair tends not to be the frizzy kind (which I'm not a fan of) so you'll get a nice wavey result and not a clown-like afro.
No waste
Can get longer length - more choice of rooting techniques

Cons
Price - you pay for someone else to do all the hard work for you.
That's really the only con - it's a beautiful product if you can afford it.


A cheaper way to buy mohair is to get it washed and dyed, but uncombed. It looks like this (ie. a big ole mess!).



Pros

Cheaper
Often dyed in fantasy colours (if that's what floats your boat)
Easy to find - more common than the longer combed locks and therefore a great choice of sellers.
Comes in larger quantities

Cons

Less predictable result
This kind tends to be much curlier and not as shiny
More waste - much much more waste
More work - much much more work
This kind of mohair is usually a shorter lenghth - fewer rooting methods
Might be vegie matter in there to contend with (ie. bits of grass etc)
Daunting, to say the least!

Alpaca

- Alpaca comes from...well an alpaca, obviously.
- It's very fine and straight and comes in a lovely range of natural colours - lovely blondes and luscious chocolates. You can also find it dyed, although for some reason this isn't as common.
- Great for if you want a natural fibre, but don't want curly.

Reroots done with this look like thick human hair (only Blythe-scale if you know what I mean). Kenners look out-of-this-world amazing with alpaca reroots. This is what the good stuff looks like - all washed and combed and ready for rerooting.



This particular one is one ounce and costs $27 (from mohairhouse on etsy - I've heard they are great!). To be honest, I haven't heard of people buying it all unprocessed and doing it themselves, although I suppose it must be possible. Here's what it looks like washed - very daunting to my eyes, even more so than the mohair as there are no defined locks.



Same pros and cons as the processed mohair vs the unprocessed really.

Wool

- Wensleydale and Cotswold wool come from now rare breeds of longhaired sheep.
- This kind of reroot is not as common as the mohair, but is gaining popularity.
- The locks can reach up to 12" long (more options for length and rooting techniques)and are very curly.
- Wool is much much cheaper than mohair and is usually bundled in larger quantities for spinners and fibre artists - around $4 - $8 dollars an ounce.

Wensleydale Locks

- Very fine hairs
- Silky with a pearly lustre (although is less shiny than the quality mohair).
- Has quite a tight curl.



Cotswold Locks

- More of an open curl than the Wensleydale
- Often used in Santa beards
- Has a nice little curl on the end, like the good quality mohair



This is the fibre that I'd like to try, if I could only track some down in the right length! I am beginning to wonder if I'm looking at the wrong time of year perhaps... Will keep you posted on my hunt for the perfect locks for poor baldy Poe.

Ah crumbs...

I AM a dolly hoarder, as it turns out. I was all set to say goodbye to Poe, but I can't bring myself to do it. I pulled her out of the drawer she was languishing in a few days ago and am now all re-inspired to see her restored to her gorgeous self again. Damn her and her sad little EBL face!!

I've decided that given the almost certainty that she'll have a scalp gap, a Wensleydale reroot might be more forgiving than the saran and have been trawling the internet looking for a supplier. I was considering using the red that I had on hand, but sadly it appears that it might have been a casualty of my ruthless cleanout (by accident) as I can't find it anywhere - just the plugs that I had prepared. Such a shame as the fibre was so silky and lustrous. I'm not entirely certain that the red would have suited her in any case. It's just too too red.



I'm just waiting to hear back from a supplier to see if they can dye me some in chocolate brown. I need long locks this time - at least 10" as I'm trying a new rooting technique so fingers crossed that they can help me out. In the meantime, I'm trying to get her scalp ready for the new hair. The glue that was used is just impossible to shift and is not in any way water soluable. I'm at the point now that I'll have to cut the glued hair from the back of the scalp and maybe even sand the excess off. As I suspected, that massive toffee-like clump of glue running down her partline was a right PITA and although I was evenually able to pull the hair plugs through the holes and work it off, the scalp is damaged. There's not a lot of into out there about fixing this problem either. The only useful info on the subject I managed to find suggested making a patch out of fabric and using modge podge to keep it in place on the underside. I'll keep you posted as to how it works out.

Dollybird Vol. 14 Review - Alice in Wonderland Special

I must admit that I was more than a little excited about this mook - I mean it's the Alice In Wonderland special, there were promises of Blythe patterns on the HLJ website, Poupee Mecanique contributed a pattern and it is meant to come with a mini Kumar (which is apparently the latest craze). So pushing aside my recent disappointment with Dolly Dolly 22, I emptied my Paypal account and settled in for the wait.

My first disappointment came before I even had it in my hot little hands - no mini Kumar for me :( I was prepared to live with that, mostly because I don't particularly like them all that much, and in any case, I was buying the book for the patterns.

Being a Japanese book, it is "back to front" to our western eyes, and naturally...in Japanese. Unlike the Recipe Coordinate mooks, which have the traceable patterns and directions in clearly defined sections for each doll, the pattern pieces are back to back on light paper and are all at the front of the book mixed in together and it's a little more time consuming to figure out what's what. Instructions for making the garments are found in the pages following the fashion shoot and although they are in Japanese, the diagrams are very good and any experienced seamstress should have no trouble following them. Particularly in the case of the single Blythe pattern as it is very basic.



Which leads my to my second and major disappointment - Blythe patterns themselves. Or should I say pattern. There is only one for Blythe. And it's very ordinary. One bloody buggery ordinary pattern. That's not Alice-like in the slightest. The fact that it is keeping company with dreamy, detailed and fabulous dresses for just about every other doll ever made adds insult to injury and made me feel a bit cheated to be honest. There are a lot of amazing patterns in here - Unoa dolls, Dolfie, Betsy McCall, Petite Blythe, Nikki Cat/Odecco (the smaller one of the 2) and Momoko all get a look in with several very very nice patterns, but just the one for Blythe. And a disappointingly ordinary one at that.



So in short, my opinion from a Blythe seamstress's perspective - don't bother if you are buying it for the patterns. Aside from that, there is eye-candy aplenty and lots of inspiration to be found within its pages.
This is a great mook to flick through and admire the pictures, but not one to add to your must purchase list if sewing for Blythe is your motive for buying. I particularly recommend it for owners of Unoa and Dolfie. The Poupee Mecanique patterns are truly amazing - if you have a Unoa this mook is an essential. There's also a very nice outfit for Petite Blythe, and while it's just the one pattern set, it's nice enough in my opinion to justify purchasing the mook. Same goes for owners of Betsy McCall - there's just one pattern but it's a good one.



Meanwhile, I think I will try tweaking the Momoko pattern to see if I can get it to fit Blythe - I have to justify this purchase somehow!!

Confessions of a dolly hoarder...

I first saw her (because she definitely is a "her", not an it) two weeks ago while shopping for a new bike for Miss B, and have not been able to get her out of my mind. She's a bit pricey, so I bravely suggested to my partner that I sell a few dolls to help pay for her (perhaps a little rashly...). A few Blythes (I'm trying to keep it down to 2),and some sundries will be leaving chez Dollybird in the next few weeks so that I can feel less guilty about buying this (which I haven't actually purchased yet, so extreme is my guilt!). So now I find myself in the role of seller, rather than buyer and it is really quite daunting having to examine my collection and consider who and what I can comfortably sell. The problem is, I kinda like them all! How do people do it? Every time I think I've settled on 2 to go, I change my mind and decide that I can't part with them! I think perhaps that I may be a dolly hoarder :(

I know that it will be worth it as now that Miss B is older, we will be able to go for long bike rides along the river and she'll be able to ride to school (if accompanied), so really I do NEED that super cute and comfortable looking bike. I've never had a bike that didn't come from K-mart, so as you can imagine, I'm pretty excited about getting a nice bike at last - and hopefully my less photographed girls can go to homes where they are appreciated.

In Etsy shop news, I'm working on a new line of bloomers that have come from a custom request. They are very cute and should be in the shop at the end of the week. Stay tuned!

Curls!

Having Roxy's hair up in buns for so long had an unexpected but happy side effect - curls!



How pretty is this? Shame that it is only temporary...