Poor Poe...

I've spent the day fooling about with mohair and after all my hard work cleaning it I think I'll have to end up dyeing it after all. I held a bit up against Poe and all I could think of was Mrs Quickly from Nanny McPhee with her frizzy yellow perm. Not quite the look I was going for. :(

The photo is terrible - it's raining and the light was fading, but you can still see enough to know that this is not a good look. Even taking into account that she still needs her face-up. I'm thinking of dyeing the mohair - but can't decide on a colour. Trying to toss up between pastel easter egg type colours or just going with a natural dark brown. I have so many brunette girls already though. It's starting to get boring! At the moment I am leaning towards a pastel greenish/blue.

Mohair processing - not for the impatient or inflexible!

As some of you might know, I've been in the process of trying to find some fibre the right length (and price) to reroot poor Poe with for a while now. A few days ago my fibre arrived and I've began processing it so I can begin the reroot.

The mohair I ended up buying is from an Aussie seller, and as I mentioned, pretty much straight off the goat's back. I will admit that I was expecting it to be kinda gross and stinky, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. While it was absolutely not perfectly clean and lovely, it wasn't too bad and even better, the seller kept the locks all nice and together so I don't have the nightmare of untangling a big messy wad of fibre. Here's how it looked straight out of the bag.


In it's unwashed state it is kind of greasy, and there's a bit of "VM" (that's vegetable matter - hay and possibly...goat poo!). It does smell a little bit goaty, but not terribly so. All the same, if you are finicky about such things, then attempting to process your own mohair is possibly not for you. Looking at the fibre in its raw state it is difficult to imagine it gracing the head of one of my Blythes!

Most of the info out there on processing mohair is geared towards spinners rather than doll makers, who need that lock kept nice and intact through the cleaning process and if you follow their methods you will end up with nice clean mohair that has ended up in a tangled clump, rather than the nicely combed locks we need. Luckily I found this excellent guide to washing mohair by Mohairhouse. Quite possibly what I did is not the best way to wash mohair, but here's the method I used.

I basically separated the mohair into three smaller bundles, tied at the top with a silicone hair tie and followed the method for washing locks using dish detergent and very hot water. If I was to do this over again, I would have picked out the bigger pieces of VM before I wet the mohair. As I discovered it doesn't come out in the wash, but the water does help to distribute all of those tiny pieces right through the entire lock, making your locks really dirty. Oh well, you live and learn...

The fibre was very dirty, and after three washes was still not looking lovely and white so I soaked it in some very hot water with dish soap for a good 20 minutes to see if I could get it any cleaner. Next time I'd pick out the VM first, then wash once to get most of the dirt out, soak in hot soapy water and then rinse and wash again. It is entirely possible that my mohair is stained or the goat that it came from isn't white but cream (actually I don't really know why I assumed that it was white as the goats come in several colours including blonde and a silvery colour) because even though it was much cleaner looking after the soak, it still wasn't really super white like other mohair that I have seen - more like white with blonde tips. So at that point I figured that that was as clean as it was going to get, rinsed off the dishsoap and conditioned the fibre using a generous amount of human hair conditioner (just squishing the conditioner into the tied locks, not agitating at all) and put it into ziplock bags for 20 minutes or so. I was pleased that at this stage I had barely lost any hair at all from the 3 bunches - yay for silicon hairbands!



After I rinsed, dried and brushed a section of it, (at which point it turned into a cloud of frizz that was only subdued by dampening it), I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed with the result. My mohair seems to be of the super crimpy variety rather than the loosely curling type that I wanted, not especially shiny and worst of all, it's a pale straw colour that I am not a fan of at all.



It is also apparent that I will have to dye it as the colour does not suit Poe's skintone. Ironically it looked pretty good against the paler Blythe-in-bits, but I have already got a scalp for her. I am looking at using Landscape Acid Dye to improve the colour in either Pacific or Tasman - both are shades of blue/green in different intensities. They are really pretty colours, I just hope that it dyes up nicely and doesn't end up going bright green on the cream mohair. I am also considering playing with food colouring to see if I can get a pretty pastel colour I can live with.

At this point after all the work and the less than satisfactory result I've achieved, I would not recommend trying to save a few dollars by processing the mohair yourself if you have a particular look in mind for the finished scalp. It's not the amount of work involved that I consider to be the issue, but rather the unpredictable (and in this case, somewhat disappointing) result. At the end of the day, the look of the combed mohair depends mostly on the animal it came from (age, genetics, colour, living conditions) and also the part of the fleece that the locks were taken from (some parts of the fleece are guaranteed to be stained or just very very dirty). Buying mohair fibre without knowing these things means that you can't be certain how the processed fibre will look.

I wanted to achieve white or cream shiny mohair with a gentle wave and so far, after several hours work have ended up with pale blonde mohair that is matt and crimpy. It's still quite nice, but it isn't what I wanted and will look very different to the way I had envisaged.

The fibre (including postage) cost me $14.00, and I also spent an extra $10 or so on a brush, conditioner and conditioning spray. On top of that, I now need to purchase the dye which will set me back another $14 or so. I think that all up it would not have cost me much more to have purchased the fibre I really wanted in the first place and I have had to accept that the look that I wanted for Poe's customisation will now have to change to accommodate the mohair that I have ended up with. If you are patient and flexible with your customisation than it is quite doable, but for specific results you are much better off buying your mohair already processed.

Dear Takara...

Dear Takara

Can you please space out your new release Blythes so that the more attractive ones are alternated with at least 3 boring ones with yellow blonde hair that I won't be tempted by?

My wallet hurts.

Thank you very much :)

Something new...

I've been busily sewing away this weekend as it is horrible and rainy. Here's the baby doll outfit that I mentioned yesterday. Not sure if these will be a regular in the shop - I guess it depends on how well it's received. At any rate, it's nice to be filling up the shop with new things. Things got pretty quiet on the sewing front for a while but I seem to have my mojo back.


Today I made this little set, but I'm still undecided as to if I will sell it or not. I don't have any more of those little flower beads left and I kind of made the cami so I could re-take the bloomer listing photos as they were pretty abysmal. Not to mention the fact that there were plastic boobies in every shot!

I am toying with the idea of making a little diorama to take my shop pics in as the white background is getting kinda boring. I will have to sweet talk my hubby into making the box up and I'll see what I can find to decorate the room with. I'm going to have to do it on a budget as I'm saving my dolly pennies so that Simply Vanilla and Sparkly Spark can come to live with me.

Sparkly Spark!!

I may have squealed like a piggy when I saw that this gorgeous girl is coming up for release on November 10. I have been wanting a blue haired girl ever since I attempted to reroot Frankie my less than successful Coraline fakie and now CWC/Takara have very kindly decided to release a new one. I did toy with the thought of getting one of the older blue girls - Can Can Cat or Asian Butterfly but I'm not overly fond of the SBLs with their yellow eyeballs and impossible to open heads so I have resisted temptation so far. I also like that her hair is a nice managable length. Three of my girls have ankle length hair with no bangs and it is a real pain to keep it under control.

Regrettably she won't be as cheap as the normal Simply girls, but who knows, maybe the dolly funds will stretch to cover it.... I hope so as she is lovely! I will have to get cracking and produce some new dresses to put in the shop (actually I made the cutest little dress today, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow to see it as it's been too dark and dreary to get a good photo).

I also hope that the quality control will be a bit better on her than it has been for her unfortunate sister, Thumpty Thump. A couple of collectors on the forums have had problems with her hair being really badly cut, which isn't good considering that these girls are a little pricier than the normal Simply releases. All the same, I cannot wait to see her promotional shots.

Bloomin Bloomers

At last I have worked out a way to make these that does not make me swear like a sailor! Bloomers are available in my shop now, should you need a pair for your plastic princess.

To be honest, I probably would not have persevered were it not for the fact that I had a specific request for them and I was determined not to let a pair of tiny knickers get the better of me. There were a few failures...including a pair that would have fitted a pencil (elastic too tight!), an enormous pair that were miles too baggy and my first attempt that were a bit on the low-rise side (ie. the crotch was waaaaay too short!). Now though, I've got it all nicely worked out and they are pretty damn cute if I do say so myself.

I had fun dressing up all the girls in them for a photo shoot only to realise that there was no way to photograph them all together nicely since they wouldn't all fit in the lightbox and I am too chicken to prop them up against the wall in case of falls and scratched faces! It's a shame that Poe is not in better shape as I made 7 different pairs but only had 6 Blythes to model them on. I really need to get on and do that reroot for her as I'm hoping that Erica will soon be able to work her magic on her faceup. I've now found a place that has nice long mohair at a price I can afford without resorting to selling my organs, so hopefully it will soon arrive so I can get started.

The mohair I found is cheaper because it isn't washed, which I hope will not pose too great a problem. In the pics the seller shows it comes up gorgeously white and lustrous...I just hope that I can manage to get the same results. I have no idea how to wash it - should I use human shampoo or woolwash? Cool water or warm? I see a lot more research in the immediate future....

I had actually found some fibre through another Etsy seller, but after I had paid for it she contacted me to say that I owed her more money than the amount listed as she needed more for shipping and handling and she couldn't be bothered working out the postage to ship to Australia...double the amount that she had originally quoted. I thought that was pretty uncool as I would not have bought the item in the first place with shipping that costly. I cancelled my order, mostly through feeling a bit disgruntled, I must admit. The way that she worded her convo asking for more money wasn't the best - she sounded as though I'd tried to rip her off somehow. Incidentally, this was through my "buying" account so I'm not calling anyone out here.

I have found through my own shop that sometimes the amount I charge is not quite enough to cover the postage to certain places, and when that has happened I just absorb the cost myself and then adjust my future listings for that item. As far as I'm concerned that was my error, not the clients.

Anyway, I shall dismount my soapbox, I've had my whinge and feel much better. Until next time :)

Little Sista - The Middie Blythe

A photo of the first Middie sized Blythe has been leaked...and suprisingly she's super super cute!

Until I saw this I was not especially interested in her. Her non-bendy legs and lack of a proper 4 colour eye mech were a bit of a put off and to be truthful I thought her face would be leaning more toward the expressionless Petite, rather than the Neos. I've always thought the Petite faces were kind of odd looking with their startled bunny eyes surrounded by a bristle of lashes (sorry Petite lovers!) and have never been tempted by them (even though I have some cute patterns that would be fun to make up), but the Middie with her Blythe-like features and adorable head tilt is kind of irresistable, even to a hard hearted and cynical Neo-only collector like me.

Kudos to you Hasbro/Takara/CWC/Junko or whoever dreamed the Middie up. She's more than we could have hoped for :)