Our sharing platform for the SSA this year will be a special group I’ve set up on MeWe. Multiple people in the survey recommended this as a facebook alternative, and as I explored it, I had to agree.
Firstly, MeWe says they prioritize your privacy. You might not be aware, but with most browsers, if you’re signed into FB they are actually tracking your activity across other sites you visit so they can target ads to you. Companies pay FB to place their ads, so even though all you want to do is share pix of your dolls, you are generating revenue for FB every time someone wants to see your pic but instead has to scroll past ads. If you’re not familiar with FB or MeWe, I personally think MeWe has a less cluttered interface and is easier to navigate.
I feel like this should go without saying, but there are two expectations:
1. Everyone will only post doll pix with dresses made from patterns from this sew-along
2. Everyone will be kind to each other if they comment. If not, you will have to leave the group. There is a time and place for things like knitting projects and cute baby animal pictures, but this group is not it! 🙂
I will leave comments open on these posts during the SSA also, so if you prefer to put your pix somewhere else and share by linking in the comments, you can do that too!
If you are wondering what kind of fabric and trim to stock up on, think mid-century! There will be patterns from 1930-1960 for 16” dolls and at that size, all can be made from a fat quarter.
At least one person mentioned they might “need” to buy a new doll to participate. 🙂 You probably don’t, but just in case, click here to see more about which dolls can wear these patterns.
OK, Here’s the plan:
This year’s SSA will be a mix-and-match journey through the 30s-60s. EVERY bodice will work with every sleeve, skirt, and collar to create an incredibly versatile wardrobe. I have six weeks planned, with 5 weeks of dress patterns and one week of mid-century dress decorating ideas.
So I’m not sharing my muse, who happens to be a P91 Toni. I’m going to continue sewing for her on my own for now, because there’s something BIG in the works! Here is a spoiler pic:
The vote was roughly 50% for the 1950s and 25% each for 1930s and 40s, so this pattern should please 75% of the voters! 🙂
Butterick 6349 was originally published in the 1940s, and stayed in publication through the early 50s. I like it because it’s a little less derivative than a lot of 50s doll patterns, yet is more versatile than it seems. There are even a lot really fun mix/match possibilities with the pattern pieces themselves, which I’ll get into as we get to those patterns. I did need to make changes to the original pieces to make them fit, especially at the arms/sleeves, and updated a couple of construction techniques but the general mid-century feel of the clothes is the same. For example, closing with an overlap for buttons/snaps in the back instead of Velcro.
Doll is a reproduction Toni
Here’s how this year’s sew-along will work: Each pattern will be available in 14” size FREE on THURSDAY. Make sure to download it then, because it will be taken down on Friday, but yes, available to purchase in a multi-sized version later. I’m planning on 4 weeks, which would be 3 dresses and a nightgown, but the pattern also originally had a cape and a sweet little bonnet. Do you want me to post them too? Here’s your challenge: Get yourself and your friends sewing! Instead of doing this individually and sending a pattern just to the people that finish, I’m setting a group goal. Right now during the 4 weeks of free dress patterns, I’m aiming for 400 (total) comments with links to pix of what you sewed. You can post your pix anywhere online that you want (facebook, instagram, flickr, etc.) and then put a comment in blog for that week with the link to your pic. If we meet that goal, I’ll post the cape and bonnet patterns free for everyone! If not, it will be for sale later along with the other patterns which I’m probably going to be resizing for 16” dolls too.
Speaking of Resizing:
These were all originally fitted on a 14” Toni (p90) with a 7.25” bust and 6.75” waist
They will also fit others of a similar size like Wellie Wishers (no need to resize)
They fit vintage Nancy Famosa if you lengthen the bodice and skirt a little.
These dresses are a little loose on thinner 14” dolls like H4H and Betsy McCall – you might experiment with using the bodice and sleeve reduced at 90% but leaving the skirt measurements the same.
Enlarging 14” Toni patterns to 123% usually works fine for 16” dolls like Sasha/AGAT but as always when resizing, make a muslin first!
In keeping with the originals, these close with an overlap, which might help them fit even more dolls if you adjust the closure placement.
A word about darts: I don’t know what doll this was originally meant to fit, but it did have rather wide darts at the waist and fits my Toni better with them. If you’re using this for a doll with a more cylindrical shape such as Sasha, you might want to omit the darts or at least reduce their width. For all dolls, if you are resizing and want darts, baste the bodice together first and try on the doll to check the fit. If darts are needed, baste in place to ensure the fit is good before sewing.
I’m not answering any other resizing questions, it will take time away from getting next week’s post ready!
You might remember from the poll a couple of months ago that
I had a ton of ideas for the sew-along this year and asked for your input but
was going to leave it a surprise. Time
for the big reveal! You had lots of good
suggestions, but one person suggested Shirley Temple dolls. I sort of left that at the back of my mind,
because the dolls are vintage, were made in lots of sizes, and can be hard to
find. One point of the SSA is for lots
of people to participate, so it didn’t seem possible.
Some of the things
that really stuck out from the comments were that you wanted boy stuff, but
also lots of other sizes, and Sasha came up often. I had some majorly ambitious plans for that,
but as you might guess, it can take weeks-months to plan, draft, sew, take
pictures, and pattern-ify everything for a major multi-week sewing series like
the SSA. As I was starting this process,
my stepfather had a heart attack, and instead of drafting and sewing, I spent
spring break worrying and then driving home to be with my family. After that, my mom decided to move to
Colorado, so then instead of sewing, my amazing husband and I have been
spending all our weekends and after-work hours for the last month looking for a
place for her to live, then fixing up said place. The next step that we’re currently in is to
get everything downsized, then packed up and moved across the country.
There are times you need a break from all of life’s stresses
and and just want to sew something that’s not too difficult but still gives you
a nice sense of accomplishment of a completed project when you’re done. I thought I could handle resizing, but not
drafting from scratch, and looking at my new Natterer Starlette doll something
clicked into place…“starlet”…movie star…SHIRLEY!
My model is a Natterer Starlette, and I sized everything for
her, but it will also fit Sasha and
other slim 16” dolls, with some shortening of skirt hems if
desired. Most things (although maybe not
this week’s) should resize easily by copying at 77% for 13”-14” dolls like Hearts
for Hearts. Just like last year, I’ll
leave each pattern up for free download for a day and after that it will be
available on etsy in both slim and AG sizes.
A major change this year:
How popular were the Shirley dolls?
In the 1936 Sears catalog, she was called “The World’s Most
Popular Doll” based on a claim that almost 1/3 of the dolls sold in the US the
previous year were Shirley Temples. I’d
be very curious to find out what her sales were in the rest of the world –
probably not nearly that high but “World’s Most Popular” makes for good
advertising, even if that claim is a little outrageous. 😉
The first Sears ad for her seems to have been in 1935, where
she was advertised as the “Only Original Shirley Temple” and the same doll was
sold in 4 sizes – 13”, 16”, 18” and 20”.
That’s unusual today, but was common from the early days of bisque dolls
with composition bodies through about the 1950s, for example, Toni dolls were
made in P90-P93 sizes, with the bigger ones being more expensive. Shirley’s price was quite high at $2.89 for
the 13” size and $5.79 for the 20”. As a
comparison, some other composition dolls of about 12-14” in that same catalog
started in price from about $0.25 and a 24” composition doll with a human hair
wig on the same page as Shirley was just $1.98.
Estimates around the internet vary, but the average yearly wage at that
time might have been around $1600, which I divided up by 260 work days/year to
give an average daily wage of $6.15. You
could further divide that by 8 hours into about $0.77 an hour. So, using that math the largest Shirley cost
maybe 7.5 hours of work for the average person.
What made Shirley so popular?
Mass advertising didn’t really come into its own until TVs
invaded every American living room and convinced children to beg their parents
for specific toys. But I’ll speculate on
a few things that may have made Shirley dolls so popular. First was the novelty of movies. In a world where we can instantly stream
hundreds of thousands of movies on our phones/devices anytime, it’s hard to
imagine what movies were like in the 1930s.
You may have had a radio at home to listen to in your jammies, but
movies were something special – an exciting event you had to go to the theater
to experience. In addition to being
cute, Shirley was a talented little girl who also sang and danced! It’s interesting to note that a lot of the
movies cast her as a child suffering a somewhat sad plight, for example, an
orphan, but everything always finished well in the end. This probably helped evoke emotion in the audience, as they first felt
sympathy for the poor little orphan, then happiness when things went well for
her. I personally like movies with happy
endings, and for a nation suffering through the Great Depression, this kind of
movie would undoubtedly have raised peoples’ spirits.
Another contributor to the doll’s popularity was probably
catalogs. Sears and other companies’
catalogs were the closest thing to internet shopping sites of the day, and they
did their best to get those catalogs into as many homes as possible. That catalog might have had a prominent place
in a farm home, as my great aunt recalled from her 1920’s childhood. When her doll’s head got broken by being
stepped on by a cow, her mother “took down the catalog” and said they would
“send for a new one.” This shows “the
catalog” was a connection to all the material goods a family could need/want,
even if they were far from a store that could supply those goods. When I think that the same catalogs with
pictures of Shirley dolls were in millions of homes across the country, I don’t
doubt that little girls or maybe even their parents, came home from the movie
theater after seeing the latest Shirley Temple “picture” on the silver screen and
wanted to hold on to some of that magic themselves. What better way than reenacting your favorite
movie scenes with a doll?
Shirley’s popularity in the form of both dolls and movies
remained strong for decades, and during that time several pattern companies
produced patterns for Shirley dolls in many different sizes; if they didn’t
specifically mention Shirley, they might have some kind of text saying they fit
“Movie Dolls.”
Doll trousseaux, or
complete sets of clothing, are not new; people have been creating them probably
for as long as they’ve had time and resources to create them for dolls. Patterns for complete doll wardrobes were
available from at least the Edwardian era on, and I love seeing what was
considered an important part of a doll’s trousseau in different time
periods! This particular one included:
Combinations (one-piece undies and slip)
Nightgown
Dirndl (jumper) and blouse
“Beach Pajamas”
Cape
In this pattern set, there are some challenging elements to some of these garments that make them not quite “quick and easy.” I really enjoy vintage patterns, and although in come cases I’ve simplified the construction of these to bring them more in line with modern sewing techniques, it’s fun to see how details differed from era to era and experience that connection with the past by doing things in an authentic way. I’ll try to note the changes from the originals wherever it’s necessary. In the case of this week’s combinations, the original had a one-piece back with a slashed and hand-rolled hemmed opening, which I changed to a 2-piece for ease of construction.
Yay, it’s time for the summer sew-along! If you’re new to the blog, this is an event to motivate you to complete a mini wardrobe on a theme for your doll by sewing one garment each week. This year it’s an Edwardian summer wardrobe AND a bunch of accessories, mostly sewn, some crafty!
Here’s how it will work:
Each week’s sewing pattern will be posted on Thursday – make sure to get it that day! Most of these can be easily shrunken for 13-14″ dolls like Hearts for Hearts and Cheries by copying the slim size at 77% and you’re welcome to do that if you don’t have any 16″ dolls like AGAT, Sasha, etc. If you miss a week, the patterns and their associated accessory will be available in AG and AGAT sizes on Etsy afterwards.
Sew along each week and post pix of what you made. Get inspired and comment on others’ photos here. Note that I sometimes like to share your pix from there on the blog, so make sure to have sharing turned on/off if you do/don’t want that to happen. Complete each week’s outfit and get the related accessories pattern free, complete all the weeks and get the bonus sewing/accessory pattern!
This week we have an Edwardian Garden Party dress:
Every time I’m gone for a while the posts are long. Just scroll past the text to the bottom for the pattern if you’d like! 🙂
I wish you could all have seen the smile on my face this morning as I went through the flickr page and saw what everyone had made! I started pasting some of my favorites here and then there were too many, but I did want to share this pic from Sylvie:
because when I told my mom I was taking Lottie to Korea, she said, “Oh I think you should take that other cute little one you have instead…what’s her name? Ten Ping? She looks more like she could be Korean” I totally agree, but if you’ve priced both dolls recently you’ll understand why Lottie got to come with 😊 Although they’re similar in height, Ten Ping is wider, more like a vintage Ginny, whereas Lottie is more like a Tiny Betsy:
See the vintage cuties in the photo above? They’re the reason the sew-along patterns are going to stay posted (rather than reappearing in my etsy shop) and you’ll have an unprecedented EXTRA MONTH to get your sewing done because I’m feeling generous due to generosity toward me. Here’s the deal: If you’ve been sewing along and posting your pix here you can enter your links to your photos by July 5 here and get a free pattern for Betsy’s dog, Nosy, which will be sent out July 6.
Enter your links to your photos by July 5 here and get a free pattern for Betsy’s dog, Nosy, which will be sent out July 6.
Now that the sew-along is over what will be appearing?
(Don’t read if you prefer surprises) 🙂
Cuteness! Different sizes! Since I took May off from blogging (but not sewing) there’s a bit of a backlog that may appear as a post a day of mix/match patterns in AG size that you will love! After that, there are some totally adorable felt Lottie accessory projects, (definitely appearing) followed (almost certainly) by Lottie clothes and then I’m toying with several ideas for an easy (maybe foam core?) house for 8” dolls since that is a sadly neglected scale. The only issue there is what style could suit all my dolls of that size from the Lotties with their different interests, (Fairy? Hanok? Science lab? Tent? Hogwarts?) to Betsy and Ginny, who’d clearly prefer a mid-century one with their original McCall’s cardboard/fabric furniture. That will take us about up to August and back to school/work and feverishly working on a new pattern collection. If you’re like me and counting down the days until August 24, (56 more days!) you might be able to guess what the next collection will be!
Time for true confessions…I took the whole month of May off from blogging to deal with “work-work” and also work on the SSA. During that time I managed to complete a bunch of stuff for a new AG series, some super cute patterns for Lottie and drafted (but didn’t sew) 3 dresses for the SSA. Then, in a panic, I finished 2 SSA outfits today! 🙂
Based on your votes, this year’s summer sew-along will be 1950s dresses for Wellie Wishers inspired by Betsy McCall paperdolls. Being gone for so long, I have about a million things to say, but am running out of time, so will just quickly post this and get to the rest later.
The good news is our “Betsy paper doll” SSA will run the whole month of June this year, starting on the first! The good/bad news is I won’t be here for all of it. This year, for the first time in more than 10 years we’re actually taking a vacation! Yay! So, I’m setting up automated posts to appear for the two weeks I’ll be gone, but won’t be able to see your flickr pix or respond to comments and my etsy shop will be closed during that time too. This year, I’ve also hoping to have a 1950s-style craft associated with each week that might anything from a simple papercraft to a woodworking project.
Are you new to the concept of the summer sew-along? Here’s how it works: You sew along with each week’s project and post your pix on flickr here:
If you finish all the weeks you can get a bonus sewing pattern, which this year will be for Betsy’s dog, Nosy sized to be a companion for 14” dolls, or maybe a mini dachshund for 18” dolls. I did finish him already and he’s super cute!
Ready to get started?
Note: you will want to use thin fabric like batiste/muslin weight if you’re doing the ruched sides! (Thank you, Sophie!)
I know you’re reading this Thursday, but obviously I do the posts a day or more in advance. Here I was, going full steam ahead with yet another a new project (Yes, really, despite the unfinished Prettie girl, Ten Ping and Sasha baby projects) and suddenly it was time to post week 2 of the summer sew-along. How did that happen? 🙂 This week we’re making these fun, easy sandals:
To help you with resizing, there’s a foot comparison chart here. You’ll notice the PRs are not on it, since I didn’t have them at the time. Their feet are just a teeny bit shorter than the corolle cheries, but this pattern fits both dolls well.
[/url] by [url=https://www.flickr.com/photos/67465307@N08/]jenwrenne[/url], on Flickr)
Wren*Feathers 
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