Crafty Crap: By the Book: Kit's Swimsuit

A project long coming. So long. Yesterday and part of today, I completed a project that I have been planning since I read Meet Kit, almost 8 years ago. That project is Kit's swimsuit, from this vignette from page 211: 7-year-old me's first thought: "This would make a good sewing project!" This is giving me prison vibes? The swimsuit. I used a bodice pattern combined with a shorts pattern that I had to modify. This is proof that my sewing is improving and I'm actually taking my time with projects now. The side, and my stripe matching. The bodice is lined with the same material the shorts are made of. I'm still not that good with velcro. But it's getting better. The back and the velcro. I ended up having to rip the velcro out and cut the back down because it ended up being too wide. And just for fun, the muslin mock-up: The shorts are a little off-center here. But it's fine.

On the mock-up I didn't do velcro, but I did do the lining (to see if the pattern would even work as lining--the answer was yes), and I ended up hemming the shorts on the second go round (the first shorts were too tight). I love historical ads. In searching for real clothes, the closest I could find to Kit's (in cut at least) is the one in the bottom left corner. However, I did find a lot of women's swimsuits that had a similar striped bodice. --Shark

¹I plan to make Ruthie's, too. But later.

SharkWrites: The Tragic Tale of One Cordelia Dickinson

Last year I had to write a Romeo and Juliet star-crossed lovers type of story. This is that story.

New Page!

Quick post to promote a new page promoting my Youtube channel. Check out my memes.

--Stevie

Holiday Reviews: Samantha's Party Dress (2016) & Samantha's Holiday Set (2014)

Holiday Set.

Party Dress. 

Samantha went on sale at Costco for $119.99 for a modified version of her Holiday Set, and her Holiday Coat Set back in November. Basically, for the price of a doll, you get a doll and two outfits. Not bad. This is how and why I got my Samantha.

On Cyber Monday this year, the limited edition Holiday Set from 2014 went on sale, which was the version I wanted originally. I just got it for Christmas.

Girl of the Year Reviews: Lea Clark (2016): Lea's Celebration Outfit

Cecilia Alvaros: Making Lea's clothes look better than she ever did.

Lea Clark. AG's worst attempt at ethnicity. Her movie's racist, AG blocked someone on Youtube (thedollrookie) for pointing out their misrepresentation of Brazil, and they think they can get away with it all by making Lea 1/8 Brazilian and barely the color of cooked oatmeal. Oh, and she also looks a lot like McKenna, so her snark name is TropiKenna. However, I like some stuff in her collection, including her celebration dress. I got it for Cecilia, who's half Brazilian.

A note before we get started: AG labels this as as dress that "reminds Lea of the traditional white dresses that some Brazilian women wear." As Nethilia of American Girl Outsider pointed out, it's actually based on the dresses that Afro-Brazilian women who practice Candomble wear. Don't be afraid of culture, AG.

All of these are phone pics because I lost the cable for my camera.¹

Shark's Free Thoughts: AG Moddie Meet Outfits (1995-2015)

Welcome to a brand new column of this blog: Shark's Free Thoughts¹. Here I will talk about...literally anything. While this blog has been mostly dolls, with the title of the blog, it could morph into anything fandom related and it would be fine. To kick this off, I'm gonna talk about AG, but I'll probably diverge into other stuff soon enough.

The American Girl of Today/Just Like You/My American Girl/Truly Me/Line of a Thousand Names line has been around for 21 years. In the fandom they're sometimes called moddies, so we don't have to delve into all the names. The pattern of meet outfits for the most part is every 2 years getting a new outfit, to keep up with trends.²

This is an overview of all the meet outfits, plus some commentary on the trends they reflect. I thought of this post while in the shower.

(All images taken from here.)

Photostory: Pretty Princess 'Mantha

I haven't blogged much here. Sorry about that. I'm mostly on Instagram and AGC for doll things, and I don't really have the time to sit down and write reviews of things/write photostories. But I did have time today, so I whipped this up real quick. These were all snapped with my phone since I lost the card reader for my camera.

I only do photostories for debuts. Maybe I should change that.