Here's a few snaps of a Toddler Phoebe with pink hair that left today to live down the road.
Five Decades of Beloved Doll Dresses
This also could be called my life as seen through doll dresses. There is one for practically each decade and stage of my life. Maybe I'm sharing too much and I will definitely date myself.
Dress Number 1: Sewn for my childhood Sasha doll. The ultra-hip fabric was left-over from the ultra hip halter top I sewed to bring to sleep away camp. Both my doll and I were the coolest. I was especially cool for bringing a doll to camp.
Dress Number 2: Made for the same doll. I am a teenager now and should be done with dolls. But I'm not.
Dress Number 3: I have gone to college, done the yuppy thing and worked in graphic design in the city, married, moved out of the city, and had two of my three kids. Sewn for the same Sasha doll that was now my oldest daughter's doll.
Dress Number 4: I now have three children, the youngest a daughter. Took a day off from work to sew a wardrobe for her Ellowyne doll (an Uber-Barbie) and this was one of the dresses. The doll and the wardrobe were well-loved but very un-PC.
Also at this point I can easily buy fabrics on the internet. A good and a bad thing.
Last Dress: Made two weeks ago for one of the toddler Phoebe dolls. I am now definitely older, maybe wiser and my two daughters no longer play with dolls. But I do have a doll-making company, which so far is almost as fun.
Looking forward to seeing some of your dresses!
Click through the link below to the Beloved handmade Doll Dress Contest.
The new kind of Phoebe Doll on Etsy now
A few weeks back I posted a sneak peek at a new kind of Phoebe doll. I was inspired to design her by the request of several followers, a less expensive Phoebe, which I totally get. For me that meant a less time intensive Phoebe. So I eliminated the jointed arms and legs. She is now like most other cloth dolls, a bit "relaxed" or floppy. So for the time being she will be called "Chill Phoebe".
And after making several of these, I am smitten. They are not a compromise, just a different kind of doll with a slightly different appeal. Also, a little more cuddly for children.
She is standing with "assistance".
Phoebe is Off to California
Toddler Phoebe is off to her new home in California.
Good-bye!
The Beloved Handmade Doll Dress Contest
When I was about six or seven my mother made Barbie wardrobes for my sister and me. I loved every stitch of that gift, but I absolutely cherished Barbie's ice-skating dress, which was made out of flannel to mimic velvet and had a swirly skirt.
So many of us have "beloved" handmade doll dresses. We love them for different reasons.
Maybe the dress is loved for who made it,
or how we acquired it.
Or maybe it was a first attempt at sewing.
Maybe it reminds us of a child, now too old to play with dolls.
Or is connected with a memory of our own childhood.
Or maybe it is just the very essence of cute.
I am hoping you will share that dress and why you love it with us. When all the dresses are in, I will put them on the blog and we can all vote on the cutest, sweetest reason, most amazing craftsmanship and best photo.
Everyone who enters gets a 10% discount in my Etsy shop and the three winners will get fabric and trim to use to carry on the tradition of handmade doll dresses.
Here's how to enter:
1. Snap a photo of JUST the dress, in other words not on a doll. Maybe on a piece of fabric, a quilt, a plain background. Whatever you think looks best.
2. Write 1-3 sentences why you love this handmade doll dress.
3. Email the photo and reason to me at phoebeandegg at gmail.com OR
4. Submit on Instagram with the hashtag #beloveddolldress and #phoebeandegg
5. Let me know whether you do or don't want your name to appear with the photo.
6. You can enter more than once. The more beloved-ness the better.
I can't wait to see all of these beloved doll dresses! And please please please share this post.
Contest will run until August 5, 2014.
Three Toddler Dolls now in my Etsy shop
I have been slow in listing these, but all three toddler dolls are finally in my Etsy shop. They are 16 inches tall and each come with a sweet dress and cotton knit PJs, and their underwear and shoes of course.
Follow Me on Instagram
I love instagram, probably because I love taking photos. I invite any of you who also like Instagram to follow me. I'll even throw in a discount for my Instagram friends every so often. Just click the large yellow camera below and you will get to my profile page.
Thank you!
The Ups and Downs of Prototyping
Good-bye floppy toddler doll...
Almost every doll and softie maker has been there. It starts with an image, imagined or inspired from something real. An image of something that does not exist yet—maybe a doll, an animal, a doll dress. It has to be designed and a pattern has to be created. A process that involves lots of paper, lots of cloth and sometimes a copier for scaling. The pattern is necessary because this image rarely becomes your vision on the first try and you will need a starting point from which to tweak.
So you tweak, and you tweak, and you tweak. You produce iteration after iteration. What propels you is that you have now invested serious time and materials and you imagine that you are creeping closer. Sometimes you are. You turn that last iteration right side out and have hit that eureka moment, when your vision has become real. You are holding your vision in your hands.. It was time well-spent. You gather your pattern pieces, because you will be sewing this again and again. Yay! Life is good.
But this is not always the prototyping path. It is not always a happy ending. Sometimes the ending is a dead-end. At some point, reality hits you and you start to realize, maybe this is not a wise investment. You reluctantly cut your losses.
When this happens, as it did to me this week-end, I need to realize this dead-end was also a worthy investment. An experiment that had to be explored. I wouldn't have known what could not be done until until I tried. And inevitably, when this happens, and it has more than once, I learn something new about sewing, or the materials, or pattern-making, or my psyche.
But first I'm in a bit of a funk, feeling like I wasted a lot of time. I throw away all the pieces, clean my studio, strip it of the evidence, so when i start tomorrow, I can think about what is ahead and not lament.
I tried to make a floppy toddler doll. I thought it would be sweet, but I could not get the felt to cooperate at that scale. I did make at least a half dozen iterations of a floppy toddler doll, each a tweak better than the last, but none were good enough to leave my house.
And I did get something out of it—this blog post. I would love to hear the ups and downs of prototyping from the rest of you makers out there. Misery loves company.
A Series of Toddler Phoebe Dolls
What are the first few words that come to mind when you think of your most beloved children as toddlers? Cute, pudgy, squeezable, adorbs, pint-sized. All words of pure affection It is hard not to be smitten with a toddler.
Over the last two months I have made a few custom toddlers. The recipients and their parents were all delighted with the new smaller cuddlier version of Phoebe. (Below is a cherished toddler doll having tea with her lovely owner). So I felt inspired to add the toddler Phoebe to the collection.
The toddler dolls are 16 inches tall, smaller than Phoebe and the perfect size for children under 7 to tote around. They are happy to picnic, play, sleep and do just about everything. They will have their own set of playful simpler clothes and a few other surprises.
Introducing the first few toddlers Phoebes. Enjoy! Today the dolls, tomorrow a few of their clothes. This weekend, hopefully I will have all of this in my Etsy shop.
Toddler Dolls: A sneak peek
I've been working on a line of toddler dolls. I have done a few custom toddlers and have wanted to add them to the Phoebe&Egg collection, but just have not had the time.
The whole process is very exciting and I can't wait to share. Today is just a sneak peek. The drum roll will be tomorrow or Thursday. Enjoy! (and I'd love to hear what you think).
