A Lovely Gift from Down Under

Last week I got a wonderful gift from Rachael, a package of doll dresses and accessories that she made herself. She asked me what my favorite color/historical era was (blue/about 1900-1909) and made three dresses and accessories that fit Tonner dolls with the Marley body. Fortunately for me, I have three dolls with that body, so each girl got a new dress! They're beautifully made, lined, with an underskirt, and use press snaps. No Velcro in sight!

The first dress is a blue sateen, decorated with lace and a ribbon rose, with a grosgrain ribbon sash. It's gathered at the front in the perfect 1905 way.

Next is a plaid dress made of shirting material. It has a yoke and an inverted box pleat.

It also came with a matching necklace

 

And a detachable collar. 

Lastly, another dress made of shirting material, with a yoke and a box pleat.

 This dress came with a stylish belt

Another detachable collar

*And* a "locket" pin with a velvet ribbon.

Please excuse Dorothy's blue ribbons. They're so perfectly factory tied still that I don't want to take them off.

And here's a group picture.

 

Antique style calls for black and white photographs, so here are some black and white versions of my pictures.

Rachael also sent me this fun notebook that came with a pen

And the pattern pieces that she used to make the dresses. I forgot to ask, though, Rachael, are seam allowances included with the pattern?

I am so thankful for the new doll clothes. It was so nice of Rachael to make them and send them to me; it's cheered up my November.

So Barb, you ask, why has it taken you so long to put up a new post? Or maybe you're not asking, but I'm going to explain anyway. About mid-October all three of the Evil Geniuses here came down with a cold (Mr. BTEG did a test for the other stuff, that came back negative.) It wasn't horrible, but it was the kind that saps your energy. You feel okay lying or sitting down, then you get up to do one thing, and your body reminds you that you're sick. After that, it was hard getting energy and enthusiasm back, plus I was frustrated by a big project I've been working on that got put on hold while we all were sick.

I'm going to wait to reveal all of the big project, but here's some of it. I told MC about a month ago that I am out of storage space, and I pretty much am, until the Dancer moves out. For the time being, though, I'm perfectly happy for her to live here, as she's saving up a lot more money not having to pay rent. Mr. BTEG, though, decided to move his dresser out of his and my bedroom, because he doesn't really use it anymore. That opened up a lot of space for new storage! I need the Dancer and Mr. BTEG to put some more furniture together, and I'm busy moving stuff around. I do have a couple of "easy" things that I could post about, so hopefully those will be up soon.

In the meantime, I couldn't wait to get up pictures of my dolls' new clothes, and how nice Rachael was. Maybe if shipping is better next year, we should organize a Secret Santa gift exchange among any doll collectors we know who wanted to participate. Or we could make sure stuff was ready to mail out in October. :)

P.S. Mr. BTEG read the comments and colored one of my pictures sepia for me. Thank you, honey!

Managing to Post

Well! My winter has been going pretty well as far as mood. Using my light box also helped me maintain something resembling a normal sleep schedule, instead of my body insisting it couldn't be nighttime, because there hadn't been any daylight yet! However, I wasn't really very motivated, which is different from being depressed. I have interest in doing things I find enjoyable, but my body hasn't been responding with physical energy to get things done. From experience, this should start getting better very soon, so I'm trying not to let myself get discouraged. I'm thinking that I should do as many photo shoots as possible through my more productive time of the year, although I've also been suffering from lack of concentration lately. It's frustrating being bored, because you can't even focus on a five minute YouTube video!

However, I'm doing a lot better today (after being sick for almost a week on top of everything else!) These are a few things that I've been wanting to share, that won't require a ton of writing on my part.

For one thing, I'm going to an annual Pullip doll lovers event called PUDDLE. This year it takes place on June 6th, in Elk Grove, Illinois, which is a suburb of Chicago. I've been wanting to go to another doll convention since the Tonner event, and there really don't seem to be that many out there anymore. The Barbie convention is out of my budget, besides which I'm not that big of a Barbie fan overall. I'm hoping that PUDDLE will be an enjoyable experience.

Partially to get to know other Pullip doll collectors before the convention, I'm going to be trying to post more Pullip pictures on my Instagram account. This is the best I could do last month, but March should be better.

Of possible interest to doll photographers are these two sets I saw in the #SNAPSTAR line. I think Aspen's studio is more interesting, as it has the star shaped spotlight *and* a separate spotlight with three color filters. Echo's set only has one spotlight, although it also has the "pink carpet" props. Anyway, these sets might be a budget opportunity to pick up some small-scale lights for photography.

I have so many posts that I've been wanting to make! Hopefully, the rest of 2020 will be better for this blog.

J-Doll Petit Champlain

It's been a difficult winter for me. I have low Vitamin D year-round, as well as issues with Seasonal Affective Disorder. My therapy light helps, but it's so big that I struggle finding a place to use it. It's cumbersome, and falls over easily.

For a while, I was shirking my regular use of it, and then I tried using a smaller light that my husband got, that looks more like a regular desk lamp. That didn't help me, and I spiraled into insomnia and joint pain. I may have found a workable place for my light, I hope, and I've been more disciplined in using it. I'm actually falling asleep before 5 AM nowadays, but I'm still working on getting things done like I used to. It's taken me days to write this post, even, because I can't seem to concentrate.

None of that is an excuse for why I haven't put up a post about this particular J-Doll yet. I bought her back in June of 2018! I just had other things to blog about, and somehow she got put at the back of the list. But talking about her now makes for a relatively easy post, so her time has come. I've blogged about J-Dolls before, as I own several. They were produced by Jun Planning, and then by Groove. They were made by the same company that makes Pullip dolls, and the bodies are similar to two of the body types that Pullip dolls have had, the Type 3 and the Type 4. If you want to see a comparison of the two bodies, go here. Otherwise, let's talk about Petit Champlain. J-Dolls were named after famous streets in different areas of the world. In this case, Petit Champlain can be found in Quebec City, Canada. She is the second "Canadian" doll to join my collection; the first was Stephen Avenue Walk, who hailed from Calgary. The outfits the dolls wear marginally reference their namesake areas. Petit Champlain's dress is definitely styled after a French can-can costume, so there you go, I guess. Since this new doll has a French background, I'm going to call her Sophie.

Here she is in her box. I picked her up at a Tuesday Morning store for a great price. The price sticker describes her as a "large Pullip." I did find a mini Pullip at Tuesday Morning on another trip, but I'd still not describe Sophie as a large Pullip. Maybe medium-sized.

Her hair was tied back with a small piece of thread, that was slipping down, and was eventually just going to fall off, so I took it off after taking a picture. I should have taken a picture of her from the front with her hair pulled back too, but her hair looked messy in the front from the tie coming loose, which is why I undid it in the first place.

Her outfit is definitely one of my favorites among the dolls that I've bought. She doesn't have a too-small jacket, her outfit hasn't stained her body, her shoes aren't going to fall apart, and the blouse is separate from the corset/skirt combo, so she could wear it with something else, although the pintuck stitching on the front of the blouse is crooked, so she'd probably still have to wear it with something like a high-waisted skirt, or a jumper. I am impressed that the blouse has princess seams, though. Sophie has plastic around her legs to prevent the black lace stockings from staining them. I should redress her at some point, I suppose, but I like her the way she is, too.

Since not all of you are familiar with J-Dolls, here for comparison is Sophie with Rachel, another one of my J-Dolls. Rachel hails from Abbott Street in Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

Once I started doing this review, I realized that I'm not sure where I put the pink hairbow that Sophie came with! I hope I didn't accidentally throw it out, even though it's something easily replaceable. Overall, she's one of my best J-Doll buys, and I'm glad that she's in my collection.

Day Two Derailment

Sorry to fall off the wagon so early here, but in addition to everybody in the family having a good old-fashioned cold, Mr. BTEG had some other health issues crop up that have turned everything temporarily topsy-turvy here. We're all okay, but today did not go as I planned it!

Gone for a While

I'm having surgery this Wednesday morning, so I might not be around for a while. I don't own a laptop, so I'll have to be able to sit at my computer to do any writing, and I'm not sure how quickly I'll bounce back. I'll probably still be checking out the dolly world using my phone, but definitely not blogging on it. I hope you all have lots of fun!