My Entry in the Latest Requiem Art Sewing Contest

Some of you may know the Requiem Art name. She has an Etsy store that sells sewing patterns for several different sizes of dolls. She also has a blog where she talks about her patterns, and has an ongoing story featuring her Pullip dolls. She has had sewing contests in the past; this is the first one that I've entered. The theme for this contest was "Fancy." Do you think Ashlynn's gown is fancy?

I picked an Ever After High doll because if I win, I get free patterns in EAH size until 2018! And EAH are the dickens to sew for. I've successfully created patterns of my own for Barbie's size, and Tonner Marley, but I'd rather not try to create patterns for EAH. Although, now that I say that, I did come up with the pattern for the skirt above by myself. Fitting around the waist was a pain, though, and I'm still not entirely happy with how the back came out, but it didn't have to be perfect for this photo. :)

Anyway, voting should start soon on requiemart.com, and runs until February 7th. If you like my design, I'd appreciate a vote!
ETA: Vote for me here. I am entry number one in the Petite Slimline category.

Ever After High 2-in-1 Castle Playset Review

This was my big Christmas gift from Mr. BTEG and my daughters. And I do mean big! Fortunately for me, I was able to rearrange doll displays and get this castle onto the top of one of my dressers.

I took a lot of pictures of this, and some of them are not perfect. One of the problems is that I was struggling to find a way to get decent lighting for the pictures. But I'm tired of putting off getting pictures of my great new toy online, so it is what it is. Loads of pictures after the fold!

Changes at TRU for 2017

I ran out to my local TRU a few days ago, to get the EAH Birthday Ball Cupid and Duchess to go with my Birthday Ball Blondie. It became imperative to get them, after I saw that Target is now starting to stock the same version of these dolls, only without wrist articulation. Now that the less articulated dolls are out, I don't feel safe buying the dolls on Amazon anymore, either. So it was off to TRU to get the original versions. I bought the last Duchess at my store, and there were only a few Cupids left. As with Blondie, I'm pleased with the dolls for what they are. They have all the EAH articulation, plus their hair is very soft and not too thin, and their clothes and accessories have some level of detail.

I thought TRU was only going to be going to be carrying the Wellie Wishers dolls, but it seems a good bit of my TRU has changed into an American Girl Place, at least for the modern AG girls! I feel perhaps TRU and Mattel are both feeling a bit of a financial pinch since they seem to be trying to milk the AG brand for all that it's worth. I'll admit that it was neat to see all this stuff in person, and I do like the two American Girl dolls that I have. This set-up at TRU makes me wonder if the historical dolls might be on the way out completely, although I have no concrete reason to believe that. I will admit that the latest historical doll release, Melody, seems to have been hugely popular, and Felicity is also making a return. Still, I've also heard AG is releasing a modern doll for Felicity's line as well. She is the character who will go back to Felicity's time for the "choose your own" adventure style book that other historical girl dolls have. I'm not the target market for these dolls, however, so whatever happens, happens for the American Girl line.

The display case model scheme was also carried into the Barbie aisle, which was just past the aisle that looks like a mini Claire's store. The actual Claire's store that was only a few minutes away from where I live, went out of business a few months back. But that's neither here nor there. Let's look at the Barbie aisle.

I guess you could also call this aisle the Mattel doll aisle, since as you can see, Monster High and Ever After High dolls are on the back left side of this section. People may not like the changes that are being made to Monster High, but I wish EAH was getting as much attention paid to its line as MH is getting. I can only assume the interest in EAH is just not as strong.

I didn't have time or energy to check out the rest of the doll sections, although I'm wondering now what they look like. I'm sure Hasbro has a pretty decent section with all the Disney dolls, except for Moana, who has her own large area near the front of TRU, since her movie just came out. I'm sure I can find an excuse to go to TRU sometime soon to find out. :)

Plans for 2017

I looked over my New Year's dollie resolutions from 2016, to see how I did, and what I wanted to change or continue this year. Last year, I managed to post four times a month for the first half of the year. The second half of the year got really crazy, and there is still some chaos and stress at Casa BTEG, so I don't feel too awfully about meeting my posting goal for the whole year. I'm going to shoot for four posts a month again anyway. I like to keep this blog active.

I was planning to photograph my 10" Georgia doll, but she needed a wig, which I never bought. I also have a Patsy that I need to re-wig. I've never bought a doll wig before, and I keep second guessing which wigs would look best. There are also a *lot* of choices out there! I ought to make the wig thing a higher priority this year, so these dolls can be complete.

Of course, I wasn't sure last January that I would be buying much, and then I went crazy about Ever After High, as you'll see when I blog about one of my Christmas presents. It didn't hurt that most of the EAH dolls I bought were marked down, being older releases. I was thinking seriously about getting another Makie, but that didn't happen, after the company suddenly disappeared.

At least Meg has a lot of doll friends to play with.

Other than Ever After High dolls, I bought one curvy Barbie, one petite Barbie, two Star Darling dolls, and a discontinued LIV set that I bought mostly for the display window. Unless I fall in love with another doll line this year, my doll purchases will probably be down. However, I've also purchased some furniture, and a LOT of accessories like Re-Ment. That will probably continue in 2017.

I've found making time to sew doll clothes difficult. This is probably partially because of my depression issues, and partially because of a schedule which changes every day. I keep trying for big blocks of time to get sewing (or knitting) done; what I need is to do a little at time when I have the opportunity. For some reason, I don't feel motivated to go to my sewing table unless I can get a huge amount done at once. That's just holding me back.

I have a couple of construction projects that I want to begin, but we don't have space for me to take on a big project right now. Likewise, I've been trying to paint doll accessories in my sewing area, which involves a lot of moving things around. I'd like to set up a dedicated space for painting (which I will probably share with my husband and daughter, who paint gaming miniatures.) That crafting space won't be free until later in the year.

Lastly, I've been thinking about starting a running storyline here featuring my dolls! I have an idea that I'm trying to develop into a working plot; hopefully I'll get it started within the next month.

Doubt and Depression

As I like to do, I'm looking over my past year of doll collecting, and making plans and goals for the year ahead, which I'll post about. But while I have my own personal plans for sewing and painting, etc. for my dolls, my thoughts from a collector point of view are pretty gloomy. There are still Ever After High dolls out there that I would like to buy, but nothing good seems to be in the works for the line. As a matter of fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it completely die out in 2017.

The announcement that Tonner is done with most of his lines was a huge surprise for most of the doll collecting community who follows his work. I was pretty certain there were going to be more Ann Estelle dolls coming out, and now there won't even be more Patsy dolls, or outfits that fit the 10" dolls. This will not help prices on the secondary market, which in my opinion are rather high already, considering how many dolls were produced, and how long ago the dolls were produced. All the 10" dolls, Ann Estelle, Petite Filles, and Patsy, seem to all be very popular among collectors still. There are currently 10" articulated bodies only for sale from Tonner, and I may try to pick up one or two on the chance that I might want to rebody one of my dolls, but I'm afraid they'll sell out rather quickly as people scramble to buy before everything is gone for good.

Makie is not in business anymore, either. In my plans for this year, was the possibility of getting another Makie doll, since I liked my first one. Unfortunately, this company too disappeared in 2016.

So in my doll collecting life, I really don't have any new releases to be excited about or look forward to. The only new dolls I might be interested in, for now, are Barbies, and Mattel is so hit or miss that I don't have a lot of confidence in what will be made this year. I will admit that at this time I am trying to power through clinical depression. Everything right now seems undo-able. But life continues.

ETA: I guess I can't absolutely say that there will never be any more Makie dolls. What I do know is that the company suddenly declared it was moving from the UK to the US. After that, there was no more news, and Makies are no longer for sale. It would be great if there was a chance that the dolls will be produced again, but it's been, I think, close to a year now with no news. Actually, I think orders for Christmas 2015 were cancelled at the last minute, but that's just a vague memory, and I can't find anything about it. I do know many people were upset because they had saved doll designs on the Makie website, which are now gone. 

Ever After High Tri-Castle-On Hunter Huntsman

I was having a hard time getting a couple of pictures of Hunter that I wanted. I finally took advantage of the sunny day today to get them all done, so this is the last doll in my Tri-Castle-On series. Hunter is the undisputed winner in the archery part of the Tri-Castle-On competition.

Here's Hunter full-length, and a close-up of his face. His stand leaves marks in his faux leather top, so I undid part of the Velcro in back, and pulled the back of the top around the stand. Hunter's pants are a fairly heavy weight denim weave.

Hunter has a purple hood, which can be pulled up. I think it makes him look sharp! It has a slit in the bottom back, though, like Cerise's hoods do, even though Hunter doesn't have long hair to go through it.

He's also wearing very sturdy boots.

His outfit is very similar to what he wears in the Tri-Castle-On webisode, and also in the Heartstruck webisode, when he unintentionally causes havoc after coming upon Cupid's bow and arrows. In the webisodes, he has sleeves and more detail to his trousers, but making a three pack affordable involved some cuts, I guess.

Like his cartoon version, Hunter does come with a nice arm guard. The vinyl version is even more detailed than the cartoon one, although it's only one color.

There's only one *small* problem: Hunter's arm guard should be worn on the arm that is *not* pulling the bowstring! In this case, when Hunter releases an arrow, the arm guard should be where it can protect the released bowstring, or the arrow in flight, from grazing Hunter's arm. It's even more important for sleeveless Hunter to have that protection. But our guy is wearing his arm guard on his *right* arm, meaning he should be pulling the bow string with his *left* hand. Honestly, I'm rather surprised that the animators messed this up, not once, but twice. Since doll Hunter's arm guard is sculpted to fit his right hand and arm, we'll say doll Hunter is left-handed, and let it go at that.

Of course, Hunter has to come with his bow and arrows. Hunter can actually wear his quiver; I was afraid it wasn't going to fit. These are all nice pieces, except his "cluster" of molded arrows has a slight curve in it. That might be deliberate?

I'm especially glad to have Hunter in my collection. I already have the Hunter that came with Ashlynn Ella, but that doll's hair is slightly greasy, and it could be hard to clean up without messing up the flocking on his head. If getting the oiliness out of his hair is even possible! Tri-Castle-On Hunter's hair is just super gelled. If I manage to get some practice re-rooting some doll heads next year, I could give my first Hunter new hair, and maybe even make him a different character.

So this is the end of my Tri-Castle-On reviews! In the end, I'm happy with all of the dolls and most of the accessories, which is great! What do you think of Hunter compared to Lizzi and Cerise?

Ever After High Tri-Castle-On Cerise Hood

Assisted by her genetics as the daughter of the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood (it's complicated), Cerise is the fastest runner at Ever After High. She's wearing a pretty boring (in my opinion) outfit for running.

Cerise is taller than the average Ever After High doll. In order to do this and still allow for clothes switching, Mattel simply made her legs longer than other dolls. The basic track pants with no overskirt really show off how long her legs are.

Cerise seems to have a small smile on her face, which is different from some of the other Cerise dolls that I have, especially Legacy Day Cerise. I think Mattel might have been better off giving the dolls a closed-lip smile in the first place, instead of the somewhat bland expression they had at the beginning. Do you see a smile?

Cerise does not have a huge head of hair, probably to allow it to go through the back of her hood. In the cartoons, she always wears a hood to hide her wolf ears. However, I think there is an adequate amount of hair to cover her roots, even though it is very uneven in the back, as often happens.

Like Lizzie Hearts, Cerise's shoes look like tennis shoes, only with giant heels. The little crest detail on Cerise's heels is very well done. Cerise gets black paint on her shoelaces.

Cerise's extra accessory is a very detailed water bottle. I can't get mine to rest on Cerise's shoulder, so she ends up having to hold it like a purse.

While Cerise is taller than other EAH girls, the group of girls from Wonderland, including Lizzie Hearts, are all shorter. I put Birthday Ball Blondie in one of these pictures to show how tall most of the EAH girls are.

I think Cerise is the least exciting doll in the set, in terms of what she is wearing, and what she comes with. I like her character in the show, though, and the smile that I see makes her different from the other Cerise dolls that I own. I already had three different Cerise dolls, and don't mind adding this one at all.