Pattern Drafting... for little people.

This weekend, I've been using some pattern drafting skills to try to get my growing population of Tonner dolls into clothing that 1) I've made myself and 2) lookes better than if one were to wear a paper sack.

The first thing I tried, was the A-line skirt. That's the one the red-headed, sitting Tyler is wearing. I stitched it up quickly so I could test the pattern. Decided that the pattern was good enough and added the embroidery stitching (with the thread already in the machine). Simple, simple. I think it came out quite nicely. I also started on three more of these, in full-length. I didn't finish them, I got distracted, as often happens. She is also wearing a hand-knit top and matching socks. Silly as that is.

I pulled a pattern from one of my many books for the gown the brunette Tyler is wearing. Considering how long I fought with my computer on the correct sizing, it did work out pretty well. The patterns in the book are scaled 1" to 1/8" which is easy to double for working with the dolls. The computer, however, didn't think I should be allowed to print anything that big. I worked around it. It would have been too big at that size, anyway.

The last one, is the bodice portion of the dress, with 3/4 sleeves. I really like how this one came out. I'll be using this pattern again. Maybe I can make t-shirts, complete with silly logos on the front. My wonderful "Bonnie" was kind enough to model this for me. She also wears hand knit socks (I did make two that matched, but lost one), a hand knit hat (don't talk to her about the fact that it covers up her lack of hair, she's sensitive) and a cute pair of shorts I made months ago.

If anyone sees a particularly interesting fashion, that would translate well to the doll world, please, send me an email. I usually just wade through my fabric, pick something, pick a pattern at (mostly) random and start working. Granted, I'm to the point of putting clothing aside, instead of covering up naked dolls, but I'm open to new ideas.

I realized that I have been leaving out an important part of this whole blog thing... What do I listen to when I'm doing all this work? Well, primarily my iPod. No one listens to the radio, at least that's what we keep telling the survey people when they call (they call every month or so).

For the last couple weeks, I've been listening to J.C. Hutchins 7th Son trilogy. I learned about J.C. while listening to Scott Sigler. To be kind, I'll say I like J.C. better than Scott. His podcast was also recommended by the good folks over at The Signal. I've listened to all of books one and two. I will also listen to book three. I think he puts a story together very well.

If I say I've read better, it is no surprise. If I say I've read worse, it's really no surprise. I can say that I'm interested in the story, I like the characters and I care what happens to them. That's about the best recommendation you'll get from me. If I don't care about the characters, I'm not reading (listening) to the whole thing. If you have room on your mp3 device, check out the first couple chapters. If you aren't interested... at least you tried.