Barbie-mania

Oh, yeah, Barbies! I'm a big fan of Barbie dolls. I probably started sewing and creating because of their beautiful, pink, plastic, shiny, wonderful world. I used to look for everything connected with Barbie world when I was a child because everything was just so attractive. But it was also slightly unreachable. Slovenia was a small post-communist and socialist country in my childhood, a part of Yugoslavia (YU consisted of 6 smaller republics (Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro) and 2 (less-independent) states: Kosovo and Vojvodina). 

Everything nice was coming from Germany, Austria, Italy, also Czech Republic and Slovakia and Hungary. Everything what was precious and valuable was in German marks and it was quite expensive. So we used one currency to buy and sell in our country and German currency to save money in and to buy more expensive goods like cars, kitchen appliences and Barbies, yes, Barbies.  My mum bought some for me when she was able to travel abroad as part of excursions for teachers. They were probably from China but at that time even those toys were of relatively good value. I didn't have any original Barbies - in my memory they were so expensive, like 99 marks = 99 euros. 

I remember looking through a catalogue of toys which was in German. I could never get those pink houses, cars, closest, scooters, beautiful sparkly clothes etc. So I created my own from boxes, fabric and so on. Things were not pink but I was able to play and to create. I took good care of any Barbie clothes that I owned and copied them to re-creat my own clothes for Barbies. (I should show them once before my children totally destroy everything.)

Anyway, enough of memories and nostalgia. I'm getting old. 

Here are 3 Barbie dresses and two patterns I've made recently (The first one and the third one are made after the same pattern, the second one is a different pattern.) Here I'll show just pictures and I'll try and make PDF files to download for my next post.

#1: The Blue Sparkly dress

#2: The Pink Cotton dress

The process of making:

Here is the original file I found on the internet, but it's a .jpg file, so not very useful: Simplicity 4719

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zNJn0I7Mn7pZc4Z1mNKTYUHMLuao-khv?usp=sharing

(I hope I'll publish it in PDF soon.)

#3: The Pink Boucle and Satin dress - the latest one

(This Barbie is like my best one that I own and she is over 30 years old.)

Useful site for making Barbie clothes:

A lot of great Barbie clothes with PDF patterns

For Christening - What a Dandy!

We had christening of our baby boy which I took as an opportunity to sew something nice for him. (I wanted to sew something new for my daughter and for myself too but I didn't have enough time.)
I found my inspiration on a Russian blog/ site (didn't understand anything) but never mind, I just needed  the picture.

My inspiration: 

My creation:

I decided to make a two piece outfit because it's easier to change diapers like that. I bought 3 pieces of fabric: jersey, shiny fabric and jacquard fabric. The vest is just a mock vest, attached at the front and it finishes in the side and shoulder seams.

But I must admit that it's cute to see a small baby with a bow-tie.

How to make a bow-tie: http://www.makeit-loveit.com/2014/04/little-boy-bowtie-the-quick-and-easy-version.html

The shirt is my creation: will make a link

The pants are: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx_iUlU6voEXU3JqUU5kX0ljbUE/view

found on a Russian site: https://vk.com/shop_zigzag

Pink squirrel costume

Again a year has passed and our annual carnival holiday is here - PUST (in Slovene) (this year on 9th February 2016). I gave my daughter three choices for a costume: a squirrel, a chicken or a kitty. Well, she wanted to be a horse. Absolutely not. Finally we agreed on a pink squirrel.

Tinkara 3 y 10 m

So I decide to go fully pink, a pink plush tail, a pink tull skirt, pink ears and a pink vest. Obnoxiously pink. Too much pink for my taste. I don't even like pink colour. But I guess little girls can stand a lot of pink. So here it is. So far I have done just the tail and the ears, the skirt is waiting to be finished.

How is it made?

1. I made the tail from old bed sheet and then stuffed it with soft polyester filling. 

2. Then I made the tail from pink plush material. And stuffed the white tail into the pink one.

3. I have sewed white elastic on top of the tail and somewhere in the middle like it's a rucksack. That's the best way to carry this tail everything else makes it floppy because it is quite heavy.

Children's squirrel tail and ears - download

4. Then I attached a kind of belt in the waist - made of plush material and white elastic band. I hope the pictures are clear enough.

5. Then the ears: I used a head piece which I encased/ covered in jersey fabric.

6. Then I made the ears and stuffed them with polyester filling, but a flat one. Then I folded them and attached triangular pieces of fabric to make the ears more squirrel-like. The ears were easy to sew on the head piece because it had holes in the head piece (I bought it just for 1 eur in KIK).

That's it!