After knitting for Blythe for nearly six(!) years, doing cardigans and hats, I finally decided to give dresses a try. Leigh is wearing our first test dress – which is pretty much just a modified hat! 🙂

I knitted in the round from the bottom up in a lace pattern, decreased accordingly, and when it’s almost near the waist line, i knitted straight instead of in the round, going back & forth. When it came to the sleeves, I cast on extra stitches and went up from there, did a few rows of ribbing and then bound off. One thing I love about knitted garments is they have a bit of a stretch, so if you knitted a little too tight or too loose, it’s almost impossible to tell. The bodice didn’t take very long, but the skirt part took forever!

For a first dress, I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. I really like the yarn I’m using which is Spud and Chloe Fine, a gorgeous wool & silk blend. One skein will probably make 3-4 dresses!

Now that it’s getting warmer here in California, I will most likely switch from knitting people-size to Blythe size. At least I have 25 girls to knit for. 😉

I am so pleased with Georgia’s new haircut! After five years in my family (she arrived in September 2005) I finally decided to do something with her hair. I love the variegated hair color on V-Smash, but because her hair is center-part and she has the SBL head shape, it makes her head look huge! I’ve seen quite a few V-Smash with bangs/fringe and really love how they look.

Those of you who have V-Smash know she has A LOT of hair, and a very thick thatch part. It took me two hours from start to finish, working on one small section at a time. Thanks to Melissa’s wonderful tutorial on PuchiCollective, it was very easy to follow. I used a fine-tooth comb, claw hair clips, and clear hair bands. I also used a size 2 bamboo knitting needle to sort out the part and thatch. It’s amazing how precise the needle can get to separate thin strands of hair and plugs without having to worry about scratches on the face.

I wanted the bangs longer for a more sophisticated and mod look, so I left the initial cut really long and worked my way up slowly with a small sharp scissor, stopping to check the length each time and continue to iron over a wet towel as I progressed. I think I was able to tame the thatched part.

Now that Georgia is a little less top-heavy and has a new haircut, she will be photographed a lot more!

I took five of the xoxoBlythe girls to a Blythe Meet yesterday, in the patio of Aztec Hotel in Monrovia. We had a great time hanging out, chatting and making new friends!

My girls are sitting in front – from L-R: Britta (Mondrian), Edith (MSR), Julia (HH), Caitlyn (KB), and Paige (CB/Faux-Goldie). The rest of the girls are from the Fiddy clan. Big thanks to Fiddy for lending me her SD card too!

You can see more photos from the May Day Meet in the LA Blythe Meets group on Flickr!

Phew. I spent 3 hours this afternoon organizing the girls’ clothes. I had them semi-organized in a chaotic fashion (I knew where everything was), but it was slowly getting out of hand! So I decided to go through all their clothes and organize them for good.

I started with three piles: factory-made (Takara), vintage, and handmade (the largest). Then I tackled the Takara pile first – separated them into different stock sets and put them in all individual ziploc bags. Now I can go to the French Trench bag for the blue dress, the Love Mission bag for the blue shirt & tie, the Samedi Marche bag for the apple apron, etc. No more digging around! Next was the vintage items – Barbie, Skipper, and other various unknowns. Those were easy.

The biggest pile was the handmade, and I am very proud to say so – I love handmade dolly clothing and I love supporting fellow dolly seamstresses! Soon I was sitting on the floor with itty bitty dresses, pants, tops, hands, skirts all over! I should have taken a photo but I was having too much fun. I ended up separating the handmade clothes by designers, putting them in ziploc bags and then boxed, as you can see above. I also have a big gallon size that has one-offs, and another for everything I’ve made – prototypes and seconds – the girls get to keep.

Now I can see what I have and dress the girls better! Just in time, too. We’re looking forward to a meet next weekend. I wonder who will be coming along with me to meet new friends? 🙂 We’ll be bringing a big bag of stuff to give away!

Hats, hats, and more hats! I love them and so do my girls. Here they are wearing some of my hats as well as some of my favorite Blythe fashion designers: Blythely Jean, Drop Dead Cute, Blythe 525, Simply Kir, Tiny Haus, EuroTrash, and Tibiloo!

I’m especially fond of girls who look nice in hats. Maybe it’s because I’m not much of a hat person myself – I love hats, but I just don’t think I look very good in them. Since my Blythe girls look great in hats, I try to put hats on them whenever I can!

Olive, the latest girl to join the family, is modeling a new hat I just finished. I didn’t use a pattern, just sort of eyeballed the size and went from there. Just make sure you are making it in multiples of whatever stitch you are doing, then make a swatch and guess from there, roughly around 11″ circumference. Then decrease when you’ve got a good height.

I’m proud of myself for learning the basics of crochet because I crocheted the little flower! I’ve always been more of a knitter than crocheter and wish I could crochet. I was so happy when I found the pattern for the little flower online at Ravelry. It was easy to follow, and all I had to do was look up all the acronyms in my trusty Teach Yourself Visually Crocheting book!

I would like to try amigurumi sometime, but all the patterns I’ve seen look so complicated and overwhelming. In the mean time I’ll just keep practicing making little flowers! More hats are being made and will be available on my Etsy shop sometime soon. I will be announcing them on Twitter and Facebook when they’re ready!

It’s been a while since I knitted anything Blythe-size. I’ve been knitting so many people-size things, it feels so fast and makes me feel accomplished!

Yarn used is TLC Cotton Plus in Spruce, DPNs are size 6.

Meet Olive, my new Cassiopeia Spice! She arrived today and I just love her to bits. She is a lot less orangey than I thought (that was my problem with Groovy Groove), her pale skin and honey-colored hair work really well together.

Her hair is really soft, and cut really well. I can see her in lots of cute hats!

I didn’t know what to name her, but Fringe was on in the background – and so I had to name her Olive. 🙂

Here are the details on Olive’s outfit.
Dress: Vanilla Sweet
Tights: Blythe Dressing Room
Vintage flower hairpin: Funny Bunny
Shoes: Mattel

Starting early (few more hrs ’til midnight), Happy New Year to all my dolly friends!

xoxo,
linda, leigh & the girls

(Leigh’s sweater dress is by Liz/Woollyrockers!)

Will be listing in my etsy, this Saturday 10/31 at 2pm PDT
Please check www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/converter.html for time zone differences!

Thanks for looking 🙂

These adorable retro-inspired cropped a-line jackets are an xoxoBlythe exclusive. ^__^ I created the pattern after being inspired by this year’s vintage-style trend. The jackets are lined in the bodice and feature a sweet Peter Pan collar, slight puffed short sleeves, with pleating detail on the front, rounded corner hem, and finished with a metallic button. All cotton fabric. Snap closure in front.

There will be matching sleeveless empire-waist dresses to go along with the jacket. The update will be this Saturday afternoon (time TBD). Please check my Flickr in the next few days for more details.

Thanks for looking! 🙂