Adi Blaas

[adiblaas]

tbqh I think it sort of looks like I tried to photoshop out stray hairs or something on Clawdeen, but... no... her hair is just that flat and sort of matted and gluey

(also I can’t photoshop)

anyway my point is, I practice doll hair curling on a Liv wig every so often, and I have yet to really make it work (witness Beatrice’s lopsided results) but once again, the need was too dire, I had to act

this time I went with this video... roughly... like we don’t have a flat iron or papers (or hair spray) and I just went ahead anyway because fuck it, which really would not be my normal agonized eternal procrastination stance on a good doll with rooted hair, but like... a) a mess and b) she’ll probs need a wig at some point anyway, because I’ll probs take her ears off

the result actually looks totally fine dead-on, but obvs since I literally did it wrong it ah... didn’t work if you have a less carefully selected view

I think I’ll have another go and follow this video maybe (and actually follow all the directions, like...), especially since one of the big problems currently is that the locks are too big and show roots in between, but I can’t thin them out without losing the curl, because ah, I did it wrong! and they are not retaining curl if tugged around like that, they have better things to do, like fall flat and lifeless against her scalp

[adiblaas]

I bought this little house-shelf ages and ages ago, and t y p i c a l l y, flat-out could not settle on a thing to do with it. To do the wrong thing would be to throw away the $5 I spent on this second-hand glued-together item. 

Anyway I just went ahead and did something, somehow, through the haze of panic. 

It started out a heinous shade of blue (still visible where I have already chipped the yellow at the bottom!), and I meant to paint it a paler yellow than this ended up being, but fuck it. 

[adiblaas]

I mean, okay, in every real sense, these overalls are just as much of a disaster as the dresses, but I am delighted with them. 

They’re basically from this MyFroggyStuff video, except obviously I a) didn’t do any of the embellishments that make them look like proper overalls, and b) I did several things very wrong. Like hemming one leg the wrong way around. Like not marking where the “pockets” would have gone, which led to sewing the straps onto the front instead of the back. Like making the straps so much too long that they double as a handy sash. Also, c) there are large roosters on the fabric. 

Look at my tiny precious dork in them, though.

[adiblaas]

So I got some more Disposed of Due to Its Appalling Pattern Fabric and have been trying to use it to figure out these graduated circle-type dresses. Results have been mixed. By “mixed” I mean unmitigated failures but hopefully I learned some kind of lesson, deep down. 

My first attempt, I didn't cut the strips with enough of a difference in length for the gathering bit to work very well, and also I cut them so narrow that sewing them together was fiddly, because I have never in my life considered a seam allowance before it’s too late. 

My second attempt, I cut them wider, but also a) forgot how much of a difference in length I’d done last time and, I suspect, just gave them that exact same difference again, and b) failed to consider that doing four strips meant the dress wouldn’t actually get much wider no matter how long it was. 

My third attempt, I did at least cut them wide enough, with enough of a difference in length, and numerous enough. Now I don’t remember what the length difference was, though, so. 

First dress: folded over and hemmed on the wrong side, because that’s become a charming new habit of mine. Also: doesn’t entirely close but can be awkwardly pinned in place, after a fashion. 

Second dress: heyyyyy isn’t elastic half the point of these li’l easy circle dresses?! But: Beatrice’s bizarre chest measurements  + elastic + me = nope. So this one tore going on. 

Third dress: Well, it came closer? But really, narrow elastic that stretches enough to go over her ridiculous breasts and then snaps back enough to close over her collarbone, lord fucking help me. Anyway the top strip of the dress was too short to begin with, for which see below; her breasts are straining so desperately against the fabric they bunch up the whole back of the dress’s torso. Incredible. Free them. 

[adiblaas]

So like, these walls. I had plans for them but I abandoned those plans, which left the walls up for grabs, so I decided to take a swing at a little pastel gothery. So far, I have ended up with this: 

As previously mentioned, ease of storage is of top importance, so the skulls (leftovers from my monster project) and the butterflies are stuck to the tissue paper backdrops with Velcro, theoretically allowing them to be removed so I can fold the boards up flat. Theoretically. Tissue paper is not actually a great place to glue a patch of Velcro. The foresight that goes into my projects is astounding. 

The ribbon my mom found back around Halloween and it is fantastic. 

[adiblaas]

Tiny Action Sam Wilson will have a suspended apartment. It will be so. I’m working on it. So far the decor is based more on “things Adi has on hand” than on “things Sam Wilson might want in an apartment” but life is brutal and unfair, Tiny Action Sam Wilson. 

Things I Had on Hand: wrapping paper in what might be construed as a masculine pattern, faux-woven liner for drawers, the box from a bulletin board, the box from my brother’s hockey stick. 

Other things I had on hand: disassembled pieces of a plywood cabinet, disassembled pieces of a picnic table that rotted through on us, a saw, zero experience sawing anything ever. 

This is large and doesn’t fold down for storage which is usually my #1 priority, so um. I may have been overexcited. Also there may be ants living in one of the picnic table parts. 

[adiblaas]

Listen, “The Yellow Wallpaper” messed me up. So that is tissue paper over traced-and-painted silhouettes, with holes cut in the tissue to accommodate little balsa wood frames. (The paintings are alive and you will pry my horror tropes from my cold creaking fingers with a zinc-coated steel straightener.) The wall isn’t done, because it needs something on the other side and also like... stripes or something, to bring home the “wallpaper” part. Which I should have done before I glued the frames on but hey. This whole thing is experimental. A rough draft. I want to make a super witchy creepy room in 1/4 size eventually. ~Dreaming big.

[adiblaas]

And then! I measured more precisely. Also noticed that you’re not supposed to have a diagonal line all the way down to the corners of the tunic; there’s supposed to be a bunch that goes down straight? But I was using a literal scrap of cloth so there was only a little to go down straight after the diagonal, idk. (After I made the new pattern I noticed this. After. Second pattern. It’s fine.)

Sadly the combination of blue dress and background make her look like she’s been hospitalized, but hey. 

And this one closes in the back! Small victories. 

[adiblaas]

So this pattern exists (link goes to the Pin which in turn has the link to the original post, because the original post has a bunch of other stuff going on and it’s confusing). It’s the exact kind of two-piece pattern I persist in using even though Beatrice’s ridiculous chest really calls for me buckling down and learning to make tops out of like eighteen pieces. 

Science doesn’t know why I persist in believing I can eyeball things. 

I mean I did measure her chest and the tunic still didn’t close in the back. Like I do that even measuring. So why not make things worse by eyeballing everything else? 

[adiblaas]

I am in love with jewelry cases as doll dressers, and I have a big one I’ve been working on for the last 82 years for the 1/4 dolls. This one, though, I acquired specifically for Tiana. Wonder of wonders, I got the nasty old liner out semi-cleanly, so I relined with paper (and a little ribbon), gave it a bar (no hangers yet though so that remains pointless) and boom. Now she just needs the entire rest of her room. 

[adiblaas]

I really want to make a doll room where most of the furniture is hanging from the ceiling and the rest folds down from the walls. I really want to do this in like 1/6 scale. (Honestly rn I really want to do this for Tiny Sam Wilson because it cracks me up; it’s terrible and gimmicky but oh my god get it he has wings.) 

Anyway so I took it for a Lala Mini test drive and basically no bugs were worked out, I just established that it’s going to be tough because getting shit to balance in midair is hell. This was a valuable lesson for me. It sounds obvious but to me, it was not.  

[adiblaas]

So between RodianAngel's tutorials and my grandmother's lessons I was forced to make waistbands for skirts. This goes against every lazy bone in my body but gum I did the thing. Sort of. More or less. 

I found a way to be super lazy about this one. Stuck a ribbon through the waistband, didn't sew it closed, boom. Instant half-assed closure. (Since then I've found some wee snaps lying around so I will add one to prevent Beatrice hanging out in back.) Also I sewed the band on too high and it doesn't cover the stitches from drawing the waist in, even though the tutorial explicitly said to sew below those stitches to hide them. This is due to the fact that I am trash. Plus the actual waistline is too small for her waist but the ribbon covers for that, so fuck it. 

So then I made the next skirt with the waist too big, because that's... me. 

It also features a tulle underskirt and an actual snap. (The trade-off, in terms of laziness, being that I sewed those while watching MST3k instead of accomplishing things.) Also I should probably trim off all that bulk where the gathering happened but honestly I'm afraid the skirt will fall apart if I do that.

[adiblaas]

See, now, I could learn from my mistakes--or I could wait so long after making a mistake that by the time I attempt a similar project, I've forgotten everything I ever learned and have to make the exact same mistake again. 

So RodianAngel has some v. nice little tutorials on doll clothes, aimed down at a me-level audience, and I used one to start a shirt for Beatrice. 

I made literally the exact same mistake I made last time I sewed sleeves on, because listen, that was three whole months ago. 

That is a sleeve sewn on all wrong. Again. I even had the phrase "good side to good side" in my head but figured nah, that doesn't make sense. Whatever, Adi. I put the other sleeve on the correct way even though I could have at least had them match because shhhhhh. 

The shirt overall worked out pretty well, all things considered. I inevitably stretch things out when I try to hem them, and Beatrice's bust is too ridiculous for these basic patterns really, but hey, throw a little lace on there as distraction and what's it matter. 

[adiblaas]

This month I resolved to Apply Myself to drawing, and I do in fact have drawings to show for it, but I also wanted to work on coloring. 

SO HERE IS ONE OF SOBDASHA'S DELIGHTFUL ZELDA COLORING PAGES

LINK IS BLACK AND IT IS AUTUMN BECAUSE SHHHH

Attempts at blending and shading were made. This took me all week. That is the skill level we're talking about. 

[adiblaas]

Let me talk a second about the extent and specificity of my laziness: 

I wrote this phrase out with a ruler on lined paper, cut out each word with scissors, hollowed out each letter with a razor, traced through each letter, and finally went over the letters with a Sharpie paint pen. 

I did this because I didn't want to look for our stencils. 

[adiblaas]

Some close-ups of the tragedies. 

[adiblaas]

I um

mistakes were made

Finished a day too late.

It took this long because I took like a two-week break while waiting around for my dad to use the iron so I could piggyback on his ironing. 

During said break I lost all knowledge I had so painfully acquired. Every bit of it.

Ergo: Spent about an hour sitting at the sewing machine, motionless, staring at the pieces of the dress and sleeves. Finally decided how sleeves probably get attached. 

Decided wrong.

Forgot even to sew the shoulders first, then sewed one of them wrong in exactly the overlapping way I learned not to do. This turned out fine since that seam ripped right the fuck out when I put the dress on the doll, so I got to resew it anyway lol. 

Forgot to make a slit in the back so that the dress would fit over her head. 

Made slit, said "fuck it, I'm not making a goddamn closure."

This turned out to be fine because lol it wouldn't close anyway due to her immense chest/my inability to think in three dimensions and accommodate said chest. 

Don't even talk to me about the sleeves, which I made too big on purpose figuring it'd give me wiggle room. It mostly meant I sewed weird wrinkles into them. 

Tried to make the hood to fit her wig under it. Said "fuck it." Weird lump of extra fabric in the back now. 

Made the black cross-stitch bits by changing half of the sewing machine thread. Underachiever Award. 

I'm completely fucking delighted with myself though. This costume is a monument to how much of a fartbrain I am. Tragically beautiful.