Heck Yea Gene Dolls

Crafting and Collecting Ashton Drake Gene Dolls

[vincentbriggs]

I have finished my button video! It is 35 minutes long and I do 4 different buttons. Here’s a link to the accompanying blog post with more photos & links.

[vincentbriggs]

The thrilling sequel:

I also do 4 examples in this one, but they’re pretty simple so it’s only about 12 minutes. This one also has an accompanying blog post with links.

[vincentbriggs]

Oh, I meant to add this one, and forgot!

And a link to the blog post with all the reference images and such.

[vinceaddams]

Any tips on learning to make buttonholes? I've been putting it off for.... *checks notes* like three years.... but better late than never and all that. I don't have any fancy machines so I gotta do it by hand but that seems right up your alley.

Thanks!

It IS up my alley, yes, I do most of my buttonholes by hand!

I'm actually part way through filming an 18th century buttonhole tutorial, but I expect it'll be a few more weeks before I finish that and put it on the youtubes, so in the meantime here's the very very short version. (The long version is looking like it'll probably be about 40 minutes maybe, judging by how much script I've written compared to my last video?)

Mark your line, a bit longer than your button is wide. I usually use a graphite mechanical pencil on light fabrics, and a light coloured pencil crayon on dark ones. (I have fabric pencils too, but they're much softer and leave a thicker line.) You may want to baste the layers together around all the marked buttonholes if you're working on something big and the layers are shifty and slippery. I'm not basting here because this is just a pants placket.

Do a little running stitch (or perhaps a running backstitch) in fine thread around the line at the width you want the finished buttonhole to be. This holds the layers of fabric together and acts as a nice little guide for when you do the buttonhole stitches.

Cut along the marked line using a buttonhole cutter, or a woodworking chisel. Glossy magazines are the best surface to put underneath your work as you push down, and you can give it a little tap with a rubber mallet if it's not going through all the way.

I'm aware that there are some people who cut their buttonholes open using seam rippers, and if any of them are reading this please know that that is abhorrent behaviour and I need you to stop it immediately. Stop it.

Go get a buttonhole cutter for 10 bucks and your life will be better for it. Or go to the nearest hardware store and get a little woodworking chisel. This includes machine buttonholes, use the buttonhole cutter on them too. If you continue to cut open buttonholes with a seam ripper after reading this you are personally responsible for at least 3 of the grey hairs on my head.

Do a whipstitch around the cut edges, to help prevent fraying while you work and to keep all those threads out of the way. (For my everyday shirts I usually do a machine buttonhole instead of this step, and then just hand stitch over it, because it's a bit faster and a lot sturdier on the thin fabrics.)

I like to mark out my button locations at this point, because I can mark them through the holes without the buttonhole stitches getting in the way.

For the actual buttonhole stitches it's really nice if you have silk buttonhole twist, but I usually use those little balls of DMC cotton pearl/perle because it's cheap and a good weight. NOT stranded embroidery floss, no separate strands! It's got to be one smooth twisted thing!

Here's a comparison pic between silk buttonhole twist (left) and cotton pearl (right). Both can make nice looking buttonholes, but the silk is a bit nicer to work with and the knots line up more smoothly.

I've actually only used the silk for one garment ever, but am going to try to do it more often on my nicer things. I find the cotton holds up well enough to daily wear though, despite being not ideal. The buttonholes are never the first part of my garments to wear out.

I cut a piece of about one arm's length more or less, depending on the size of buttonhole. For any hole longer than about 4cm I use 2 threads, one to do each side, because the end gets very frayed and scruffy by the time you've put it through the fabric that many times.

I wax about 2cm of the tip (Not the entire thread. I wax the outlining/overcasting thread but not the buttonhole thread itself.) to make it stick in the fabric better when I start off the thread. I don't tend to tie it, I just do a couple of stabstitches or backstitches and it holds well. (I'm generally very thorough with tying off my threads when it comes to hand sewing, but a buttonhole is basically a long row of knots, so it's pretty sturdy.)

Put the needle through underneath, with the tip coming up right along that little outline you sewed earlier. And I personally like to take the ends that are already in my hand and wrap them around the tip of the needle like so, but a lot of people loop the other end up around the other way, so here's a link to a buttonhole video with that method. Try both and see which one you prefer, the resulting knot is the same either way.

Sometimes I can pull the thread from the end near the needle and have the stitch look nice, but often I grab it closer to the base and give it a little wiggle to nestle it into place. This is more necessary with the cotton than it is with the silk.

The knot should be on top of the cut edge of the fabric, not in front of it.

You can put your stitches further apart than I do if you want, they'll still work if they've got little gaps in between them.

Keep going up that edge and when you get to the end you can either flip immediately to the other side and start back down again, or you can do a bar tack. (You can also fan out the stitches around the end if you want, but I don't like to anymore because I think the rectangular ends look nicer.)

Here's a bar tack vs. no bar tack sample. They just make it look more sharp, and they reinforce the ends.

For a bar tack to a few long stitches across the entire end.

And then do buttonhole stitches on top of those long stitches. I also like to snag a tiny bit of the fabric underneath.

Then stick the needle down into the fabric right where you ended that last stitch on the corner of the bar tack, so you don't pull that corner out of shape, and then just go back to making buttonhole stitches down the other side. Then do the second bar tack once you get back to the end.

To finish off my thread I make it sticky with a bit more beeswax, waxing it as close to the fabric as I can get, and then bring it through to the back and pull it underneath the stitches down one side and trim it off.

In my experience it stays put perfectly well this way without tying it off.

Voila! An beautiful buttonholes!

If you want keyhole ones you can clip or punch a little rounded bit at one end of the cut and fan your stitches out around that and only do the bar tack at one end, like I did on my 1830's dressing gown.

(I won't do that style in my video though, because they're not 18th century.)

Do samples before doing them on a garment! Do as many practice ones as you need to, it takes a while for them to get good! Mine did not look this nice 10 years ago.

Your first one will probably look pretty bad, but your hundredth will be much better!

[heckyeahgenedolls]

off to watch the Kens make fools of themselves at the beach off

[membraneshock]

rip to all the “fuckyeah___” blogs that carried our society at one point </3

[fuckyeahcoelacanths]

[puddingmetvel]

Lolita elements database

Hello everyone!

I’m not a lolita, but I really love the look of classical lolita. Because I would like to incorporate lolita elements into my sewing, I made my own lolita elements database.

I went through all of the dresses and skirts of Mary Magdalene, Innocent World and several other smaller brands on Lolibrary. I saved the ones I liked, broke them down to their smallest possible elements (button placket decorations, collar types, hemlines, skirt surface decoration types, …) and deleted the doubles. After that I drew them on several pages. This allows me to throw the proverbial dart at each page, combine them and end up with a complete dress.

My other main interest is Edwardian fashion, so not every element here comes from lolita. It’s also only what I like, and not an exhaustive list (lol imagine)

I made this for myself, but perhaps y'all might benefit from my project too! I scanned the pages (with my very bad scanner), cleaned them up and translated all the Dutch. Hopefully Tumblr won’t resize them too much.

Enjoy! :)

[20dollarlolita]

HOly cow that’s a lot of work! This is super cool. Everyone check it out.

[auldcine]

Why, you’re brazen! How could I be, with a heart like an ice cube? I didn’t say that! And that gleam in your eye has nothing to do with ice cubes. It’s predatory! Maybe you’re right. RITA HAYWORTH and ADOLPHE MENJOU in YOU WERE NEVER LOVELIER (1942)

[hollywoodlady]

Rita Hayworth and Marlene Dietrich depart for Hollywood after a New York visit, 1941.

[lookingbackatfashionhistory]

• Suit.

Date: late 1954

Designer/Maker: Hubert De Givenchy

Place of origin: Paris

[ruched]

High Tide: Zimmermann Resort 2023

[235235wedfsfsdf]

You know what, fuck you *uses your fabric scissors to cut cardboard*

[tired-and-healing]

[heckyeahgenedolls]

I’m obsessed with your gene collection I just started collecting them myself

Thank you! It’s so nice to hear from another collector. I’d love to see some pics of your dolls sometime if you ever post them!

[heckyeahgenedolls]

The reason I hadn’t posted any doll hauls in awhile is because I’ve been saving basically everything I bought the last 2-3 months and wrapping it all for Christmas.

Skiing or “She-ing” Trent. 2004. A blond himbo. I named him Sterling. Extra outfit and two pairs of shoes.

Neat as a Pin Trent. 2002. Redhead. Business slut. Etienne. 

Jack of Diamonds Trent. 2005. Raven haired. I wiffled on naming him but settled on Joaquin. Forgot to take his pimp stick out of the box!!

A trifecta of Trents! I have now collected all the different hair shades and facial hair stylings manufactured by Ashton-Drake for the Trent dolls. 

White Christmas. 1997. Some slight yellowing on the white tree. All the little bits are still factory sealed so I decided not to set it up, just to put it away in a day or two. 

Set aside a few of the Gene and Madra Holiday outfits. There’s still several more to collect, so I can look forward to that over the next few years. 

Blossoms in the Snow. 1997.

Ransom in Red. 1998.

At Home for the Holidays. 1999.

Highland Fling. 2000.

[heckyeahgenedolls]

Two very similar patterns, I thought it would be fun to make them together to see the differences. The teal faux corduroy version ended up being much more elaborate. I’d started these earlier in the year and set them aside, which turned out to be a good thing because I changed up nearly all my fabric selections for the denim overall outfit. 

I got the fully functioning doll sized overall clip sets from French Fashions, which is my favorite doll fabric and notions shop! The top stitching on the tinier pieces had me about losing my mind lol. I used a satin presser foot as a guide for 1/8″ but I think this is something I just need more practice. I also learned how to do an embroidery chain stitch for one pair of the work gloves. 

All together, I think these two projects are a success!

[heckyeahgenedolls]

Bon Bon Gene. 2003. Limited Edition of 500.

Y’all I am in happy tears!! This has been my dream doll for so long and I finally received her today! She’s in absolutely perfect condition, no yellowing on her body at all. Even the extra little protector for the hat feathers. Such a rare find! Her name is Dulce. 💖💖💖

[heckyeahgenedolls]

A few projects I began and set aside this year. Gonna try to finish them up this month, we’ll see. I haven’t been keeping up with this blog, life just got busy. But I’m trying to keep up my hobby habit.

[thesoldiersminute]

Anya Taylor-Joy at the CFDA Fashion Awards (2021)

[heckyeahgenedolls]

Two suits, one pattern.

Teal linen

Turquoise stretch knit

Teal, red, and silver floral crepe de chine

Silver pebbled faux leather ribbon and lining

White aida cloth

Not shown: mini pearl beads for the gloves and bracelet; white buttons.

I didn’t make these silver shoes.

She’s probably at a charity luncheon supporting a children’s hospital.

It’s probably a little OTT but Idk I just like to make stuff a bit extra.

I also made this hat a couple times before I felt like I got it mostly right. I’m just trying out different hat styles lately, and that’s what’s holding up the completion of several of my projects.

I enjoyed learning how to tie this belt like a tiny rosette to echo the floral print of the top.

Really don’t care for these super orange hose than came with my Black dolls. I ordered some brown power mesh to make them fishnets but it’s too dark so I have to try again. Hate trying to color match over the internet lol but what else is new.