Casual Clothes for Misha

When I go out, I very much prefer a T-shirt and shorts ensemble to girly skirts and dresses if it's just a casual trip out -- makes it much easier to chase and carry the Little One around.  So Misha needs to have some casual wear of her own too:

Casual T-shirt

Casual wear

Blythe Party Dress

Misha wearing a party dress

Misha finally got out of the house!  Wearing a cute dress made using the Party Dress pattern from Puchi Collective, Misha gazed around at her new surroundings for just a teeny while before her shy owner stuffed her back into a bag.  Oh well, maybe next time :p

My First Blythe Doll

It's an illogical order..... first I made Blythe doll clothes when I didn't have any dolls to model it on.  But..... now I have my own Blythe doll -- Misha Tebya Lyublyu.  Here's Misha walking with triceratops :)

Misha Tebya Lyublyu

First Attempt at Blythe Doll Clothes

In the new year of 2014, I tried something new -- Blythe Doll clothes!  After lots of prompting from a friend, I started making clothes for Blythe Dolls.  Armed with lots of links to free patterns, I tried out two from Puchi Collective.  Initially, I made a mistake and sewed up sides that were meant to be open, then I jammed up the sewing machine and almost ruined the A-line dress as it was small and fiddly to handle...

After some unpicking, re-sewing, I finally came up with 2 completed dresses.  The following photos are courtesy of my Blythe-loving friend modelling the dresses on her lovely dolls:

Polka-dot Empire Dress

A-line Dress

Blythe dresses

Blythe Dolls and Clothes

A few years ago, I got to know about Blythe dolls through a friend.  I'd never heard of them before so I turned to my best friends -- Google and Wikipedia.  According to Wikipedia, this doll was created in 1972 and was initially only sold for 1 year in the USA by toy company Kenner.  What I though was interesting, was that the eyes of the doll can be changed by a pull of a string!

Blythe Doll

When I visited my Blythe doll loving friend last year, I finally got to touch a Blythe doll!  She was pretty cool about letting me and my kid try changing the eye colour by pulling a string, but I was so scared that I'd somehow manage to pull too hard and spoil it...

Apparently, there's also a market for Blythe doll clothing and my friend sent me some links to some really really really cute Blythe doll clothing stores.  They were so cute that I felt like getting similar clothes for myself.... hahahaha.  This was my personal favourite from CHU THINGS:

"Tiffany's Flowers" for Neo Blythe Dolls by CHU THINGS

Wouldn't you love a dress like that for yourself?

Upcycled Braided Hair Band Tutorial

When it comes to comfort, I love my old scruffy T-shirts.  The older they are, the scruffier they are, the softer they are.  But when the neckline of one particularly scruffy T-shirt got looser and looser...... it was time to say goodbye to it:

Scruffy old T-shirt

Usually, such T-shirts end up as a rag in my house.  But I wanted to try something different this time and I started to upcycle it into a hair band for myself!

Step 1:
Cut 5 strips of about 1 inch in width.  The T-shirt material doesn't fray, so there's no need to serge the edges.

Cutting strips of T-shirt

 Step 2:
Lay the ends of the 5 strips together and stitch (by hand or machine) them together securely

5 strips stitched together

Step 3:
Stretch each strip lengthwise so that the edges curl up, then proceed to do a 5-strand braid.  See here for instructions and lovely braided hair bands!

5-strand braid

Step 4:
Stitch the ends together after braiding the required length, it doesn't have to be neat as it'll be covered up with another scrap piece of fabric.  Ta-daa!  And here's the completed product:

Upcycled braided hair band

Lessons learnt from my first braided hair band?

1. Measure the length braid smaller as there is some stretch in the braid.  Mine was a little loose.... 
2. Stitches at the start and end of the braid should be secure but need not be neat.  Any ugly stitches will be covered at the end
3. Old T-shirts make really comfy hair bands! :)

Little Elly

Elephant Plushie

Little Elly say a big "Hi!" to everyone :)  Little Elly is a gentle elephant with a ready smile and he loves flowers!  One day, he saw a meadow sprinkled with lots and lots of colourful flowers and started to roll around in the grass.  He was having so much fun that he continued rolling around for a long long time.  When he finally got up to go home, he was covered in flowers!

Note: Little Elly is Mummy's little handmade toy for the Little One.  Since Big One had a handmade dinosaur plush, it was only fair that the Little One got something too.


If you would like a cute little elephant plushie, you can find them here!