Tag: fashion

Tiny Tuesday!

I’ve had a pattern and a lot of T-shirts to cut up for fabric for quite a while to start making raglan sleeve jerseys for one doll in particular, but all my boy dolls can wear them. Decided to attempt to make the first one today only to realize the pattern might work for Barbie and maybe even the slender original Ken doll, but it’s way too small for my dude here.

While he puts away the toys of summer and starts writing some songs on his new dreadnought guitar (his early Christmas present), I’ll be trying to expand that pattern and make a few other alterations so this will be the 1:6 shirt I want it to be.

He’ll love his new wardrobe, because these shirts are all the character he’s based on wants to wear.

Button Sunday

There’s a chapter in the first book of the Neverending Saga that I had fun writing because the character doesn’t know how to tie a necktie and later, he has to get help from an unexpected source with a bowtie. Whether or not they like wearing it, I think all my characters look sexy in formalwear.


September 19 — In black ©Chris Walter

I believe this is from the American Music Awards in 1976.

Get off my dress, Karen

When someone posted this vintage doll commercial to Instagram, Tom showed it to me and Tim tagged me on it. They know the way to my heart.

While I watched it and felt nostalgic about the dolls of yesteryear, and mused about which outfits I had and how my old Barbies still bring me the pleasure of dressing them and making stories in my head for them, even using them to represent my Neverending Saga characters, I thought about the detail and craftsmanship that went into those early fashions. Those zippers and buttons and snaps. The stitching. The matching of plaids and stripes. Even Mattel’s current-day adult collector dolls don’t have that kind of attention to detail or the high-quality fabrics of the originals.

It’s a fact of life, and I figured commenters on the post would make note of the same but also share some of their good memories. So I did that thing I freely acknowledge I should not do, as noted in my comment to a post from one of my favorite Instagrammers, effinbirds.

Yes, other commenters did recount their happy memories of their own dolls, and of their moms and grandmoms pulling out their dolls to share with their kids and grandkids, and of the fashions and how well made they used to be.

As usual, today’s less-entertaining version of Maleficent showed up to the party: I used to collect Barbies until political correctness completely screwed them up.

Since I don’t reply to negative commenters, and my blog was having issues, to vent, I texted Tim, “What does that even mean? Obviously not because they were denounced for giving girls unrealistic expectations of beauty, because apparently she was on board with that. So I guess because perfect (pick-your-hair-color) Barbie now has tons of friends who don’t all look just like her? I mean, you’re not mandated to collect ANY doll, just pick the ones that fit in your doll world, Karen, and move on. So sad a little kid with a friend or family member in a wheelchair can see them represented in the toy box.”

As he pointed out about the commenter, “Really…dolls? That’s the battle hill you’re going to die on?” He suggested this is a person constantly looking for a reason to be negative.

I think he’s right. After Tom generously used his time to fix my poor blog, I decided to share the new girl I bought to make friends with my baseball-playing Barbie, who I adore (and who I got last year because she is my doll stand-in for a character). One commenter said in today’s dollars, a $3.00 Barbie would run about $30, and I got this one deeply discounted at Ross, way less than her original retail price, which was already not as high as $30.

In a world of plagues, forest fires, earthquakes, and hurricanes, Mattel can still bring this tired old woman happiness, and I know every one of the dolls I see on the shelves is making some other kid (and kid on the inside) happy, too. Why spread misery to others? Let people be.

Melon pink

While editing one of my works in progress, I was reminded that I once built most of a scene around this blouse Vivien Leigh wore in a fashion spread in Harper’s Bazaar in 1940.

The blouse is melon pink made from Biancini silk and the outfit (with the black chiffon velvet skirt) was sold by Henri Bendel for $135. The photographer was George Hoyningen-Huene.

Tiny Tuesday!


A strange path led me to adopt/rehome a High School Musical “Troy” doll. Most Ken fashion dolls are 12 inches tall (in human terms, six feet, as they’re 1:6 scale). The HSM dolls are 10.5 inches (a human five feet, three inches tall). I am enchanted by the smallness and have him representing a character in the Neverending Saga (the second set of characters–in fact, he’s the twin brother of the character who creates her own Tarot cards, as mentioned in a previous post).

I had some smaller male doll clothes I could dress him in, and the original Ken dolls’ shoes will fit him okay (new Ken shoes are HUGE on him). I got him dressed and photographed for Instagram.

As a personal aside… In 2008, when we had my mother’s memorial service in Alabama, all of her grandchildren and all but one of her great-grandchildren were there. At that time, three of the “greats” were in the six- to seven-year-old range. They absolutely lit up my life with their energy and fun. They’d brought High School Musical DVDs with them, and danced and sang together while they watched them. It’s a great memory to have, so it tickled me to get the HSM “Troy” doll.


Little did I know that a second High School Musical “Troy” doll (different facial features and hair from the first one) would be joining us. There were no Ken clothes that seemed right for him, so I began looking at some of the designs I sewed for Runway Monday challenges (thinking the female dolls I used as models might have better-sized clothes for him). What he’s wearing is Dupioni silk fabric that I hand-painted. I then wrote the first lines of my work in progress on the fabric before I cut it. This was in 2012, and I STILL have not written that novel.


The uncut fabric after I painted and wrote on it. You can see the entire post here should you wish to go down memory lane.

When I put the outfit on the doll to see if it would work, I thought instantly of Eddie Van Halen’s many colorful concert outfits and that amazing smile of his that never quit. That’s how this doll ended up with EVH’s Frankenstein guitar.


Eddie, Ed, Edward, and my preferred, EVH


He’s a little bit country. He’s a little bit rock and roll.

Tiny Tuesday!

As I catalog and store my dolls and their fashions, I decided to take another look at my Top Models. Longtime readers will recognize the original twelve muses.

Barbie Top Models Abby, Tanya, and Barbie; Summer Top Models Summer (the first!), Susannah, Lacy, and Rita; Nikki Top Models Tamala and Faizah; and Teresa Top Models Kikki, Jessica, and Meggie (formerly Maggie, but name changed because of a conflict with a different “Maggie” doll)

Summer was the first Model Muse body sculpt I bought. I needed a redhead for a 2008 photo shoot to promote my novel A Coventry Wedding. She kicked off a passion for these dolls and helped inspire the first season of Runway Monday, also in 2008.

To prove my devotion to the Model Muses, these twelve dolls were later joined by an additional fifty-nine Model Muse body sculpts from the many Basic Barbie collections and other dolls created by Mattel.

Tiny dolls: big collection. Lots of inspiration and imagination thanks to them.

Another word about creativity

ALL the time, I hear people say, “If I only had time, I’d write [poetry, my novel, a play, my memoirs],” and I agree that time is important. Yet so many writers manage to get that done while taking care of families, holding down demanding jobs, and even maintaining romances and social lives. I usually think it’s not TIME that’s lacking, it’s energy.

I don’t mean only the energy that makes us bound from bed and get cracking on our schedules. I mean the mental and emotional energy it takes to create. It’s a different kind of energy and sometimes discipline and time and inspiration are not enough to put us into a creative frame of mind.

And that is FINE. Sometimes our energy is needed elsewhere. It’s up to YOU to determine if your reasons are legitimate or simply another excuse.

You will never get that poem, novel, short story, play, memoir read or published if you don’t write it. But again, writing takes a lot of energy.

It was a little frustrating for me over the past few days to have so many other things to deal with that I couldn’t get into the zone I need to be in to write. I mean, if you are compelled to write, even when the power is out and the sun is gone and the water is frozen in the pipes, you will light a candle and grab paper and pencil and write. IF YOUR ENERGY FOR IT IS THERE.

We have a few more expected bad days coming to us here, and the water issue is far from resolved, though for now at least, we have power. And I’m absolutely fine with the times that Tom and I have just focused on managing to keep us and our animals warm, our toilets flushable, and our food source safe. We have sat in the dark in front of a gas fire that barely kept the chill away, devised solutions, and remained companionable throughout.


When there was daylight, I worked on this coloring page though I was shivering. When the power would come on for a while at some random time, I used the light to work on her some more. I felt as if her beauty and spirit kept me company and made me know that if I couldn’t write, at least I could embellish someone else’s beautiful drawing.

This is why I call it coloring therapy. It doesn’t rob energy; it helps rebuild it.

This is the book I took it from.

These are a couple of the dolls I picked up at the recent estate sale. I will definitely use their fashion as inspiration when I color more drawings from this book.

I have a count of my boxed dolls now, and a count of my Monster High dolls. I have all the others to count, so I’m waiting to provide a grand total on here. The prospect remains scary.