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Welcome back to Christie's story!
This time I am going to tell you about her jewelry and her shoes.
Actually the jewelry was the easiest part to do in the whole project.
I knew I wanted to give her long necklaces, so I just had to look in my stash if I had beads in the right colors that I could use with the seed beads. As it so happens, I had green and yellow crystals. In fact I tried all-crystal necklaces first, but I didn't really love them and after getting a no on that from my personal advisor as well, I went for a combination of crystals and seed beads. That was much better, also because the necklaces sit better that way.
In my stash were also smaller crystals in green, so I made a little chain stitch bracelet with them, and just look at that big stone she's wearing on her finger!
Newer dolls often have a hole in their hand where the ring is missing, so I had to cover that up.
I felt that dangly earrings would not go well with the fringe on the headpiece, so even if I love them, I settled for simple golden studs instead which are headpins that I put in the ear holes.
Christie's makeover was almost finished, how exciting! Little did I know how long she still had to wait.
I have big feet, but I don't have as many problems to find shoes as this lady.
There aren't that many Supersize outfits and the shoes are even harder to find individually. When I missed out on the one pair I found for sale, I had to figure out something else.
My first thought was polymer clay. Maybe I could make the soles from clay and bead the top. I had some old clay and decided on a dry run. I put Christie's feet on some paper and drew the outlines, cut out the templates, pressed them onto the clay and started cutting around.
I believe in recycling and have paper scraps around for notes, my to do lists, and stuff like this. I have a tip for you. Don't use paper with a tax return form printed on it. The print will end up on the clay. Of course it will. Doh. After all this was only a dry run, though, so it didn't matter.
I lightly pressed the soles onto Christie's feet for the shape. That didn't look too bad for a first try. I put them into my toaster oven and waited when I suddenly heard a weird sound. I can't even describe what the soles had turned into. It was a burnt and gooey mass with bubbles. I have no idea if it had been the oven that hadn't been used in a while - although I did wipe all the dust off - or the old clay or both. Time and temperature had been right. Oh well.
I had to get some new clay and use the other oven.
I had been optimistic after making the new soles, things didn't quite work out the way I wanted them to. I had my soles which had kept the shape of the feet pretty well, I had the heels, now I just needed to come up with an idea for the top.
Poor Christie leaned against the wall for weeks. My next doll project, still without head then, kept her company while receiving one garment after the other. They were an odd pair and a little sad to look at.
Finally I knew it was now or never. I sat down with my clay, the soles and Christie and tried to mold a shoe onto her foot that I could get off afterwards. Don't forget that again I had a whole doll attached to that foot, too. As Christie's waist is a little loose, she moved and wriggled a lot during the process. The lady has no patience at all!
I tried and tried, and when one thing worked, the other went wrong. The thought of having to do the same for the other foot drove me to take drastic measures. I broke the soles in two and tossed them.
But now what?
I can't believe it took me that long to realize that I could knit the shoes from wire and beads. T-strap shoes with a wire crochet heel. See, sometimes I just need time to come up with something!
And here she is now, in our 20s inspired hallway where she took up residence (no way she would have fit into my doll cabinet). Every time I come out of my flat, she makes me smile standing there and smiling at me.
You have missed the first two posts? Find them here!
Part 1, The Dress
Part 2, The headpiece
Will you be back for my next doll project? It's very different from the first two, but was just as much fun (and there were no shoe problems at all!).
Let's jump right in, okay? Today is about Christie's head.
Vintage dolls have a neck knob which allows you to move the head sideways. There are smaller and bigger ones and cone shaped ones and whatnot.
Later dolls got neck knobs which allowed to also tilt the head, make it look up or down, this is the kind Christie has.
Out there in the net you can find much more information on the subject and also on the subject of the dreaded neck split and what's the best way to behead a doll. A little hint, it is NOT the guillotine.
Again, I am not a doll artist meaning I have the patience to do repairs of all kind, replace limbs, heads, re-paint faces or more. I try my best to avoid some procedures if possible, and one of them is taking a head off a doll if not absolutely necessary.
As a child I was cooler about that. We had outfits that were impossible to put on a doll if you didn't take her head off first. Yes, my Stacey does have a neck split, but she also has a yellow face and one finger and half a foot are missing. You can tell she was a beloved and played with toy. I'm digressing, sorry.
Have you ever seen a Barbie doll which looks like she doesn't have a neck? She probably had one of those newer neck knobs, maybe even the ones with prongs. My sister and I have seen more than one of those. If a child pulls on one of the heads on such a knob, the neck can break and the knob part comes off. If you put the head back on, it's right on the neck instead the knob. We call them "no-neck monsters" after a quote from "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof".
After all the work with the dress *looking at Ponder who is trying to clean up around his food plate* I didn't want to risk Christie to become a no-neck monster.
A hair cut was out of the question, too. I didn't have a replacement head in case anything went wrong.
And honestly, the copper streaks didn't look very 20s to me, either.
So all that I could do was to put something on her head that had the touch of the 20s, but hid all her hair.
I chose to knit a wire headpiece because knitted wire is flexible enough to shape it if needed. I used golden wire and the bright green beads to pick up the colors from the dress.
The last rows were a little difficult because I had to knit them with the headpiece already on the head, so I could decrease. Not that easy with the whole doll attached to it, I can tell you.
The wire knit "flower" with the crystal center was easier to make, but a bit fiddly to put on. I used the dark teal beads for it to have some contrast.
I had still some peacock feather leftovers. What was funny is that they arranged themselves when I pulled the flower tight. I wish all components would be that cooperative!
Last but not least I added a fringe at the bottom to match the fringe on the dress and voilà!
The last post will be about the jewelry and about big feet. Not Bigfoot, big feet! Just wait and see.
Have you missed the first post? Here it is:
Part 1, The dress
Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel.
A while ago I showed you my first Barbie doll project with a bead loomed outfit and promised you more.
Here I am now to tell you the story of Christie.
Think big this time.
In 1976 the only 18 inch Barbie doll was released. She had the new superstar face and wore a white and silver dress. In 1978 she came out in a bridal version and in 1979 she had super hair which could grow and be curled.
1977 was the year for Supersize Christie. Christie was an African American doll. She had long brown hair with copper streaks and wore a dusty pink and silver dress.
My Christie's story started at a fleamarket. I don't remember if she wore anything at all at the time or what I paid for her, but it can't have been much.
She was not in mint condition. Her hair was matted and had two little braids in front, her earrings and ring were missing, she had definitely been played with.
If she had something on which I threw away or if she had been naked from the start, fact is that she spent years in a drawer. I don't know if I had hoped to stumble upon an outfit or if I actually planned making something for her, but every time I went through that drawer, I felt her reproachful gaze upon me.
When my Flapper project worked out, the chance to make it up to her was there.
With the experience I had gained from "Little Flapper", I would make her into something special. As usual I was a little naive. There IS a difference between 11.5 and 18 inch, and not just in the number of the beads you need.
First I had to take Christie's measurements and design a pattern. Again I measured several times to be absolutely sure there would be no unpleasant surprises, then I started the pattern, first the outline, then the "fabric". I had looked at pictures on the net to get inspired and after several drafts in different colors I decided to use greens and gold.
This time I would have to make two pieces and join them later. The first piece went just fine. I liked the colors, a bright green (although I wanted to use a mint first that was out of stock, however) in combination with dark silver lined teal and gold lined crystal. I loomed it, I took it off, I re-wove, no problem.
Then came the second piece. I finished it and took it off the loom. There are different opinions about what exactly happened next, but the fact is that Ponder and I managed together to pull a warp thread out which of course resulted in a whole column of beads falling out. You have to imagine the feeling after working on this for a few hours, looming and measuring. I can't even describe it. My first impulse was to chuck the whole thing. There was no chance to get those beads back in and the thought of sewing it up anyway and hoping for the best was in my head for merely a few seconds. It wouldn't have worked. The only answer was to *sob* rip it up and sort the beads all over again.
By now I was a nervous wreck. It took me a while until I came back to the loom for the second try. This time I had done about half. Seriously, it was my own fault. I really should know better than to leave the room and let Ponder watch the loom if he is in a mischievous mood. I came back to warp threads ripped off the loom, and I'm not ashamed to say that I freaked out. This project was dead as a dodo. Enough. Sorry, Christie, it was not to be. I tried. At that moment I was so tired of this pattern. I couldn't do it all over again.
Some people say I'm stubborn. Often that's a weakness, but sometimes it's a good thing. After I calmed down, I came back even more determined. Again I ripped and sorted.
Third time's the charm. I finished the piece and started sewing up the sides.
This is the very first picture I took to show my best beady friends how big this doll was, in the background one of my fiercest critics.
After deciding on the exact length I sewed up the straps with accent rows of golden beads and added three rows of the same beads to the back to make sure the dress kept sitting right.
Up to that point about 15,200 beads had gone into this dress. You might have noticed that I didn't use Delicas this time, but seed beads, or there would have been even more.
For the luxurious fringe I used the golden beads and bright green dagger beads.
So this was what Christie looked like now. It was time to think about accessories and what to do about her hair, but that's the story for the next post.
Stay tuned!
P.S. Please forgive the bad pictures. Whenever I'm in the middle of a project, I tend to take pictures at the weirdest times and often in the dark which accounts for the colors not always looking the same, too. I'll make up for it with the last picture, promise!
Barbie is a registered trademark of Mattel, Inc. I am not affiliated with Mattel.
