Flower power Hippie time - Part 2, The accessories

Welcome back to the 60s! Today I'll talk about Francie's accessories. And her hair. Which is not quite an accessory.
Let me see, where were we. Right. Francie was dressed now. Have you noticed that there were no shoe problems this time? It wouldn't have been difficult to find shoes for this girl, I might even have something that fits in my little shoe box, but she chose to go barefoot and feel the grass under her feet instead.

What she couldn't do without was a tote bag, and the tote bag couldn't do without fringe. I'm the mad fringer, mwahahaaaa! I wrote about the tote before. The nice thing about a hippie outfit is not being forced to coordinate colors. That way I could use my bead soup and a color that didn't go with anything else so far to brick stitch this tote. I like to think Francie found it in a second hand store.

When I was a child, ball point pens still used to have that little metal ring in the middle where you could unscrew them to put a new ink cartridge in. Sometimes these rings were very thin, sometimes wide. It didn't matter, we used them all as doll bangles.
I had to use two large jump rings here instead.

Now it was time to do something about Francie's bristle head. The original vintage Malibu Francie had long blond hair and that's what I wanted to stick with.
The blond hair I have is called "Sunshine", a great name because it is really shiny.
After weeks of procrastinating I finally mustered the courage to go for it. Rerooting still doesn't come natural to me.
It wasn't easy to pull out the hair plugs and unfortunately Francie already had some small scalp splits, but I did my best to cover those up. I had blond hair everywhere and so did Ponder. He declined my offer to make him a little wig, by the way, but supervised my rerooting with a sharp eye as always.
Here's the result.

After brushing, setting the hair in hot water, giving her a trim and brushing again Francie looked like this. Almost done!

I had always thought I would make a headband as last accessory, but then I wondered if one of those floppy hats would look cool, too. My personal adviser aka my sister, however, had a different idea which I fell in love with right away. She said Francie needed a daisy chain. I had never made one before, but looked it up, and when I found I had beads in my stash that would work, there was no stopping me.
Isn't it perfect for her?

I hadn't planned to make a necklace, but then I was told there had to be a peace sign. Actually my first plan for the tote had been a peace sign pattern, but that didn't work in this size and I didn't want to make it any bigger. So it had to be a necklace after all. This was as small as I could make it with the beads I had. Any smaller and it looked like just a mess of beads. Yes, I tried this more than once.
First I used a copper tone ball chain for the pendant, but that was too big, so I finally settled for a simple chain stitch necklace.

Today I took Francie out to the garden for her first real photo shoot. There's a collage with more pictures at my deviantART if you want to have a look.
You know you want to sing "Let the sunshine in" now or how about "Aquarius"? ;-)

You missed the first post? Here you go!
Part 1, The clothes

Flower power Hippie time - Part 1, The clothes

From the 20s to the 60s it's quite a time jump, I know. I can't even remember how I decided that I wanted to make a Hippie outfit, I just knew I wanted something completely different from the Flappers this time.
And different it is.

Francie, our lovely doll model this time, is from the Malibu series and was produced from 1971 to 1977. Instead of the regular Francie head she has the smiling Casey head.
This Malibu Francie had seen a very bad hairdresser, one who was even worse than me. He left her with a bunch of bristles on her head instead of a hairdo. Unfortunately that was at a time when I had given up on re-rooting after a few attempts to try other things instead, so Francie spent her life hidden on a shelf behind the door.
Then I re-found her, so-to-speak, and thought she would make a wonderful flower child with her happy smile.

Francie has yet another figure compared to the first two dolls. She is smaller than Barbie - whose cousin she is, by the way - and not as curvy, so I had to make a completely new pattern regarding the arm holes and the straps.

First I made the top. I went browsing tie-dye shirt images on the net and went for a swirly rainbow kind of design. I loomed front and back in once piece, re-wove the threads, sewed up the sides, and then I went totally overboard making a long fringe.

Next came the "leather" vest in a mix of two of my favorite brown bead colors. Other than the top the vest is removable. It has fringe around the top of the arm holes.

I took quite a long break before I tackled the skirt. All I knew was that I wanted to have some kind of denim color, that it was going to be long and wide and that I wanted to pick up the rainbow motif again.
Finally I decided to make it in four parts and sew them together. I used red thread for this to imitate decorative seams.
This was the hardest part. The all-blue parts were pretty boring to loom and instead of going faster because they were easier they almost destroyed my motivation. Joining the parts was okay, but then I had to decrease the top to make the skirt fit on Francie's waist.
At that point I knew it would have been smarter to make the skirt first. The fringe of the top kept getting in my way big time. With gritted teeth and lots of eyerolling I finally got it done.

Then I had the idea for a wide belt in brick stitch. The only problem was what to use for a buckle.
I didn't find a real buckle, but then I had another idea. Yup, sometimes they just roll in like that.
I took one of my toggle clasps and clipped off the little loop. Not bad, eh?

Now I had a complete outfit and only needed some more accessories ... and hair. That's what I am going to tell you about next time.

Zibbet finds of the week - The Age of Aquarius

"When the Moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars ... this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, Age of Aquarius, Aquarius ...."
Ah, I love the musical "Hair", but today's finds of the week are not only about hippies, they are also dedicated to the Aquarius in my own family, my brother whose birthday it is today.
And now for some Flower Power, are you ready?

Purple peace sign mosaic by Greene Girls Studio

Watercolor painting print "Alive" by Wishful Painting

Retro 1960s hippie sweater cape from Snap Vintage

Tie dye jellyfish shirt by Gratefully Dyed

Vintage floral head piece hippie chic from My Granny's Vintage

Tackle that stash - Crab agate in wire crochet setting

I love tie dye shirts. I have never dyed shirts myself, but I had two that I had got a long time ago at the Marin County fleamarket which was one of the highlights of each visit to California. Actually I still have one of them even if I only wear it at home now.

This hippie love probably attracted me to this stone, a crab agate which is just another word for a treated spiderweb carnelian agate. You can also find them called crab fire agate, but they have nothing to do at all with fire agate.
I can't even say how many years this agate must have spent in my stash.
No idea if it was the warm colors that made me pick it now - go away, winter! - but to enhance those summer vibes I chose an orange colored copper wire and teamed it up with beautiful brick red and topaz colored seed beads, leftovers from other projects, to crochet a bezel that looks different on both sides and so leaves the choice to you how to wear the pendant.

Let the sunshine in! ;-)

The pendant is available in my Zibbet shop.

Hippie circles!

One of my favorite musicals is "Hair".
It was my sister's record - record as in vinyl for the younger people among us. Black, big and it was not a good thing to scratch them. My sister generously allowed me to record my favorite songs to tape.
I didn't listen to the tape today. By now I have the CDs and I have my favorite songs on my PC and my MP3 player.
I wish I could dance.
Instead I let it inspire me. There was nothing much else to do after the title song had glued itself to my brain.

Do you remember the cool tie-dye t-shirts? I had more than one and I might even still have one in my wardrobe ...

Wouldn't this pendant go great with one of them and jeans and a jeans jacket?
"Hippie circles" is made from scratch. I handformed the sterling silver wire and I filled the ring with colorful copper wire (crocheted of course!).



Peace, brothers and sisters! ;-)

Oh, and by the way, you find this pendant in my Zibbet shop.