I know it's not August for a while yet (well, where I am), but...

[hat_plays_sims]

Hokay, official notice. I make dollhouse miniatures for a living, and I have a mini show coming up the first weekend after Labor Day. I really need to switch gears and quit making stuff for Sims and make some stuff I can sell, instead, so...

Now begins Hat's official August sabbatical from Sims 2 Stuff.

Except it's a crappy sabbatical, because a) I can still play if I need a break from sewing, b) I can still download, c) I can post already-completed items, and d) no way am I going to quit socializing. I'm just not going to make any new crap for a month or five weeks. Expect a hair dump and my party-and-games defaults before too long, because I just finished twenty-one hairs and I feel bad not releasing them as soon as I get them photographed and named.

(I also have a doll show to do in November, but I don't need to barnstorm so hard for it.)

Comments

[fourth_moon]

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OMFGs AWESOMENESS!

The embroidered vest and the gorgeous dress with the long sleeves and OH MY GODS that dress from the dream scene! And the jewelry and you even made a tiny book and those gorgeous jewelry on her hair!

**deep breaths**

Friggin' Heck, you even got the cover of the book! And rings on her fingers and EVERYTHING.

**deep breaths, counting to ten**

It's amazing. I'm not surprised you kept it, I don't think I could ever, ever, ever give something like that away, not for 200 dollars. (Unless of course I was already planning how to do the next version better, which I don't think would be possible without divine intervention.)

I am so blown away by all the details, it's beyond words. And of course I recognized her at first glance (I just read "End of Days" over at ffn, Labyrinth fic). This definitely clinches it, you are a genius.

How tall is that doll? It can't the be classical barbie size (10 or 11 inches?) because you couldn't have gotten details like that embroidery on the dream dress (OMFG the embroidery!) on that scale.

I'll be saying someting about the fairies in tutus as soon as I can crowbar my mind away from that doll. Love of the gods.

[hat_plays_sims]

Sarah is a Tyler Wentworth by the Tonner Doll Company, and she's sixteen inches tall in heels and fifteen and a half inches tall on flat feet, which is three times bigger than the dolls I usually sew for. Everything felt like it took FOREVER, because I only know how to sew by hand. I could've done the embroidery on a barbie-sized dress, but the sleeves would have suffered-- they are lined, interlined, interfaced, and stuffed, and I just... that whole dress is synthetic, which is a NIGHTMARE to work with in small scale. I would've had to find silk for anything else, and for that I would've had to go into San Francisco and find somewhere that specialized in silk, and... yeah.

She's my sampler doll-- there's a little bit of everything I know how to do in Sarah, plus things I learned just for her. (And honestly, all the work that went into her, drafting and adapting patterns and linings and real hems and re-embroidered brocade and beading and the hairpieces for the ballgown and learning to print my own silk? If I parted with her (and her outfits), I couldn't ask less than six hundred for her, just for all the time and materials. So yeah. But I HAVE sold duplicates of the book and her blouse, which I deliberately made so it would fit male and female dolls equally well.)

The hardest part was the dream dress's bodice... but also very hard was convincing myself it was okay to use glass beads for the plastic bracelet. They just don't make plastic beads small enough for it, alas! (The FUN part was going through the movie frame-by-frame to look at details like seam placement and jewelry and hairstyles and the like. The shoulders of Sarah's shirt and Jareth's shirts are made the same way. Someday, when I have time? I'm doing him, too. He's wigged and painted and has undertights (with Special Padding) and one pair of hose... and one glove. Because I got the Peter Parker As Spider-Man doll with the separated bendy fingers, and let me tell you, turning seamed fingers on kid leather gloves made for a hand an inch and a half long? CHALLENGING.)

[fourth_moon]

I hear you on the sewing. I have done a bit of sewing by hands, partly because on fine details sewing machines tend to disagree with me and partly because a lot of stuff like fabric roses can't be done any other way. Or because I'd rather sew half a yard of seam by hand than having to clean up the loose ends of threads left by the machine. So yes, I have an idea of that Forever. Especially with all the fine details (goodness, I'll be squeeing again in a seconds): those inserts on the shoulders of the park dress (you know, the one she wears in the park at the beginning of the movie) and the tiny tiny lacings at the front, and you got the multiple sleeves - those really long wide ones which look so irresistably romantic and the inner ones, including the tips over the back of her hands - and the earrings and that tiny ornament that pins the dream dress up (fourth picture from the end)...

Ehm, yes. I love details. They make the show.

My main worry about a shop specializing in silk would have been to go in to by half a square yard and walk out with 20 square yards. At the least. The patterns really are amazing work, everything looks so like the movie! The moment I see the pictures I immediately have the scene in front of my eyes.

Finger gloves for a 1 1/2 inch hand? I wouldn't even have believed that to be possible. Seriously, my take would have been to just dip the hands in that liquid latex stuff you can buy.

And Jareth? Goodness, if you ever try him you'll need everything you learned on Sarah. Those shirts and the jackets and the collars! And of course the magical pants, which by now have a sort of internet fame on their own. (Quote tvtropes: "I think there was a study once about how sixty percent of the girls in America lost their virginity solely because of watching David Bowie in this movie... ")

I know I watched that movie the first time when I was about 12 and was utterly drawn in. The whole Labyrinth world with the strange creatures and riddles, biting little fairies, doors which only work after picking them up and leaning them to the wall, and of course Jareth with the voice and the juggling and his whole mysterious, wicked, arrogant demeanor. It was only ten years later when re-watched it that I noticed those pants. Whoooooo dear. Special Padding indeed.

[hat_plays_sims]

I actually kind of want to re-do the Im in ur park, cosplaying dress-- I don't like how the shoulders fit once I got the sleeves in, and the inner fitted sleeves need to be just a touch longer. I may try the dress on some other dolls I have and see if it fits them better, but Sarah needs a new one, someday. (I'd also like to fully line it in something lightweight rather than just hem and face it. The facing tries to flip up and out.) The tiny ornament on the white dress is a Swarovski crystal rose from a toe ring, with its elastic band cut and flange removed, superglued to a neodynium magnets-- those little extra-powerful silver-colored ones-- with another magnet holding it on from behind the skirt's gathers. The pin on her vest is jewelry findings plus neodynium magnets, too-- nothing has to be sewn in place and there are no real pins to eventually damage the fabric.

That? Is the lovely thing about working in miniature. I can get two ladies' dresses and, depending on what skirt patterns I use, a little girl's dress or maybe a hat, out of a quilter's fat quarter. A half a yard of fabric gives me endless possibilities for dolls from Sarah's size on down to dollhouse scale. AND I can go to thrift stores, find silk shirts or dresses or whatever, and cut them apart and get TONS of clothes out of them. I have more fabric than I'll ever, ever use.

But he changes gloves! He has black gloves and white gloves and gray gloves, so he has to have them in the right colors for each outfit! (The nice thing about Jareth, aside from the whole having to learn to tool leather thing, is that while Sarah has three outfits, Jareth has a wardrobe-- so many of his outfit changes are just adding or subtracting pieces. Even the ball costume can use the same black pants as the costume from the opening scene.) He already has the magic to go under his pants-- front and back, actually, because the male dolls I use have a slight case of cracker ass. Also really nice about the underhose is that two layers of stretch knit really covers up the joints in the knees and hips beautifully.

I didn't get to actually WATCH Labyrinth until I was in my teens-- I had (still have, actually) a beautifully illustrated storybook and I wanted to go see the movie SO HARD, but Mom wouldn't take me. I don't remember why. I watched The Dark Crystal so many times I still have large swaths of it memorized, but I had to wait until I spotted it on VHS for cheap somewhere and went "MOM MOM THIS IS THE MOVIE MOM!" and she was all "What movie?"

[(Anonymous)]

Ehm, what does "hem and face" mean? From the photos it looks like the sleeves were lined, that is, a second layer of fabric on the inside so no fabric edges show.

Excellent thing with the magnet, because it would be a crying shame to have tiny holes (which don't stay tiny) in those amazing dresses.

I can just imagine how you see thrift stores and flee markets with an entirely different eye. The cut of that blouse is atrocious and those earrings are tacky beyond words? Who cares if the fabric is good and the stones in the earrings are small enough to make a beautiful necklace.

> I have more fabric than I'll ever, ever use.

Why, can't imagine what that is like at all. /self-depreciating irony



> I had (still have, actually) a beautifully illustrated storybook and I wanted to go see the movie SO HARD, but Mom wouldn't take me.

That's so horrible when you are a kid and the potentially most awesome movie ever is showing. Weirdly enough, I heard the movie didn't do well in the theaters at all, and then it really turned into a cult classic and still sells great on DVD. I love my DVD, it has such an awesome making off where you see how the juggling of those glass balls is done.

And there's a story book? Look, if you ever, ever have ten minutes with nothing better to do than to scan a few pages and upload them, because now I'm curious as all heck. But really, don't do if it's a bother, you have enough sewing work.

> but I had to wait until I spotted it on VHS for cheap somewhere and went "MOM MOM THIS IS THE MOVIE MOM!" and she was all "What movie?"

I think I had a very similar reaction when finding the VHS by accident. It had been years since I'd have seen the movie but I still remembered it as awesome, and there it was. Mine mine all MINE!

[hat_plays_sims]

The oversleeves are lined, the inner sleeves aren't, but the body of the dress itself is hemmed at the bottom and faced at the top-- you can see the facing showing (deliberately); it's the stuff that looks like cream piping at the neckline. Basically a facing is a partial lining, which saves on fabric but has an annoying tendency to flip up or otherwise look silly.

Also the men's shirt section is an amazing source for high-quality cottons. Just amazing. And I'm not much for actual embroidery, so that purple suit the redheaded dollhouse doll is wearing upthread of here? That was made from a thrift store blouse.

Ah yes, but mine is mostly in lengths your average costumer would consider scraps. *grins*

Labyrinth did do fairly poorly in theatres, but it does so well on DVD they've released three different versions of it-- I recently got the fancy schmancy remastered version, but before that I had the one with the making-of bonus feature. I was astounded to see that Dr. Crusher from Star Trek was their choreographer!

Alas I don't think my scanner is big enough... and the Goblins' Library so far only has the cover scanned (it's the orangey-yellow one, the one with illustrations, not photographs). If I can find some way to hold it open in good light, I might be able to take pictures.