Card weaving

It's been a while since the last post. I'm currently doing the "big cleanup" at my Flickr account and as I'm removing a lot of photos from there, I'll be posting some here. Sometimes a long time passes between different stages of a project, so it's actually easier to get coherent posts this way as I can group photos from past few years according to the subject.

The first of these posts is about card weaving. These are some of the first bands I've ever made. I used inexpensive wool/polyester blends for my first practice bands, because I had no definite plans on what to do with them, I was just practicing the techniques.

Here's another practice piece.

These bands were left unused for a long time, but then I decided to make a small bag for my BJD doll. The lining is wool fabric and there's some padding between it and the outer part.

Baha Cat's costume

The costume is finally finished. It usually includes a jacket, but as that is not absolutely necessary, I am not going to make it. The background is not quite suited to the style, but this was the sunny spot in my living room and good lighting was a greater concern.

Related earlier posts:
Baha Cat's vest and stuff for Brother Dreary
Hat for the Baha Cat
Shoes for the Baha Cat's costume
Helavyö
Baha Cat's shirt

Baha Cat's shirt

The shirt for Baha Cat's folk costume is not made of right kind of fabric, but it looks good enough for the purpose. The pieces are all rectangles, with seams on the shoulders and sleeves.


I was going to sew the cuffs and collar in place, but as the fabric was a bit stretchy, I thought fabric glue would be a better choice. It does look neater this way. The opening on the back is closed with two snaps and the cuffs are closed with one snap each. Actually, there should be buttons, but for this small scale, I'm content with this solution.



Related earlier posts:
Baha Cat's vest and stuff for Brother Dreary
Hat for the Baha Cat
Shoes for the Baha Cat's costume
Helavyö

Helavyö

The most problematic part of the folk costume is the belt, called "helavyö." It consists of a leather belt adorned with metal pieces. I've got a choker I can use for Brother Dreary's belt, but the belt for the Baha Cat needed to be made from scratch.

The dangling metal pieces in the belt are not actually hearts, but more like leaves, but as I only had a heart shaped hole puncher, this belt was going to have heart shaped pieces. The metal sheet in the picture is relief foil (meant for making embossed pictures).


Next, I glued pieces of metal wire to the back of the hearts. The square parts are made of two layers of cardboard glued together. It would have been much too difficult to actually make tiny buckles, so I decided to simplify things quite a bit.


Then I painted the squares. Gold color on the edges and the belt color in the middle.


I made holes in the bottom edge of the squares and attached the hearts using the metal wires. I thought of gluing also the other end of the wire in place, but decided not to. I will do that, if the pieces start getting caught in the fabric or yarn of the doll's clothes.


Finally, I glued the squares to a strip of red leather and made a buckle using the same foil I used for the hearts. The buckle is much simpler than what is used in real belts, but the mechanism should be correct.



Related earlier posts:
Brother Dreary project
Socks and the beginning of the vest
Parts of the vest
Baha Cat's vest and stuff for Brother Dreary
Sewing the large vest
Hat for the Baha Cat
Shoes for the Baha Cat's costume

Shoes for the Baha Cat's costume

I made the shoes for the Baha Cat's costume. Those are described in the Fashion Doll Shoes blog.



Related earlier posts:
Brother Dreary project
Socks and the beginning of the vest
Parts of the vest
Baha Cat's vest and stuff for Brother Dreary
Sewing the large vest
Hat for the Baha Cat

Hat for the Baha cat

Before starting to make the hat for Brother Dreary, I wanted to test the technique with the Baha cat. I bought 4 mm thick black felt for the purpose.

First I made a paper pattern to get right size of hole in the middle of the brim. The ears were the main problem and the hole also needed to be the right shape to allow them through without needing a too big hole.

The felt was a bit difficult to cut, so I needed to draw the hole on the felt before cutting. Usually I just attach the pattern on top of the material to be cut.


Here are the necessary pieces:


I started assembly by gluing the vertical parts to the top.


Then I glued this to the brim.


Here is the hat seen from below. I'm thinking of gluing light-colored band to the inside where the felt touches the doll's head to avoid any staining.


This is how the hat looks on the doll:


The pattern for the hat is available on my web site.


Related earlier posts:
Brother Dreary project
Socks and the beginning of the vest
Parts of the vest
Baha Cat's vest and stuff for Brother Dreary
Sewing the large vest

Baha Cat's vest and stuff for Brother Dreary

As I was planning the Baha Cat's vest, I realized that I needed narrower band for the pieces that go up to the shoulder height. So I made yet another band with just enough length for the two narrow pieces you can see in the picture below.

Then I sewed the pieces together and made the back piece from wool fabric. I treated the edges of the fabric with Fray Stay, although the fabric does not fray easily. I just wanted to be sure the edges will stay neat. Before sewing the back and front pieces together, I pressed the front pieces.

The picture below shows the finished vest. The buttons are fake and the front closes with two tiny snaps.

 
Brother Dreary's sweater has progressed a bit. This is the point where the front and back pieces separate and where the opening in the back piece starts. I'm not sure how big armholes are needed to be able to get the sweater on the doll, but I guess I'll find out sooner or later.

I got the socks finished on Saturday. Here are views from different sides.




Related earlier posts:
Brother Dreary project
Socks and the beginning of the vest
Parts of the vest

Another sweater

I also got thinner yarn from the crafts fair, so I was able to knit a better version of the Jussipaita. The first version of this pattern was for a 1/6 scale doll (see the earlier blog post), but this yarn was much more in scale.

The yarn is 70% wool, 30% silk, and meant for 1.5-2 mm knitting needles. I used 1.6 mm needles. I knitted all three parts as a tube all the way to the red upper part as the pattern was much easier to knit that way. The back has an opening, which closes with a wooden button.

Top for Baha Cat

The fabric with cartoon cats required careful examination to find just the right spot for cutting a sleeveless shirt for the Baha Cat.

The top is fully lined and the same pattern can be used as the upper part of a dress. The pattern is available on my web site.

New dresses

My purchases from the crafts fair last weekend included some really nice fabrics.

Of course I had to try them right away. The first thing I made was a dress for Nikki. You can find the pattern here.

The most challenging part for making clothes for Nikki is her tail. Here is a back view to show how I solved the problem in this dress.

Next, I made a dress for Daisy Slae (Living Dead Doll). This is a fully lined A-line dress with an open back closed with snaps. The pattern can be found here.

As I was cutting the fabric for the dress the first time, I made a mistake. Fortunately, I did not need to discard that piece as, after a little modification, it was fine for a Baha Cat's dress. So, the two now have almost identical dresses (the Baha Cat's dress is not lined and it has side seams).

Hat for the Baha Cat

I had to take a break from the miniature projects, because the vision in my left eye got so bad that I couldn't do anything very small. It's improving now and I've been able to do some customizing for Catwalk Kitties, but mostly I'm still crocheting as that is fairly easy even with limited vision.

I've been crocheting for the Baha Cat as she's so small it won't take much time to get things finished. The first thing I made was a winter outfit:

That hat was easy to make, so I tried another one. This time in neon pink as I've had the yarn for some time and could never figure out what to do with it. I just bought it, because it was so irresistible. The pictures below show the structure of the hat: first a couple of rows around the head and then the front and back are made separately.





There's no picture of the finished hat yet as I'm going to go out for a new photo shoot as soon as the weather permits and take photos of everything I've made since that first green outfit.

Leather vest for Baha Cat

The leather vest is very easy to make. It only requires cutting the material using the pattern and sewing (or gluing) the shoulder seams. If you use fabric, select something that won't fray, such as felt, or treat the edges with Fray Stop.

You can find the pattern here.




As you can see, the front of the vest won't close. You can make it close by modifying the front edges. First draw the desired shape in the pattern, fold the paper in half, and then cut the pattern. This way, the front parts will be identical.

Miniature t-shirt iron-on transfers

I have made some shirts with iron-on transfers for the Baha Cat. My favorite is this one:

I resized pictures I had found in the web and created some myself from my own photos and printed them on a sheet of iron-on transfer paper (siirtopaperi). All you need is the paper and a color inkjet printer. The transfer paper is not cheap, but you can fit a lot of these tiny pictures on one sheet to save material.


The sheet on the left in the picture is a black and white test sheet I printed before printing on the actual transfer paper. This way, you can catch any problems before final printing.

When printing on the transfer sheet, you need to select the appropriate paper type in the printer settings as the printed image needs to be a mirror image of the original (as you can see in the picture above). This setting can be found in Printing Preferences (Windows XP) or something similar. The settings and available options vary depending on the printer, but if you have a color inkjet printer, you should be able to find "Transfer paper" in the paper type list.

In clothes as small as these, it is best to iron the transfer picture onto the fabric either before cutting the fabric or after cutting but before sewing. The instructions for ironing may vary between different manufacturers, so you should follow the instructions included in the transfer paper package.

Here is the doll wearing another shirt with a transfer picture:

Trousers for Baha Cat

The pattern scanned in the previous post was for Baha Cat's trousers. The pattern can be found on my home page and here are the instructions for it.

I prefer patterns with as little and as easy sewing as possible, so these are not too difficult to make.

Start by folding the fabric right sides together and cutting the pieces using the pattern.


The pieces are mirror image of each other. Turn and sew the lower edge of the pieces first. How much you turn the edges depends entirely on the desired length of the trousers. Use the doll to check the length.


Then sew the inseam and press the seams open.


Fit on the doll to check that the size is right.


Turn the trouser legs right side out and sew the front seam and about 1/3 of the back seam. This is the most difficult part to sew using a sewing machine and you need to be very careful that the fabric stays straight and you only sew the edge without making any extra folds in the fabric.


Turn and sew the edges of the back opening.


Turn and sew the waist. Fit the trousers on the doll to check how much to turn.


Attach a snap. Attach the upper half first, put the trousers on the doll and check where the other half should be placed.


Here are the finished trousers on the doll. These are actually a bit wider than the pattern. You can easily adjust the width of the trouser legs. Just keep the upper part as it is and make the lower part wider or narrower.


These trousers were made of stretchy fabric using the exact pattern that is in the PDF file. They look a bit baggy, because I used elastic band on the waist instead of leaving an opening and attaching a snap.