Upcycling : or How an Angel was Made

Before I get to the angel I'd like to talk about a little 'gleaning'*
I don't know whether to be grateful that someone threw this lovely vintage wool blanket out in a pile of rubbish or to be appalled that someone could simply throw out a wool blanket. 
A good wool blanket for heavens sake!  
Have they never been cold?

I'm grateful I found it before a dog lifted its leg on the pile of rubbish! 

Nought wrong with the blanket except for a short section of hem coming undone ...

I gave it a good wash and hung it out in the sun-shine for a few days to kill any germs. 

Thank you very much, whoever you are, for the free vintage wool blanket in great condition.  But next time perhaps you should give your unwanted blankets to an Op Shop - if I hadn't gone past and spotted it, this lovely blanket might have ended up in land-fill!   and what a waste that would've been!

And now for the Angel:

We haven't done a proper Christmas tree for years and this year I decided that I wanted a nice tree - the tree I'd planned decades ago as a child.  A white tree with blue decorations.  

Finding a small white tree was really difficult.  Getting blue baubles was easy.  Then for the topper - I like an angel for the top of my tree but I just couldn't find one - plenty of star toppers but no angels!

It looked like I would have to make my own ...

ugly grey cardboard

Angel toppers often have a body / dress that is basically a cone (because that's where the top of the tree goes ... oooops!) and I had a couple of cardboard cones (they had string on them - the string that I used to knit the Zebra costumes for The Lion King ... but that's another story) 

paint it blue

  

 

Even Angels need heads ... and it just so happens that I had a spare doll head (left over from Lillian's body transplant)   

 

I knew there was a good reason for keeping that Licca doll head!

Angels also have wings - and I could've made some nice wings like these here  but I really don't have the time so close to Christmas (the season of good will and no time to sneeze) so this is the only part of the angel that I bought.  A child's cheap dress-up set, fairy wings, head-band with boppers and a magic wand (my granddaughter will love the wings and head-band) the butterfly on the magic wand had wings of about the right size ... the wand stick was the only part I didn't use.  I added more sparkle to the wings with glitter glue.

Now for the Angel's dress - which I knitted.  Stash yarn (bought unbanded - a tape yarn approx 8ply (or DK) with a metallic thread through it).  Used a lace stitch for most of it because I wanted to see some of the blue painted cone underneath.  

That is the bottom part of the dress over the cone (the lace stitch gave a nice wavy edge) the sleeves and collar.  The collar is needed because this angel is going to have no neck.

She could do without a neck but I thought she should have 'hands' - a little bit of Icord worked in baby pink yarn and stitched in place between the sleeves.

 

Worked the dress in the round only as far as the wings would go ... here it is on the cone - the glitter-glued wings have been hot-glued to the cone.

And there is the doll head - 

I've given her a romantic sort of up-do hair-style.  Her long hair would've hidden the wings!

 Progressing - I managed to hot-glue her head with a sweet little tilt, the collar effectively hides her lack of neck, I've stitched the sleeves on with the edges turned in so they sit out a little and look a little like there might be arms inside.

The hair is very messy at the back but that is OK because she will have a halo.
 A bit of circular knitting - here it is being 'blocked'

and in situ - hot-glued in place.  

And I've added all the frou-frou from the magic wand to the centre of the wings

Angel from the front - 

And on the tree - she is perhaps a bit tall for this tree but I think she'll do - and all re-purposed / up-cycled apart from her wings!

 Merry Christmas Everyone

*  the reference is to the film "The Gleaners and I" directed by Agnès Varda

Before & After : a bit of furniture restored

We 'gleaned' *  this groovy & very sturdy old stool from our back lane several years ago - gave it new rubber 'feet' and it has served very well ... until at long last the burnt orange vinyl started to split -

 So I got out my bag of upholstery fabric scraps - did a bit of patch-work - replicated the original corded edge and made more of a feature of it by using thick cord and contrasting fabric ...

 It is nice again - here is the underside - the new fabric cover, like the original vinyl, simply ties on.  This means that it will be washable - bonus.


Feeling quite virtuous about this little example of "fix it don't dump it" and I'm sitting on the renewed stool right now as I type this post :-)

*  the reference is to the film "The Gleaners and I" directed by Agnès Varda

Christmas Teaser - the answer ...

The teasers from the previous post - are all finished and listed on my BlytheStar Etsy shop.

 Yes, cute Christmas outfits - dresses & hats in Bright Red and Emerald Green

I think they are gossiping about Santa here!

The felt fabric makes the circle+ skirts sit out really cutely and the organza ribbon trim has a nice little twinkle ... my girls had heaps of fun modelling these outfits

3 Little Girls from Santa's Workshop?

 Following the success of last year's Christmas Gnome hat (it sold within a few days!) I thought I might start a tradition and knit one every year ... here is the 2013 edition

 A darker red this year and a little mohair at the head band for that cozy softness - the fair-isle or jacquard patterns include my favourite snowflakes, some delicate daisy flowers and sweet love-hearts.

My Gnome hats are really long and can be worn flopping over or standing straight up in the air!

And I'll leave you with another photo of my darling dollies in those Christmas costumes ...

The count-down to Christmas has started !!!

Christmas Time Teaser

I've been busy this weekend - can you guess what I've been making?

Now with those colours it is obviously something Christmassy ... and yes, the white organza ribbon gets to be frilly on the edges ...

 Nah - sorry, but this is not correct, I'm not making fancy little Christmas trees ...

If you are a Blythe doll person - keep an eye on my Etsy shop BlytheStar  to find out what these really are :-)

Adventures in Restoring Dolls' Hair

There are many really wonderful customisers of Blythe dolls & I'm never going to be one of them - I'm far too scared of 'hurting' a doll and doing something terrible that can never be fixed!  But recently I have done some hair restoring for my dollies and this post will hopefully encourage and help others who might be as diffident about these things as I was / am.

A few months ago this cutie came to live with me - a Rosie Red BL Blythe.  Ruby is perfect in every way except that a previous owner had chopped into her hair and given her a rather wonky fringe (bangs).  She was still very cute but ...

so I researched all the Blythe Forums and thought that I could probably manage a partial re-root to restore Ruby's hairstyle.

But I was too scared to do the scalp removal myself especially as the BLs have a reputation of being difficult to scalp.  So I sent Ruby to the wonderfully knowledgeable Natalie to have day-surgery.

Meanwhile I bought some Saran doll hair - in the end from this on-line shop because the photos gave a decent idea of the colours.

I had decided to practice on my Dawn dolls ...

Glori & Dawn - Topper dolls from the 70s & 6" tall

 Glori's hair was terrible - Dawn probably never had much hair and was missing plugs.

Dawn's severe under-cut

For Dawn, I bought some "Honey Blonde" because I thought it looked pretty - it doesn't match her original hair but compliments it rather nicely (I think).  I don't really like Dawn's original hair colour - it looks almost green in some light!
Following some guidance from the web I started to "sew" hair into dawn's (now decapitated) head.

Thread up the needle with as much hair as you can get into the needle, stab into her head taking the needle out thru the neck, turn needle about and stab from the inside this time.  Pull tightish, and cut (leave it longer than you want it to be when trimmed properly).

Stabbing from the inside is more difficult to get accurate so when accuracy is required (i.e. the hairline at the front) do that with the 1st stab. 

Showing hair half-way through pulling thru after 2nd stab

• It is like sewing as you go in and out of the head
• It does feel rather ghoulish   
• It isn't difficult 
• But it is time consuming
• Things can get messy.  Try to keep your hank of new hair neat & tidy!

You will need these tools:

• A sharp needle - not too thick as you don't want to rip the plastic - you can buy special needles for doll's hair 
• A thimble to push that needle through the plastic
• Small scissors
• Tweezers if you are removing old hair.

Here is Dawn almost done - a bit more hair needed on the left.  The Saran hair is stiff and wants to sit out - perhaps nylon would be better for these tiny dolls?

However, it does respond to hot water - the "boil perm" (more on that later)

Dawn with her new full head of hair & Honey Blonde "high-lights"

So, I could manage an easy partial re-root but Glori needed a whole new head of hair.

Glori showing the original plugs

First for the radical cut - and I found that putting her head on the end of a pencil was better than holding her face and potentially damaging her further.

Then I had to pull out the remaining hair without ripping big holes in the scalp - this is when you need the tweezers.  I must admit to leaving some in situ and it all fell out during the process of giving Glori new hair. 

Glori needed to stay a red-head but a nice red rather than the brassy carrot colour she was originally - I bought a lovely red called "Ruby Tuesday".

Through the re-rooting process Glori was quite a Wild Woman!!

 

 So much hair took me quite a while - she has a lot more hair in many more plugs than she did originally.

Her hair wasn't Glori's only problem, she had a lot of staining, including these biro? tattoos on her legs.

Glori's legs then ...

 Definitely Spa-Time for the little dolls ...

Bird (my LPS Blythe on an Obitsu body) has joined the Topper girls - They all have head-bands of soft (underwear) elastic to keep the hair in the correct place.

With head-bands on they've been dipped in nearly boiling water - just the tops of their heads.  You don't want to damage makeup or loosen the glue holding in LPS eyes or those wonderful Topper dawn eyelashes.

Dawn & Glori also have lots of stain-removing cream on.  It is acne cream from the chemist, the stuff with 10% hydrogen peroxide in it.  Not cheap but it works!

Glori's legs now - Wow!

Well Glori will need some more boil perms before her fringe sits flat - but she is looking a whole lot better than when she came to me.

So now it was time to pluck up my courage and work on Ruby's hair  ...

Natalie had done a great job of the scalpectomy, even retaining the flanges at the front :-)

Here you can see the inside of the scalp - the machining creates a chain stitch on the inside and you can see some of the glue, she had lots!

The chain stitch made it easy to remove the chopped hair - would be easy to go too far.  Reminded me of mending 1920's beaded dresses - the tambour work has that same chain on the wrong side and if you pull the thread it can all come undone!

Inside the scalp

Here is the scalp from the outside - the holes were very close along the part and there was a tiny amount of ripping.

Outside

"Deep Cherry"

When looking for hair for Ruby I got really confused by all the different shades of brunette - I bought some "Mahogany" and some "Deep Cherry".  The Mahogany didn't work with Ruby's original hair but the Deep Cherry was lovely - it is a blend and I thought this would give Ruby's hair some 'life'.


I used the same 'sewing' technique as I had for the little dolls - taking the hair from the outside in and then stitching through back to the outside.  Easier on a scalp than with the tiny head.  Most web sites talk of knotting the hair and things like that but ...

• I'm lazy
• I figured that this does get glued, and
• Knots are bulky.

Here is the scalp - you can see where I've put lots of hair at the front - along the parting and I've been filling in a little.  This is about 90% finished - I used about 1.5 hanks of saran.


The Finished Scalp - untrimmed.  The blend of colours is certainly working in this photo!













 Now to glue it all back - firstly to get some of that old glue off Ruby's dome.  Used rough sandpaper and I think poor Ruby got quite a head-ache!

from the left - sandpaper, 1 side of dome sanded, the other side not!

I couldn't find the glue that Natalie suggested - had to go for the 2nd best "E6000" - it didn't smell too bad (or perhaps I'm just used to working with smelly products!)   I did a light smear of glue all over the inside of the scalp (thinking to keep all the hair nice and firm) and a smear on the dome, some in that grove where the flanges go - but not too much as I didn't want it oozing out there and getting on her hair!   Keeping her hair well away I lined up scalp & dome and put the 2 together and then the part that really looks scary!
To keep the scalp firmly in place while the glue dries most folk use thick rubber-bands but I have lots of elastic and safety pins ...

 Ruby decided to go to bed!

Wake me up when it is over!

Ruby now has plenty of stories to scare the other girls with -

Hey cat!  Wake up and admire my new hair!

Even before a trim and perm Ruby's hair looked great ...
She looks like a Rosie Red again and the join where scalp meets face-plate is almost unnoticeable - disappears in photos :-)
This join is probably the reason why so many Blythe dolls are made with fringes (bangs).
I'm very happy I went with the blended colour.

Lillian joined Ruby at the hair-dressers' - Lillian is getting her kiss-curls re-set, Ruby has an elastic head-band to hold her new hairs in place.  They've had their hair dipped in hot, almost boiling water with some nice smelling hair-conditioner in it and are waiting for it to dry.

And here are Lillian & Ruby about to go to the Halloween party together (I still haven't finished trimming Ruby's hair, the ends are not even and I'm still not brave!)

 One last bit of Ruby Spam :-)