Happy Labor Day!

We hope that you are enjoying the last day of a well-earned long weekend with family and friends.

In honor of this traditional back-to-school holiday, we've got a fun, nostalgic project themed to our old high school — and more news about our upcoming "Pearls" by Lee & Pearl pattern line (which has important learn-to-sew and homeschool applications).

• Introducing our COMING SOON line of "Pearls" by Lee & Pearl™

• We bought the My Life As Retro Arcade — and made an iconic 80s FREE T-shirt iron-on printable to go with it!

Last week, we shared the first teaser pictures of our COMING SOON Pattern 101: Gym Shorts for 18 inch, 16 inch and 14 1/2 inch dolls.

Pattern 101 is going to be the FIRST pattern in our new "Pearls" by Lee & Pearl™ line of easy-to-make patterns for basic wardrobe items and accessories.

We're excited about this new "Pearls" line — which we believe fills a gap in the pattern and sewing tutorial market.

There are classes and tutorials available for absolute beginners. You might have taken one when you purchased your sewing machine, where you learned to sew straight seams on a pillowcase, tote bag or square patch pocket. And those are all great projects on which to learn the basics of machine sewing.

But what comes next? Enter "Pearls" by Lee & Pearl...

Each Pearl will feature ONE item, with a limited number of steps, detailed material and tool descriptions, and only one or two techniques that might be unfamiliar to beginner sewers. Here's where you'll learn those new techniques — because you are ready to take your skills to the next level. You just don't want to do it all at once.

Pearls are patterns for people who want to learn new skills — just one at a time, on a limited project, and with a well-designed, nicely-made garment as a reward after each lesson.

Of course, you don't have to be a beginner to enjoy our Pearls. As time- and budget-friendly patterns for doll wardrobe basics, we know that they will be especially welcome for busy parents and craft fair sellers.

We hope that you are as excited as we are to welcome our first "Pearl" to the world of Lee & Pearl patterns!

STAY TUNED for the launch of Pattern 101 VERY SOON...

Our pattern maker gave herself a reward after sending Pattern 101 out to testers last week, swinging by Walmart to see if they still had any of the retro-fabulous My Life As Arcade Games in stock. And they did — just one, which she quickly scooped up and took back to the workroom.

In this photo, the blue light on Molly's face is coming from a finger light taped to the front of the console — but we promise that the Arcade really does work!

The buttons and joystick are functional, and the console comes stocked with 100 vintage-style games. There are even videos on YouTube of gamers playing the games.

This arcade game is such a blast from the past that it got us thinking about our own '80s high school experience. Both "Lee" and "Pearl" went to Stuyvesant High School in New York City. By a funny twist of fate, our old high school gym t-shirt is itself an 80s icon, worn on MTV by Beastie Boys singer/rapper Adam Horovitz in several of the band's videos.

(It's possible he got the shirt from original band member Kate Schellenbach — who was a classmate of ours.)

So, to go with the retro arcade, we just had to make our Molly doll (who's already something of a youthful avatar for us, with her braids and glasses) a school-issue t-shirt just like the ones we wore in high school gym class — to go with her new Pattern 101 gym shorts, of course!

We made the shirt using Lee & Pearl Pattern 1001: Unisex T-Shirts for Dolls, and created an iron-on graphic closely modeled on the original shirts. And while we were at it, we also made a red ball cap using Pattern 1008: Classic Ball Cap & Big Fat Trucker Hat for 18 Inch Dolls, to fully embrace the MTV look.

Since we know a lot of our friends are going to want that My Life As Arcade Game to recreate their own Big '80s scenes with their dolls, we've made up a FREE printable package of those Stuyvesant Physical Ed. Leader graphics in 18 inch, 16 inch and 14 1/2 inch sizes, to go with all three sizes in our T-shirt pattern.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE STUYVESANT PHYSICAL ED LEADER GRAPHIC FREE PRINTABLE PACKAGE FOR 18", 16" and 14 1/2" DOLLS

See you next time!