January 17, 2019
We met lots of friends at the Dallas American Girl store for the Blaire Wilson™ debut, studied the doll and her outfits, and have our next set of pattern recommendations to recreate her looks — including a brand new FREE tweak-the-pattern addition to one of our most popular releases!
We just loved Blaire's Gardening Outfit, so we made our own version using Lee & Pearl patterns.
One of those patterns is a NEW tweak-the-pattern set of variants on our Pattern 1035: Olà Brasil! Samba Top and Bahia Dress for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls. Get your copy of the FREE additional pattern piece and full directions here!
We were thrilled to meet up with so many Lee & Pearl friends at the Dallas Galleria American Girl store on January 1st.
We were honored to share your excitement about the new collection, and hear your insights about the brand offerings — and we look forward to meeting even more friends in the future!
If you spotted us at the store, you also met our Truly Me™ #61, Joanna!
With her pretty red hair and green eyes, Joanna makes a great Blaire Wilson stand-in, especially dressed in our version of the Blaire meet dress — made using our latest FREE pattern for mailing list subscribers, Pattern 1038: The Gift Bow Front Dress for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls.
For more information on how to create this dress, hair ornament and waterfall hairstyle for your own dolls, CLICK HERE to read our December 31, 2018 Newsletter.
In today's newsletter, we'll show you how to recreate our new favorite outfit from the Girl of the Year® collection — Blaire's Gardening Outfit, which features denim overall shorts embellished with an embroidered motif, a blue-and-white, off-the-shoulder cropped top, and a coordinating ribbon choker.
Though we love the style of Blaire's outfit, we believe we've improved on these three elements using Lee & Pearl patterns. What do you think?
Our #61 Joanna is wearing a striped, sleeveless variant of our Pattern 1035: Olá Brasil! off-the-shoulder samba top — which is also a NEW Tweak the Pattern feature. Click the link or scroll on down to find out more about this great new tweak!
Our doll's denim shorts — embellished with a pretty iron-on motif — are made using our Pattern 1033: Bonjour, Paris Mini Wardrobe for 18 Inch Dolls.
Let's talk about doll pants for a minute.
Because of the way dolls are jointed, most doll pants either fit perfectly when the doll is standing, or they fit perfectly when the doll is sitting — but not both. There's either not enough fabric to cover the "crack" when the doll sits, or there's too much fabric and the pants gap or bunch up when the doll stands. When we first started working on doll pants patterns, we weren't sure that a design compromise could be found.
But then we created one, and a rather brilliant one if we say so ourselves.
All our pants and shorts patterns (like Pattern 1033: Bonjour, Paris, and also Pattern 1004: "Boy Style" Pants and Cargo Shorts) and our fitted skirts (like Pattern 1041: Slim Skirts and Pattern 1964: Darling Doris 1960s Pencil Skirt) feature a design innnovation — the "No Crack Back" curved waistband, which rises smoothly up in back to hug your doll's curves while she's standing, and also stays firmly in place when she sits.
We hate to say this, but the designers of Blaire's overall shorts did not create a similar compromise. As you can see, the waistband is way too loose, and there's a lot of panty-revealing gappage in these otherwise adorable shorts.
Our doll's beaded choker is also a nice step up from Blaire's scrap of ribbon — though we promise, it's not much more difficult to make!
You can find detailed directions for easy beaded chokers like this one in our Pattern 1032: Desert Sunrise Maxi Dress, Halter Top and Beaded Chokers for 18 Inch Dolls.
Finally, our doll's sun hat (which is really an homage to Blaire's Garden Accessories) is made using Lee & Pearl Pattern 1017: California Girl Sun Hat for 18 Inch Dolls.
We love making hats for dolls, using stitches and steam to turn flat fabric into three-dimensional brims and crowns. Who needs to buy molded felt, straw or plastic hats (which can be hard on doll's hair) when it's so easy to turn soft denims, twills and calicos into shapes as cute as this one?
Stay tuned in upcoming weeks as we re-imagine even more of Blaire's collection using Lee & Pearl patterns!
And now here's the section you've been waiting for — our NEW Tweak-the-Pattern feature, offering sleeveless variants of the Pattern 1035: Olá Brasil! Samba Top and Bahia Dress for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls.
We love it when people take our patterns beyond the outfit on the cover — in fact, we often do that ourselves! And we love featuring those new ideas as part of our ongoing Tweak-the-Pattern series.
This is a tweak we've wanted to make for a long time: a set of sleeveless variations on our popular Pattern 1035: Olà Brasil! Samba Top and Bahia Dress for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls.
Since this pattern debuted, the "cold shoulder" silhouette it features has been declared a new iconic style, flattering on everyone. And we agree — this look is lovely on all our dolls: 18 inch American Girl® dolls, 16 inch A Girl for All Time® dolls and 14 1/2 inch Wellie Wishers® and similar dolls!
While working on designing each of the three sizes in this pattern, our pattern maker "Pearl" often omitted the sleeves to save time, and sometimes omitted the neckline ruffle as well.
We were unexpectedly charmed by the breezy sleeveless style — and we just loved the graceful, vintage look of the ruffle-free style!
Who would have thought that such a simple alteration could create such remarkably different looks?
We definitely had to share these looks with our friends, and thus a new TWEAK was born!
There's only one new pattern piece that you need to make this sleeveless top or dress — a BIAS BINDING MARKING GUIDE that allows you to attach the ruffle to the bias binding, and the bias binding to the dress, without any sleeves involved.
Since we're Lee & Pearl, we've also included complete, photo-illustrated directions for adapting the original top and dress, using that new pattern piece.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE TWEAK-THE-PATTERN 1035a SLEEVELESS TOP AND DRESS DOCUMENT, WHICH INCLUDES DIRECTIONS AND ONE ADDITIONAL PATTERN PIECE IN ALL THREE SIZES.
NOTE: If you do not already own Lee & Pearl Pattern #1035: Olà Brasil! Samba Top, Bahia Dress and Baiana Headwrap for Dolls (in all three sizes, or any individual size) you will have to purchase the pattern to complete your tweaked variants.
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PATTERN 1035: OLÀ BRASIL! MULTI-SIZE BUNDLE FOR 18 INCH, 16 INCH AND 14 1/2 INCH DOLLS
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PATTERN 1035: OLÀ BRASIL! FOR 18 INCH DOLLS ONLY
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PATTERN 1035: OLÀ BRASIL! FOR 16 INCH DOLLS ONLY
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE PATTERN 1035: OLÀ BRASIL! FOR 14 1/2 INCH DOLLS ONLY
See you next week!
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