September 15, 2021

Get ready! On Thursday, September 16 at 12 noon Eastern Time — that's TOMORROW — we're releasing a new collection of doll-scale fabrics in our Etsy shop.

At Lee & Pearl, we know it can be hard to find garment weight fabrics in big-box fabric stores, and hard to determine if fabrics sold online really are doll-scale. So in our soon-to-be-released COLLEGIATE collection, we've gathered a set of coordinated, doll-tested fabrics that we know are perfect on both counts.

There are five doll-scale textiles in this collection — a cotton twill suiting, a cheerful cotton gingham, a supple faux leather, a mini-wale corduroy and an elegantly draping rayon lawn. These fabrics were carefully chosen by our designer to coordinate with each other, in autumnal shades of mossy green, brown, light orange, bittersweet and coral.

Buy one fabric or buy 'em all — the textiles in the COLLEGIATE collection can be individually ordered, in any length you need for any project you have in mind.

CLICK HERE to visit the Fabric & Trim section of the Lee & Pearl Etsy shop at 12 noon Eastern Time TOMORROW — Thursday, September 16 — to shop the COLLEGIATE listing of doll-scale fabrics.

Remember how we said these fabrics were DOLL TESTED?

Pearl took a mini-break last week and sewed up a capsule wardrobe using these coordinated fabrics and various Lee & Pearl™ patterns. Then she dressed two of our American Girl® dolls in their new COLLEGIATE duds and took them to the local university for a photo shoot.

Here are Kim (one of our TLC rescue dolls with a pretty new wig) and workroom-favorite Lea Clark™ waiting on the library lawn for their orientation tour to begin.

Lea is wearing super-preppy cuffed herringbone twill shorts made using L&P Pattern 1033: Bonjour, Paris. Her bittersweet faux-leather L&P Pattern 1943: Molly Waves Goodbye jacket features lapels in the same herringbone twill.

For a blouse, Lea is wearing the fringed handkerchief hem FREE tweak version of the halter top from L&P Pattern 1032: Desert Sunrise.

Desert Sunrise is the perfect pattern for floaty fabrics like this rayon lawn, as the otherwise hard-to-sew gauzy piece gets pinned and stitched first to a stable, easy-to-sew cotton yoke.

Of course we had to make earrings to coordinate with Lea's ensemble, using the photo-illustrated directions in our Introduction to Jewelry Making for Vinyl Play Dolls Craft eBook.

Here's Lea outside the University Science Center. As a budding zoologist — and an effortlessly stylish coed — we think she'll fit right in on campus.

While Lea hits the science buildings, Kim crossed University Drive to check out the residence halls and of course, the football stadium —

Go Horned Frogs!

Kim is wearing one of our favorite doll blouses — the peplum top version of our Pattern 1031: Classic Wrap Dress made out of cheerful cotton gingham.

Her printed corduroy skirt was super easy to make, following the stay-flat-until-the-last-step directions in our Pattern 1041: Slim Skirts for 18" Dolls.

And of course, we had to make coordinated jewelry for Kim's outfit as well. Don't you love the luxe, random-bead pattern in the choker we made following the diagrams and step-by-step directions included with our Pattern 1032: Desert Sunrise?

Finally, Pearl would like to say that this photo shoot has given her renewed respect for all the wonderful doll photographers on Instagram who regularly shoot on location and not in the studio.

It is so much easier to get every hair in place in front of a velvet curtain or green screen, OMIGOSH.

Sorry about that sudden gust of wind, Kim. Glad we tucked a comb in our camera bag before leaving the workroom!

CLICK HERE to visit the Fabric & Trim section of the Lee & Pearl Etsy shop at 12 noon Eastern Time TOMORROW — Thursday, September 16 — to shop the COLLEGIATE listing of doll-scale fabrics.

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See you next time!