Little Red Riding Hood

The only downside to summer vacation is coming home with a cold.  Boo-hoo!  Woe-is-me!  Sob!  Sniffle...  But now I'm feeling much better and I remember the other downside to vacation: falling behind on my sewing!  I missed a couple of great weeks in the Zakka 2.0 sew along on Flickr; the polka-dot cafe apron, the placemat, and the apple bib look so fun but I'm just in time for the Dino-Mite Hat on page 65.

 I did sew today.  I did not make a dinosaur hat.  I also did not make a baby hat.  However, I did make a pillowcase dress and a very small velveteen hood with ears for my China Girl doll.

Bonus Question: Can anyone from the MplsMQG guess the liner fabric?

China Girl is a song by David Bowie (and Iggy Pop) but she's also a character from the recent film, Oz the Great and Powerful (see video clips here and here.)  I thought the movie was kind of meh...even if there was an Anna Maria Horner panel on one of the aprons but I do enjoy the Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum weirdness in general, and I've spent a ton of time at Dorothy's House in Liberal, Kansas.  I'm not really a doll collector but China Girl happens to be a thoughtfully made toy and she's pretty fun because she's 14 inches tall, jointed so she's posable, and she can stand on her own.   Besides, she's from Oz and she's adorable and she keeps me company in the sewing room.  Today I thought she might like a new outfit and so this is what we came up with.

The dress is a simple pillowcase style made from two 10-inch squares of a novelty print from Joann's.  I used three different trims and her belt secures with a bra hook.
Her hat is a variation of the style from Ayumi's pattern in Patchwork, Please! but I had to draft it myself to be boxier since CG has molded hair and all.  Instead of dinosaur spikes down the middle, I just folded triangular ears into the darts.

Yes, it was inspired by Little Red Riding Hood and her nemesis, the Big Bad Wolf.
I guess there's a mix of styles going on here...Sort of 1970's Little House on the Prairie goes Harajuku lolita.  Maybe CG is headed to a Renaissance festival or something.

Anywho.  There it is.  Celebrating being able to breathe out of my nose by sewing for my dolly from stash scraps.


Perhaps I'm making doll clothes because I didn't learn to sew as a kid and now I need to fill in the design experience gaps?   In any case, it's like baby clothes: all the fun of sewing garments without the expense of so much fabric.

It's really fun and I recommend it.

                               Catchya Later

                                 -Kristin