A Mystery

I translated the FLC blog today and Kiki talked about it being sewing day on Monday. She also mentioned CCS and Momoko, but the reference wasn't clear as to whether they were sewing Momoko clothes or not. I wonder if they are going to make more OOAK Momokos after the ones they auctioned a couple of weeks ago went for such high prices.

I got my Doll Coordinate Recipe Book last week and looked through the FLC designs. Yup they are makeable even though I don't read Japanese. However I have to get my PDW design finished by the weekend and another Halloween challenge has to be done by the weekend too. So FLC designs will have to wait.

Besides that, the weather is just too nice to be in the sewing dungeon!!!

Reading Blogs

I just finished reading some of the blogs that are written by friends. I am so amazed at the talented writers out there. Wow, they write a blog everyday and it is so interesting and fun, makes me want more, more, more from them. At the left you can see two of my favs, check them out verrrrry interesting reading.

But on the dolly scene....

I had resisted the charms of the Dynamite Girls, but my resolve is beginning to slip. Well let's just say it slipped big time at IFDC this summer. I was not sure about the first DGs, sorry David, but I liked their style and clothing, but they seemed a bit too anime for me. I know this sounds bad coming from a person with hundreds of Jennys and Liccas in her collection, but something didn't click for me. However, when I saw the first FR dolls AND the first Misakis, none of them forced me to rush out and buy them either. For Misaki it was the Patent Please, Sassy Stripes and Get Graphic girls that hollered my name, and in the case of Patent and Graphic they are still hollering, only Sassy has found her way here. In the case of the FR dolls, I thought they all looked like they were have a fainting spell and their eyes were rolling back in their heads. But when the wigged dolls came out, the FR girls seemed to have had some eye surgery. This time I LOVED them and had some catching up to do.

So it was with the Dynamite Girls. When I saw that cute Rufus Blue at IFDC this summer and then Spooky Sooki, I gave up and surrendered to them. So then I went back and looked at the first girls. My daughter had bought one and I realized that she was very cute, not at all anime like she had looked in the pics. So once again catching up with the DGs.

The latest editions, Eltin and Jolly Jett are absolutely stunning.

PDW Day 4

Well here we are into the fourth day of the challenge. I think I know what I am doing and my design is done. Now to draft the patterns. Sorry that's all I can say for now, hehehehe!!!

Project Dollway At Home

For those of you that don't know.....there is a challenge group called Project Dollway. It is the Project Runway of dolly designers. This idea all began about a year ago with Ted Menten hosting the first PDW. There were a number of designers and it worked the same way as PR with eliminations each week. The winner Andrea Jacques is going to have her collection produced. Running at the same time, the people who were watching at home and were brave enough, could do the same challenges as the designers. I actually did two of them. That's one of them to the left. It was the FR challenge and our keyword was moonlight.

Well after PDW finished, we were out there in no man's land........then tada!!! Gabby to the rescue. PDAH is all about home designers. There are 31 designers. There are no eliminations(thank heavens or I would be out the door the first day!!!).

So spurred on by my outfit winning second place(my daughter won first, sheesh) at IFDC this year and the positive comments of many people who saw the outfit, I entered PDAH.

It will be hectic and I don't know if I will get to document all the ups and downs, but I'll start. There will be twelve challenges, all one word. When we got our first clue...VINTAGE...I really didn't know what to think. I read all the posts on the group list and I still didn't know what to think. I have been thinking and thinking and I have kind of an idea forming, but we only have two weeks to complete the design and sew it into existence. Well I'll give it a try because it sounds like fun and fun is what this challenge is all about according to our fearless leader Gabby!!!

So as to not give away anything, I think we are supposed to post our thoughts on the challenge after the due date for each challenge..........I'd better get a pen and paper, well maybe I don't want to remember some of these thoughts!!! LOL!!!

Here we go..............

Well then I forgot to mention Licca too......

When I first started collecting Jenny, I thought that Licca was her little sister, a la Barbie and Skipper. Not so. Licca is a personality unto herself although she is made by the same company as Jenny. http://www.larraine.ca/index.htm

Licca came into exsitence in the 1960s. She is 11 years old. The list of dolls in Licca's family include her parents, twin sisters Miki and Maki, triplet siblings, Gen, Kako and Miku, and her long lost older sister, Rie(who is an airline stewardess). There are also Licca's grandparent and several cousins. Licca also has a large number of friends, boyfriends, maids, her music teacher and her doctor.

Now as I said above, Licca is definitely a different personality from Jenny's family. In fact Licca's life story has been written more fully than Jenny's and can be viewed here: http://www.larraine.ca/liccalife.htm

On Licca's 30th Anniversary, three very unique sets were made, http://www.larraine.ca/anniversary.htm . These sets depicted Licca at different stages of her life. The Stages were 1967, Licca's birth;

1970 Kindergarten Licca/Birthday Party Licca/Licca's first kimono;

1981 Licca enters High School and is the High School Tennis Champ/Goes to her first dance;

1988 Licca at College/Graduate party/ Diplomatic core;

1992 Marriage;

1997 Licca is a Mother.

The Sets came in three versions, Blue, Pink and Yellow(yellow was the hardest to find).

There was also a separate Pregnant Licca set, with Licca and baby, sold.

Did I forget to mention Jenny???

Well, it started with Barbie and then moved to Jenny. Yes, I at one time collected Jenny dolls too. She was my first venture away from Barbie into the world of Asian fashion dolls. I was fascinated by this cute little doll with her cool clothes and for me, sometimes the most intriguing part of the collection, all those wonderful friends. I soon became a member of Biscuit's Club and couldn't find enough Jenny and friends. Now you have to remember that this was back in the dark ages of doll collecting.......NO EBAY!!! So though a publication called Collector's United, I found a lady in Japan who had a monthly auction of Japanese dolls......in particular--Jenny!!!

I bought many dolls from this lady and then suddenly the auctions just stopped. It was a Jenny desert for a couple of years before eBay took up the slack. Around that time Helene was bringing her wonderful Jenny site to a close. I just couldn't imagine letting all that information go offline, so I asked if I could move it over to my barbigirl site. Helene very graciously agreed and here is sits today: http://www.barbigirl.com/jennyhome.htm

Since the discovery of Momoko, Susie and Misaki, Jenny has fallen into decline. I haven't kept up with her as much as I would have liked. I think I owe it to her to get my rear in gear and update her section of the website.

For those of you who don't know her, Jenny is a 17-year-old high school student from Los Angeles (born on August 1st under the sign of the Leo). Her father is a film producer and her mother is a designer. She's a cheerleader at school, but she also has modelling experience and has made her debut as an actress in musicals. Jenny is good at all kinds of sports and especially likes horse-riding, scuba-diving, and aquatics.

Jenny began her career in 1981 under the name Barbie. It seems that at that time, for some reason, Mattel's Barbie was very popular in almost every country in the world, except Japan (maybe she looked too grown-up and glamorous?). That's why Mattel decided to collaborate with a Japanese company to develop a special Barbie, adapted to Japanese children's taste, exclusively for the Japanese market. The first result of their efforts was the doll known as Takara Barbie, and when Mattel withdrew their license in 1986, Takara changed her name to Jenny.

Today I have over 100 Jennys, hmmm, maybe more.

More Website work and some knitting and other dolly stuff

I think I am going to overhaul this whole darned website top to bottom. Now I am re-vamping Susie's pages. Oh well I always said it was a work in progress.

Speaking of which, I am now knitting sweaters in 11.5 and 16 inch scales. I got this pattern for this very cute Christmas tree ornament which is a little sweater. However when I knit it up, it is 1/6 th scale, but the needles they called for were so big, that the stitches are very large, so now I am in the process of re-working the pattern and trying to figure out how to use smaller needles and get the proper size. This is no mean feat as I have actually no idea what I am doing. This will be an interesting project...hehehehe!!!

I got an email from the Sekuguchi website yesterday and the meanings are mostly lost in the translations, but it appears that there is going to be yet another exhibition of Momokos. Looks like this time they are about the history of the kimono and how modern girls are updating the Yukata, Kimono dress and bringing it into the 21st Century. I would love to see that as I do really like Japanese traditional clothing. Really I love all traditional clothing, and I did like the Barbie Dolls of the World that were issued from 1980 to 2000 and now being issued again. I collected all of them and just picked up the two that were issued this year Spain and Indonesia. R&D Fashion dolls put out several beautiful dolls in traditional Thai costumes a couple of years ago with their Legend of Thai series: http://www.barbigirl.com/legendthai.htm

I really am a sucker for dolls in historic or traditional costumes. The picture is Sukothai Muse from R&D's Legend of Thai series.

Juku Couture

A friend emailed a few weeks ago to say he had found the cutest little dolls at his local Target store. They were called Juku Couture and there were four of them. Of course I scanned the "net" and yup there they were. Cute as a button with very cool clothes, they are reminiscent of the J-Dolls. So I ordered all four of them. (back row Jun(l) and Kana; front row Audrina(l) and Hayley)
They finally arrived this week. They are made by Jakks Pacific. They are about 10" tall, about the size of my re-bodied Mamemomokos on the Volks mini body. They are fully articulated, however the joints are a bit loose, but even that doesn't stop them from standing on their own. The biggest thing I have against them are those eyes. They have the "deer in the headlights" stare. If the eyes could be toned down these gals would be really cute. Note the pic of Audrina close up. However they are the right size for the Rement house too and can join the rebodied Mames as roomies.
At approx $20.00 a doll, not a bad price either. The four dolls are Audrina from Los Angeles, Hayley from Sweden, Jun from South Korea and Kana from New York. They are all in their first year of High School. Here is their page: http://www.barbigirl.com/othersmall.htm#juku

Knitting for dolls

I love to knit and I just found the coolest shop that stocks tiny needles and sock wool. Sock wool is the best scale for knitting for dolls, especially 11.5 and 16 inch dolls.

For those of you who don't knit, but can sew, a really cool tutorial was just posted on a list I'm on about sewing sweaters from socks. Even though I can knit, I thought I might just like to try this out.

Here it is: http://tinyurl.com/3f82uv

FLC dolls

The FLC auctions on Yahoo are done and my friend lost the doll. Sheesh, I don't even have the priveledge of saying: "I know someone who owns one of those dolls". Three of the dolls ended over $5,000.00. Now where did I put the FLC pattern book.................

The Momoko Section of my site has been revamped

Well, the main page was getting longer and longer and I know some folks were waiting forever for that page to load, so I decided it was time for a little work. Well it took a week, but the Momoko section has a faster sleeker look. It now includes all the Momokomono(clothing) as well from each year. The dolls are now grouped by year as well. Take a look: http://www.barbigirl.com/momoko.htm
I am still working on the OOAK page, that will take some work and I might have to shed a few tears over the FLC dolls I couldn't buy. Oh well, at least someone I know has a really good chance of getting one. He is top bidder with 8 hours to go. She's not his first choice, but what the heck, she's an FLC.
And I got some positive feedback when I suggested I just might start making FLC outfits myself to some friends, they all said they'd buy them. Well I got that cool material today...............

Yahoo...13 hours to go

I just check on the FLC doll that I really, really wanted and yeah, not going to happen.......she is at 501,000 yen, which is approximately $5,000!!!!!!!!! OMG, this person must be made of money. Either that or this is the first doll they have bought and they are spending all their life savings on it.......go figure. I'm off to find the Doll Coordinate recipe book. Got some really cool remnants at the fabric shop today. Design time!!!

Two new Wake Up Girls

Yesterday I got an email from Sekiguchi announcing their two new Wake Up Momoko dolls, numbers 003 and 004. I didn't get 1 and 2 because they just didn't appeal to me. They were kind of boring, but with most Momoko dolls, even the boring tend to grow on you and you find yourself looking back and thinking, why didn't I buy those girls. Well that happened the other day when I was looking at an auction for the WUD clothing and I thought, you know these ARE really cute. So I guess I will have to go and find 1 and 2 and put my order in for 3 and 4. They are actually cuter than 1 and 2, but don't tell Momoko!!!

I would imagine that a new set of outfits for these two new girls will be produced too. After all there are only three WUD outfits and now 4 girls to wear them. Haven't heard anything about them though.

These gals too, are lower in price(approx. $60 as opposed to $135 for the regular dolls) and just might make perfect candidates for those FLC OOAKs I talked about in an earlier post...........I'm getting that hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm feeling again!!!

FLC Auction over, second set up

Well, I watched and watched and the price soared on my FLC fav from round 1. She went for 280000 yen, which is approximately $2500!!! OK that's a little too much when I only paid that for BOTH DHEXl and DHEXs. So now I am watching and watching the second set of FLC on Yahoo Japan and my fav(that's her pic up there) this time is already up to 81000 yen(about $800) and this is only the first day. The one I like the least is at 31000, so I just might bid on a doll I don't care for just to say I got and FLC........hmmmmm. My daughter is really good at repaints and re-roots and I can sew really well and have the fourth Doll Coordinate Recipe book, so maybe I will just have to make an FLC of my own!!!