A Cloak for a Princess (or two)

So the title of this post is a little misleading, because there's more than just cloaks/capes in here, but do you know how hard it is to keep coming up with new post titles? I'm almost ready to just start putting the date, but that would just be boring, lol.

So first, just some pretty sunset pictures to share with you, my readers. This is the beauty of a West Texas sunset just as a thunderstorm is coming into the area. Some of the most beautiful sunsets in the world! (If you don't believe me, find out where movie makers like to do scenes that are riding off into the sunset. Yep, West Texas! Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade anyone?) I took these the other day as I was getting off work, hence the annoying power lines and light poles in the way, but still some beautiful pictures.

And pictures of the halter dress I'm making. The skirt is taking forever! I have been working on it every day, but I feel like I'm not getting anywhere. These pictures do show different though. I have less than 10" to finish the skirt.

And now to Disney stuff. These first couple of pictures are actually of the little tea sets that my swap partner used to make my stitch markers out of (well, the Belle one anyway). I found them at the store and they work so perfectly that I wanted to make some more stitch markers, so I picked up a couple of the tea sets, another of Belle and one which is just a generic pink princess one, but still the same size and pieces (same mold too, you can see Chip's chip in the pink tea cups!).

And all the pieces fit inside the tea pots! So cute! (and these are made for little girls? too many little pieces if you ask me).

This picture is for size comparison. That is a quarter laying there next to the plate. The quarter is actually a little bit bigger than the plate even!

Okay, now on to the doll capes (aka, the cloaks, hehe). This is Aurora's cape. As I mentioned previously, I am trying to get Aurora finished up fairly soon because the mother asked me to. I don't think it will take me too much longer. With the addition of the stitch markers on the cape and the circular needle for the dress, the knitting is going much faster!

And a little bit further. Thanks to the hanging stitch markers and the rib stitch at the neck, you really can tell that it is gaining length. And width! It's almost too wide for my 14" straight knitting needles at this point!

This picture is halfway through the third way down row on the body (aka, I'm done with a third of the rows from the rib stitch at the neck). Because of the 8 stitch increases on an increase row (still every other (right side) row at this point), the angle which the needles are sitting is actually the natural curve of the design. That curve and the sheer width of the cape at only a third of the way down prompted me to go get a circular needle to continue working this cape on (seeing as I didn't have a size 3 circular in my needles). The cape has since been put onto the circular needle, though I don't have a picture of it on there yet.

Same amount done as above, but measuring on Rapunzel (she was easier to use than Aurora, who has yarn still attatched to her dress). Rapunzel is slightly smaller than Aurora, but not by much. A third of the way done with the cape and it already reaches to Rapunzel's waist! I think this pattern (not my own design on this piece) will be a good replication of Aurora's cape (which really is more of a cloak than a cape).

Here's a picture from the front, if you will pardon the DPN holding the hood closed and the safety pin holding the neck closed. Once the cape is done, the hood will be sewn together and a snap will be sewn on at the neck.

So, the stitch markers were working so well to cut out time on Aurora's cape, that I decided to add them to Belle's capes as well (now that I have the other tea sets made into stitch markers). And it was a good thing I decided to work with Belle's capes too. As I was trying to get the stitch markers in place on Belle's navy cape, I felt something give in the piece! I was so afraid the yarn had broken or stitches had dropped or something! They didn't, but what did happen was nearly as bad because of where it happened. The tubing came out of the needle on the circular which the cape was on! In the middle of the stitching! Yikes!!!!!! I was able to get the cape transfered over to another circular with only dropping one stitch (that was successfully picked back up in the next row); luckily I had a spare size 2 circular needle. Here's a picture of the broken circular needle. The tubing just fits up inside the end of the needle. The needle has been since fixed and is awaiting being put back into service. A little heat from a candle melted the plastic tubing into staying put inside the needle.

It was a good thing I moved it to my other cicular size 2 in another way too. The cape was starting to get wide (I'm about a third of the way done on this one as well) and the little 16" circular it was on was not going to hold all of the stitches much longer. It is now on a 29" circular that will be more than long enough to hold all of the stitches through the rest of the cape. You will also notice that there are only 4 stitch markers on this cape instead of the 8 which Aurora's cape has. That's because the design for Belle's capes is a different pattern than Aurora's cape. Aurora's cape is more a cloak where as Belle's capes are more just a standard riding cape. The only increases which occur in Belle's capes are shoulder increases, so I have the tea cups here marking the increases and the sugar and creamer are marking the garter stitch as a reminder for me on the purl side rows.

And when I went to place the stitch markers on Belle's maroon cape, I had a bit of a personal embaressment moment. Apparently I had cast on the maroon cape and worked one knit row, and that was it! So, Belle's maroon cape got some working done on it. Here I have placed the plates for the garter stitch and the spoons are marking the center decrease spot for the hood (you will notice these complete the tea set with Belle's other cape, hehe). The spoons will be  moved after I do the neck ribbing to mark the shoulder increases.

Here's a little bit further on the maroon cape.

And here is after all the decreases have been done for the hood. I still have a few cm of straight stockinette stitch to do before getting to the neck ribbing though.

Can you tell it was a cape working day? Sorry for the backflash my camera did. I don't know why it did that.

And Aurora was not forgotten. I worked on her while watching Shrek 2 with my roommate. I was able to complete nearly 10 more rows on her skirt during the movie, which equates to about 13% of the skirt. I have reached over the halfway point in the skirt and it is now past her knees, about a cm or two more than it looks in the picture here because the skirt would not lay flat against the doll for anything in the world when I tried to take the picture.

As with the shift for Mulan, part of these outfits which I am designing are being tested for sale of the pattern. Jasmine's outfits are going to be making a mix and match pattern set and are the ones currently being tested. But my testers have ran into a problem of not getting the outfits to fit the way I do, especially the pants, so I told them I would make a new outfit soon and see if I could figure out what was going on with the design. So, I have started a new outfit for Jasmine, this time her signature blue outfit (which after I finish this one, I will be 50% the way done with Jasmine, not including her wedding dress).

Her outfits really do make fast, especially the tops, which are all of ten rows. Here is after casting on and knitting one row.

A few rows later.

After casting off for the "sleeves."

And just before casting off. Pardon the '70s yellow table background. I had to spend the afternoon/evening at the laundry mat because they still haven't finished remodeling the laundry facilities at my apartment complex. Ugh.

And cast off and modeled by Jasmine. I still haven't darned in the ends or put on snaps. I wanted to wait to put on the snaps until I figured out the problem of the fitting on the dolls. I had bought this Jasmine off eBay and I thought she was the newest Jasmine, but after the problems my testers were having, I wasn't sure. So I went to the store and found a Jasmine doll (not an easy task, mind you, Jasmine seems to be either more popular or less popular than the other princesses because she is not on the shelf as much as the other dolls are).

And boy was I surprised! The newest Jasmine is totally different!!! Luckily, this blue top seems to fit both dolls in the same manner.

And so does the purple outfit which I had previously finished.

But not the red outfit!!! Here it is on my first Jasmine doll which I had been using for a reference picture.

And here it is on the newer doll. It's falling off her!!!! It will be a simple fix, I just have to adjust the snap positions. Actually, I'm going to add snap positions to it. That way, the little girl can put the outfit on the newer, smaller dolls, and the older larger dolls by just chosing a different snap position.

Here's the two dolls side by side for comparison. Different body shapes and heights! My original Jasmine was not that different from the Aurora which I bought at the store (exact same Disney princess line as the newer Jasmine too!!! Aparerntly they can't make up their minds as to what body types to use!), so I didn't really think all that much of the body type.

But sheesh! Pick a body type. This is Rapunzel (only one body type, being a newer princess), my new Jasmine (same size as Rapunzel), Tiana (again, only one body type, different from Rapunzel and Jasmine, same as my Aurora doll), and my old Jasmine! And the sad thing is the new Jasmine and the Tiana are both from the Sparkling Princess line! I had heard about the differening body types and could see that they were depending on which princess I was working with and whether my doll was a newer or older doll, but I didn't really realize how much of a difference the body types were (execting Pocahontas and Esmerelda, who are 1966 Mattel bodies, a very distinct body type) until I put them all next to each other.

And one last parting picture. My pretty kitty Sapphire looking at mommy asking if I'm done with all the yarn yet! LOL.

Real Life Can Be Such a Bother

Well, if you are one of my followers from Ravelry, you'll know that "real life" can just suck. Okay, you don't have to be from Ravelry to know that. But to understand the statement "real life," you probably have to be a Raveler. "Real life" is that pesky life you have when you aren't crafting. Yeah, yeah, if you're not a crafter, artist, writer, etc., you probably don't get it. But when "real life" becomes crazy, crafting goes out the window. And so apparently does blogging. I've tried to keep up with things lately, but, yeah, real life can be such a bother.

I do have a few things to update on the princess dress front. First, well, isn't really a dress, but a surprise. I love when Disney Store has sales. I was able to get something else to go with all the princesses. Well, really, just one, but here, look:

Yep! That's right! I got Beast to go with Belle since that is the little girl's favorite princess. And boy, was he a beast to get out of the package! I thought Barbie packages were bad opening. Not anymore. Disney Store wants to make sure that you can't get to their dolls. But me and my scissors prevailed!!! And this doll is really cool. He has a mask and coat that turns him from the prince into the Beast. Here's him all put together.

And as the prince. Unfortunately, the paws and the tail are part of the jacket, so he can't wear it as the prince.

And now to the dresses. Well, just a few pictures of two outfits. As I stated before, the mother had requested that I finish Aurora's dress next, so I have been, as real life has allowed, working on Aurora's pieces. The one I have gotten the most work done on in the last couple of weeks has been her cape, because it is portable and easy to work on with little counting. Here it is after having finished the last decrease on the hood portion.

And now completely done with the hood portion. As with Belle's cape, I'm still not sure how the hood is going to work, but that will have to be figured out after I finish knitting the piece. I find that I have gotten much faster at knitting than when I started working on this project, and I figure it will take me just a couple more hours of work to actually finish up the cape.

 And a little bit into the body with the increases for the shoulders. The really bumpy looking portion near the needle is the ribbing for the neck portion to bring the hood in.

Ah, Aurora's blue dress! I really hope to finish this soon, and now I have a great tool to help me: a very long circular needle in size 0! You can't get these where I live because we have no local yarn shops, just big box, chain stores. This circular came to me via a swap on Ravelry (arrived yesterday) and has already been put to use. Using a technique called the magic loop, I'll be able to work on the skirts of the ball gowns much quicker on the circular than on the DPNs. Of course, I only have one circular, so the DPNs will still be greatly used. Oh, and do you notice that the ugly white plastic stitch marker is gone? My swap buddy sent me a ton (and I do mean a ton) of new stitch markers, including some that are the Disney Princesses and their sidekicks (some of the princesses, not all). I just couldn't help but be nerdy. I've put the Aurora stitch marker on her dress. :)

About 10 minutes later, I already had a few more rows done. I estimate that the circular and magic loop technique cuts my knitting time by at least half! And, as I showed in making Belle's green dress once I put it on the circular, it displays much better on the doll. The circular also allowed me to easily turn the dress inside out and get all the pesky loose ends darned in even though I hadn't finished the dress! I'm really liking working with the magic loop technique now that I have figured out how to do it.

A quick snapshot this morning before going to work. Man, it looks like some kind of torture device! The skirt is a good inch longer in this picture than it is in the previous one on the doll. It's a good thing that the circular is making things quicker too. I've lost some time in working on these outfits lately. :( Hopefully, this will help me make up some time.

Okay, okay. I admit. Since I've been restoring the dolls that I have found at second hand stores and on eBay, I have kind of gotten into doll restoration. I found a few more dolls over the last couple of weeks. I found this one, who was completely Disney, no Mattel marks on her. I figured she had to be a princess, but she didn't really look like the only brunette princess, Belle. At least, she didn't look like the other two Belle dolls I have. But it turns out, she is a Belle doll. She is a Ballet Belle doll that was released exclusively in the Disney Stores a while back. Her hair is pretty messed up, although not as bad as the first Ariel I had to restore.

This is just swiping a comb through a small section a couple of times. It's going to take a while to get through all her hair, which is pretty tangled.

And the full curl worked through. Her ends are frizzing like the Ariel's did, but not as bad. I think it's because I am using an actual flea comb to get the finer knots out of it.

And Cinderella. With her hair falling down. So, what did I do? Took it down the rest of the way. (And yes, I have several Cinderella dolls now. But there are several blond princesses with several outfits each, so it's alright. She'll be purposed to model for the other princesses too).

Half way down. I decided to keep the glittery tendril done up; maybe use it to wrap around the hair once I'm finished with it.

Once it was all down, not even combing it would tame Cinderella's hair - she was a wild child!

So I tried using a cool perm on her, just to help tame the hair. What I mean by "cool perm" is that I didn't use boiling water, which makes it permanent. All I did was wet her hair and then rolled it around the straw rollers to dry, in hopes of taming the hair to go in the right direction.

Here is after a day of sitting in my bathroom drying. Hair is still a little crazy, but at least now it was all going in the "down" direction and I could do something with it.

Being too short to braid or anything else, I just combed out her hair and put a terry cloth rubber band (that's such a misnomer) in it to tame it all back into a ponytail. I'm going to leave it like this for a while, and once the hair conforms to the new style, I'll use a small dental rubber band to secure the ponytail and wrap the glittery tendril around it.

And this poor doll was decapitated when I found her!!! It's another Rapunzel doll, with very tangled hair! But before I could even start on her hair, I had to get her head reattached to her body. It's not as easy as it was when I was a child. When I was a kid, doll heads easily popped on and off the bodies, which aided in dressing the dolls, but now...they have this piece in their heads which secures the head to the neck, making it near impossible to get the head off, and just as impossible to get it back on. Probably took me about thirty minutes to secure her head. Once reassembled, I went to work on her hair. (Oh, and shockingly, she still had her purple dress with her too!)

Putting it into little braids as I finished each little section.

A little more done, from the back.

And all combed out and ready for a wash. She is still currently in the restorative state, having had her hair washed and drip dried (yeah, all that hair has taken about two days to dry) and awaiting styling.

And now, the little jumper I was working on for my niece. It turned out really cute, but I don't think I will ever work with that cotton yarn again. It worked up pretty and soft, but I found it hard to work with because the yarn itself had absolutely no give! It was rather difficult at times working on the lace. Here it is modeled by a baby doll from when I was a little girl.

Just a progress shot on my halter dress. You can finally start to see the color in the piece. It's a bit longer now than it is in this picture, which is good, because I have less than a month to finish it. Gulp!

These next two pictures are of yarn that I hand dyed with Kool-Aid! Who knew, right? I'll be doing a post soon documenting how I dyed them because everywhere I read said you couldn't do Kool-Aid dying on cotton yarn, but this yarn here is Peaches & Cream - a 100% cotton yarn!!!! Hehe. Bless my days in Girl Scouts.

And just a couple of last pictures of little projects I have done. This is my monster chunk made from the scrap yarn from my niece's jumper. He didn't take long at all to make. He's name is Blueberry. LOL.

And this little guy I crocheted up really quickly for a coworker of mine who was graduating high school this year. Her favorite color is blue, and her school graduates in red caps and gowns with gold tassels (school colors). Isn't he cute?