sewing Blythe tights

Having mastered the sock creation process, I set out next to make Blythe tights.

O, hubris.

I bought this pattern, but since I am a sewing ignoramus, I was halted in my tracks here. I think this particular pattern is for people with more sewing experience (or general spatial skills) than I have. Ones who can just see pattern pieces and know how they go together, either because they've done a lot of sewing or they can bend things in their mind in a way I can't. If there are written instructions for actually sewing the pieces together somewhere in the pattern pdf, I missed them. But truthfully I have a hard time understanding written instructions anyway. Recipes, maps, directions, rights versus lefts, cardinal directions... all bewilder me. So I don't really know that even a very detailed pattern could have helped me.

I sat for several hours trying to figure these out on my own. I thought surely I could... I had made socks, hadn't I?? I tried to hold the fabric pieces to each other in different configurations. I just really couldn't see how to pin the pieces so they'd become tights.

Finally I went to YouTube and found this tutorial, which was instrumental in guiding me through the process, and... victory!!!

Uhh... I mean, they're a little too long.

But listen! I have many pairs of Blythe tights that don't fit perfectly! I have an ancient sheer green pair acquired secondhand I quite like that are very ill-fitting -- way, way too long. So I was only stoked. For a first attempt, these look pretty good. If you don't lift up Fidelia's skirt, you'd never know. (These particular pics are phone pics taken in my always-dark bedroom, so the colors are a little off. They're actually rusty orangey-brown, as pictured in the other pics in this post.)

It took making a few not-so-great pairs for me to actually figure out how to get the tights to really fit, both length-wise and waistband-wise. To acquire the right dolly-sized elastic and discover the best practices for ease and efficiency in sewing them up.

Construction-wise, I looked closely at Simply Bubble Boom's pink stock tights to see if I could do anything differently. In my opinion, aside from being made by machine and some aesthetic differences in the waistband (the manufacturers for the official stock used even smaller elastic and let it be totally visible on the inside of the waistband, whereas I hide the elastic within the waistband), they look pretty identical.

I'm not good enough with a machine to be using it to make these. So all the tights and socks I've made are hand-sewn, and thus don't have robotically even stitches, and such. But I'm proud this is something I have managed to tackle.

Thank goodness for YouTube and for people who work to make tutorials of all types that others can access for free. I never would have figured out how to put these together on my own.

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sewing Blythe socks, part two

My number one jam this month has been making little Blythe socks. I have made... so many, it's sickening. I want to estimate I've made about 75 pairs in many varying lengths and colors.

One reason I made so many is that I've wanted to re-enforce my hand-sewing skills and just practice a lot, with the aim to increase my comfort level with sewing in general. Another reason is that I want to send a bunch of them to my bestie L, who also collects Blythes. Her doll family and mine are comparable in number, so I want to send lots of colors and various lengths to beef up her sock supply. So many tiny plastic feet to cover...

The power I feel is unholy. Immeasurable. When I think about how I can just make socks to match any outfit if I want to, I turn into a demon and begin howling at the moon.

My girls' sock collection is motley, you know? Many of the pairs I have are a decade old, at least, and naturally my aesthetic tastes have meandered a bit over the years. It's really nice to have this infusion of new options.

I've also been working on tights, which is a step up in terms of difficulty and time. I'll post about that soon!

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acnh drip

I had a nice, chill birthday! I bought that rotary cutter set I linked in my last post and it's a game-changer for me. Sewing clips have saved me already.

I'm still hyperfixated on sewing (😅) but I wanted to divert course momentarily to post a compendium of some of my favorite outfits I've worn in Animal Crossing New Horizons.

Which I'm still playing! Not with 100% regularity, but in months-long bursts with breaks in between. I'm actually a year behind in the game, so it's August 2021 on my island. I don't know about y'all, but the way so many people had virtually complete islands decorated to the max with all the hard-to-attain items just two weeks after the game was released actually killed my own motivation and desire to play. So I didn't for months at a time, between smaller periods of energy/inspiration. Thus I got quite behind. But I got back into it again during the fall/winter, and I got very into adding to my Amiibo card collection, and got into screenshotting my dressups every day.

So: some ACNH drip! I named each fit.

This dressup screenshotting tendency of mine is likely brought to you by how much I still, to this day, miss Poupeegirl. (Of course there's Bentewee and also there was the Dolly Collection app. I did both for a few months, but it's not the same experience as Poupeegirl, imo.) I think Poupeegirl heavily influenced the way I dress my Blythes. I even mentioned it as an influence here several years back.

Must say my favorite dressup items in ACNH include the berry beret, the mustard pleather ankle booties, the lavender glasses (both round and hexagon frames), the ballet shoes (any color), and the basket purse. My island rep's almost always in double braids.

All right, I'm off to do more sewing.

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