more drawstring dresses

I have been wanting to post about this but have also been riddled with shyness, haha. Last year I got really into sewing little drawstring dresses! And this spring, to combat my months-long state of inertia, I cannonballed back into doing so. It seems I love nothing more than to develop a whole workflow and produce a whole lot of something, whether it be deer hats, socks, tights, skirts, or these dresses. As a result, I have made far more dresses than I personally need, just because I enjoy the process, and I enjoy picking out fabrics and coordinating thread and ribbon colors.

Someone once asked me if I'd sell these on Etsy, so that's my intention! I also intend to have them be fairly inexpensive -- in the scheme of Blythe doll dresses, anyway! I'm thinking $12?

And only that much because all the sewing I do is by hand. Although these are super simple, it still takes a little while to do all the hand-stitching to construct one dress. While I typically work in batch mode (cut a bunch of dress pieces, iron all the fabric, sew all the dress pieces, iron them all again, sew them all again, actually put the pieces together, put all the ribbon drawstrings in -- in that order, for these), I'd estimate a dress takes about an hour and a half to complete, from cutting the fabric to finished dress.

I can sew together one of these dresses on my machine, but I feel like they don't look as tidy... I'm still trying to befriend my machine.

I think regardless of the fact that these are a) so laughably simple they barely qualify as garments, and b) hand-sewn, which they definitely look, they have a nostalgic charm to them. They remind me of scoring similar dresses and simple hand-sewn items second-hand on Plastic Paradise or Blythe Kingdom back in the day. Some of my most beloved wardrobe items are handmade and slightly wonky.

And I think there's not a whole lot of things like them on the Blythe fashion market right now. I do a fair bit of browsing for Blythe dresses, very specifically, on Etsy. The typical silhouettes of Blythe dresses I see for sale these days are A-line shift dresses (it's always that one pattern, right?? Speaking of nostalgia) or party dresses with a fitted bodice and flared skirt. Sometimes the party dress style looks more babydoll dress in style, but the silhouette is still "fitted top, flared skirt."

I am a huge fan of such a silhouette!! Clean and classic. So, so pretty. But these have a different silhouette and look, with a ribbon tied at one shoulder. While not all that sophisticated, I think they can still be styled really cutely with different colored tights or socks, sweaters or jackets on top, shoes that match the ribbon or a color in the dress... et cetera!

All this to say: I put some of these up on my Etsy. I have a lottt more to take pictures of/list...!