poor deer

Oh my gosh! The listing for this Middie deer hat is about to expire! I knocked the price down a few bucks! Buy it, buy it! I'm also open to a trade!

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I'll consider this my spring cleaning!

It had not been April first for an hour yet when my computer died! I spent many days cut off from "civilization," or at least, my typical habits: working, writing, stalking Rachel's Ribbon on eBay... you know, daily activities. I watched three seasons of Gilmore Girls and crocheted a lot on my ripple. I also made three Middie hats just because I had some spare yarn and Bonnet was chilling with me. I played on my guitar. I pondered doing things by candlelight just to further the blackout feeling. It's scary to realize how dependent on technology we truly are these days!

Luckily, I'm back in business on a new machine now! I was fortunate enough to have a backup of all the things I consider important to me and was able to save some frivolous things, too, but otherwise, I'm starting fresh. Is it just me, or is it fun to download fonts? You know what, I'm going to clean my desk so it will go with my clean hard drive!

I've been listening to Sucré non-stop as I install programs! So dreamy. Listen, listen!

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Middie window shopping

Do you ever see a dress and think, "Oh, that's totally my girl!"

Aury can wear anything by virtue of being a blonde who has an all around fun and sweet personality, there's nothing she does not love. And my blue-haired Drew is very amenable to lots of different looks. But Miss Beatrix just has a more librarian feel about her and prefers to look suitably vintage and/or polished. Plummery wears lots of layers and more muted colors, so she's always looking mori; if it doesn't have layers she just seems to feel not like herself. Miss Petaline (yes, "Miss" gets suffixed in the case of pickier girls) is absolutely the hardest to shop for. It's a rare day when I see a Petaline dress -- and an even rarer day when it isn't kind of expensive for my Blythe budget. She gets all the best duds.

I once got into a discussion with my friend L about attributing personality traits to my Blythes; I said it was not a voluntary decision that I made, that I just "felt" these things kind of automatically about them, while L disagreed and thought it was purely my personal preference. Then she got a Blythe, and I think she knows what I mean now ;)  Some girls just have their own style! Although, to be fair, I am eccentric.

Shopping for a Middie is way hard, because there just aren't a lot of Middie clothes out there in general (right now on Etsy there's only 7 pages of results, compared to a billion or so pages of results for Neo-sized Blythe) and I cannot find things that seem very Bonnet-y. There are lots of dresses I love that just don't seem to suit how she feels to me. Nevertheless I favorite them!

Love these very Macaron Q-Tea Party-suitable duds, a green crochet dress with a cute bow by bunnybrownie and springy pink and green floral dress by the lovely Tea from Taffeta Day!

This polka-dot number by hiblythe is a total Beatrix dress. If she ever shrinks in the middle of the night, I'm buyin' it for her!

Whilst fussy (I love fussy!), the allure of this minty Alice dress from kreamdoll is very great! It would go with Macaron Q-Tea Pot's minty stock Mary Janes, too.

Alas, Bonnet just hasn't found her personal style yet!

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double Blythe mail day

Ooh, double Blythe mail all the way 'cross the skyyy! My trade package from Care of StitchWhipped got here today! Now Bonnet has her very own teensy-weensy little dresses (seriously, they're so tiny). So happy!!

Care's amazing. These dresses are so well-made and they are so small that the construction of them blows my mind! I really have to learn to photograph Middies... they seem to have their own unique thing going on that I haven't really learned how to capture yet.

My two little cannonbelle cardigans got here today too -- gorgeousness! Can't wait to start layering with these babies. I can't believe they arrived already! I only blogged about these things a couple of days ago!

Just because, a little bit of listery:

• listening to this cover of "Somebody That I Used To Know" a lot the past couple of days!
• this song by Sucré is my jammmmm!
• still making my way through Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon
• cleaned my room like a crazy person yesterday... it just made me realize how cluttery it is in here and how I'd like to get rid of a bunch of junk! Matt Paxton, Extreme Cleaning Specialist of Hoarders fame, would be so proud... wait, what's that, he has a podcast? Must listen.

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tackling 2012

Oh, January, already you have brought me changes. Who can tell what kind of year this will be? It's both daunting and interesting.  Last year, I didn't have a ton of personal time. During 2011 I often found myself too anxious and energy-depleted to enjoy my usual hobbies. If it wasn't for taking up the guitar... which required so much of my attention and dedication to slowly learn that it was the only thing that distracted me from my anxiety completely... I might have gone insane!! I am so thankful for my guitar and I love spending time playing on it every day, and so I cannot regret 2011 even if it was so busy that it soaked up my life forces. Because I wasn't crafting with the same vim and vigor, I also began to write a little more. Writing is a treasured pastime of mine, so I am happy to be writing again too.

Happily, this year, I have immediately found myself freed up again a bit. I have been practicing knitting again, inspired by a friend, I, who asked if she could knit me a pair of socks!! I was like, "Man, I want to knit, I don't know if I remember how!" But I magically remembered not only how to cast on and knit, but to purl. I couldn't believe it. I'm still so poor at it that I am just making practice squares with spare yarn... but I'm really enjoying it a lot. With a Christmas gift card, I got some extra knitting needles to add to the small, varied collection I have acquired in various ways throughout the years in my journey to Try And Knit.

In further yarny news... It has been on my mind for the past couple of months: I am also going to attempt to crochet a throw. I've crocheted one before -- for my grandma. It was back when I had very first learned to crochet and it was simple, thick stripes of burgundy-red, cream, and navy blue, to match colors in her living room. It took months! But it was worth it. To this day she snuggles up under it. I think it sounds very pleasant to have a long-running project that I can pull out anytime, even if it takes a long time. I am a short project type of person usually. That's why I like to make things for Blythes.

Through the years my skills have expanded very slightly, so I am going to attempt a ripple blanket. Can I do the ripple? NO! But I'm going to learn! I usually have to look stuff up on YouTube because I'm so terrible at understanding patterns and written instructions (a big problem I have with expanding my knit/crocheting skills and why I really can't sew either). So I excitedly picked out a bunch of yarn that is already cheapy but which was on sale!

It's going to be mostly white, cream, and more muted pinks, but with zings of golden and rusty tones, and if I can find any, some sherbet orange or peach. I'm super-excited. If I get this puppy going I'll be sure to post in-progress pictures.

By the way, my sweet Middie finally got named...

Her name is Bonnet! Look forward to seeing Middie hats in my shop fairly soon.

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Merry early Christmas to me!

My sweet Middie got here today!!! I decided to de-box her on camera so here's a 13-ish minute reactionary video.




I really, really like her already! Middies are just utterly their own creatures, but they are extremely cute! It keeps striking me just how different she is even though she's technically a Blythe.

I'm waiting to see what her name is...

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facepalm

Okay, I relent to you, strange Middie desires! I had this girl open in an eBay tab for a week before biting the bullet. She was on cheapy-cheap sale, comparatively speaking, and I had a spike of Etsy sales these past couple of weeks -- is it holiday shopping time, or what??

Eee, I'm weirdly nervous! I haven't bought a Blythe in nearly a year (I last adopted Drew at the beginning of January) and have been really quite happy and satisfied with all of my family regardless of crushes on Saffy, Cousin Olivia -- see, I love the blondes! -- Bubble Boom and Thumpty Thump, et cetera. I still crave a pink-haired girl... but there's no rush.

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans!  Things I'm grateful for this year:

• my little sisters, who are awesome
• my guitar, Little Ghosty Boo, for I love it so
• my anti-anxiety medication, without which I would probably go crazy!

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Middie love... from afar!

1. Set for Middie Blythe, 2. Introducing...., 3. Getting Acquainted!, 4. Middie Macaron, 5. Cherry wishes.., 6. Coat 2.0, 7. little girl~, 8. yellow green pink, 9. New style!

So, I am the first to admit that the introduction of the Middie Blythe last year kind of annoyed me. I've never been attracted to the Petites and my general feeling was, "But, Takara... why not pour your creative energies into making more unique 11-inch RBLs and FBLs?" I actually love blonde Blythes and tend to be attracted to more natural hair colors over fantasy hair colors, but there's been a large amount of repetitive blondes this past year, and even two almost-identical redheads released back-to-back. No matter your preferred Blythe aesthetic, you have to wonder what's up with that. Even I would like to see more variety and better stock.

Also, I thought I was kind of over Blythe sticker shock at this point, but the price for these little beauties is more than many full-sized Blythes, and I must admit, find that very confusing. I keep thinking, "Why would I pay more money for less doll?" I think a lot of people felt similarly when Middie was first introduced.

But oh, Flickr! Just looking at it has changed my feelings on a lot of Blythe dolls. I originally never paid attention to Prima Dolly Paris (her 60s stock and purple lips just ain't my aesthetic) but once I saw her re-imagined by all those beautiful Blythers on Flickr, I really fell in love with her! I was also so excited for Vinter Arden from her promo art, but was disappointed in Takara's promo pictures once they came out. Then once I saw her on Flickr, I realized that Takara's pictures had just really sucked and that VA -- while not the pink-haired doll I had been craving -- was still right up my alley.

Middie Blythes have been no exception to this phenomenon. Seeing them customized and more aptly posed and photographed by talented people who really love their hobby and have a huge scope for imagination has made me feel much more excited about them.

Too bad their price seems to still be very high! I have other Blythely things on my wish list but I just wanted to admit my secret: Man, I would love a Middie!

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