Crafting Creatively: Things I've Made: Addy’s Cream Lace Dress and Pinafore

Addy remains clothed in the finest of clothings.

It's that time again! (To floss our tongues?) No, it's time to learn today's lesson, and for that we turn to the Wheel of Morality--wait this isn't Animaniacs--

It's time for the Third Annual American Girl Collectors Secret Snarker Gift Swap! Well, the wrapping up thereof.¹ This year was quite successful, and I'll post about what I got later this week, because it's super cute and I wanna give it a full review--as well as the outfit I got last year.² But first, let's talk about what I made, because a gift swap is an excuse to sew, and there's never a bad excuse to sew. This year I got The Edwardian Girl as my giftee, who not only is one of the members of AGC, but runs an Etsy shop you should so get in on because she makes some damn fine outfits. (Do you not have Addy's Cape Island Dress? Do you like reproductions? She makes em! Get on that.) Sewing for another good seamstress can always be a touch intimidating, because I undercut how good I am at everything because who needs self esteem? (I'm getting better at it). But as I flipped through her survey, she mentioned Addy. We all knew where this was going the moment I saw Addy's name. Make another outfit for Addy Walker? Don't mind if I do!

Addy’s Cream Lace Dress and Pinafore

Addy is ready for another year of school at the ICY with her new outfit: a cream and flower print dress that Ruth just finished for her. It has fine cream crochet lace at sleeves, bodice, and hem; off-white cuffs and collar; side sashes, and three fine pink buttons down the front. Underneath she has matching lace-trimmed pin-tucked pantaloons, and when she wants to keep her clothes clean during chores there’s a matching lace pinafore. Tie her pink ribbon in her hair and send her off to school! 

And like usual, I made two, kept the weaker set, and am ready to talk about what I did, how, and why.

But before I do, a little bit of American Girl collection personal squeal. I have lamented muchly about how, through a mix of crafting, cheap purchases, secondhand, the occasional splurge, and gift, I had a nearly complete Addy collection. Nearly. Because the one authentic thing I was missing was the whistle from Addy's Church Fair Fun Set, and the costs people ask for a whistle were ridic, and I was never sure I'd ever get one.

Well, Miss Tae of AGC got one and sent it to me. As a gift. To finish my collection.

it is sitting in her lap and it makes tweet noises and so did I~

I am sure that y'all heard the squealing and the tweeting on the whistle (yo it is loud) and the flappy hand screeches I made all the way on the other side of the globe when I opened this package. And then I went and cleaned up Addy's trunk³ and sorted her clothes, and set it with the rest of her church fair set and plan to put a little cord on it so it can hang around her neck too.

I, for all intents and purposes, have a complete Addy Walker collection.⁴ All her old stuff, all her new stuff, all her BeForever stuff. My first girl has everything I've ever wanted for her from AG. Thank you, Miss Tae, thank you, thank you.

Now let's cut and talk about her new dress set.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: The BeForever Activations, Moddies on Parade, And Those Two Damn White Kids Again

Dump Tenney, Buy Gabby.

So last weekend, I hauled my buns to AG Seattle, got pictures of everything, and then spent the week listening to Talking Simpsons podcasts and working on replacing my braids. Because I really really don't like Tenney-Sue and Nogan. The new Historical stuff? The new moddie stuff? That I'm excite for, even Julie's Potty and Accoutrements in a way. But I really just look at those two white kids and roll all two of my eyes and the inner one too and make retching sounds in a way I did for Wonderbread. I swear to fuck. Le Sigh. Anyways, I am going to behave and get this done so that I can stop having it hovering over my head like so much miasma.

This release includes some BeForever, Truly Me stuff, Wellie Wishers, Bitty Baby Shit that I don't fux with, and Those Two Damn White Kids. And if you don't like me calling them Those Two Damn White Kids, then you are on the wrong fucking blog, not even sorry to tell you the exit is available for you to go through. This place is for my opinions, and my opinions involve hating Them Two, and the fact that I manage to edit even a single fact about Nogan The Face And Spotlight Thief on the AG Wiki without leaving "reason for edit" as "FUCK YOU AND THE DRUM SET YOU RODE IN ON" is a testament to my goddamn professionalism on that project, heaux and foes. So you will give me this or you will eat unpleasant ham and catch a butt boil right at the top of the crack of your ass. I'm that bitchy woman your momma warned you about.¹

Take the cut.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: AG News Catch Up: Fused Underpants, PoC Everywhere, The DeVaulting of Felicity, and Two Annoying White Kids

Nanea! Gabby! Z YANG! FELICITY! oh and those two no one here loves they can eat paint.

Bitch, blog more and stop playing with your spinning wheel.¹ Well that and being sad for several reasons. Also stop stepping on your drop spindle and requiring a repair.

Anyways. There is a lot of hot buzz in AG that's been going around for months. And since I just hate doing back to back store visit/New Shit/Release talks, I'm getting off my ass and making a post before I take my ass to AG and use that AG Rewards coupon to get some of the new hotness on the Discount and talk about that. And take review pics. God I owe reviews on everything. I am the second worst.

Also if I get all my angryfeels out now about things in the AG News, I can spend tomorrow snapping pictures and just posting middle finger emojis every time I have to talk about Nogan the Face Stealing Bastard up there. GUESS WHAT I THINK ABOUT HIM. Go on and fucking guess. Have a WILD guess.

Ahem. Get under my cut and put lotion on me,² we're going in.

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Gabby Gabby My Baby, Some Hideous Modern Garbage, and Those Hair Things I Skipped

I'm back and better and blacker than ever--and so is Gabby!

*drags self out of the Hell Year, covered in war scars, eyes blazing, hair all kinds of messed up and red-tipped, clothes covered in someone else's blood, arms wrapped in the tatters of the Texas flag, holding a large sword over one shoulder that looks too big for her to carry, and an mp3 player fused into a set of loudspeakers she put together with old CDs and blood magic*
*presses play*
*Elton John's "I'm Still Standing" starts blaring at top volume*
*smirks*  

I hope y'all didn't think y'all had seen the last of me. Let's not mince words, I got fucking wrecked for the last two months of that Hell Year We Shan't Speak Of. And yes, I got kicked the fuck down. I had to recuperate, pull myself together, assess the damage, wrap my wounds, sit in the safe spaces, and drink a lot of booze and cry over and over and over. But like hell I'm out of the game. Any of them. You name the game I was playing, I'm still in. Just means I gotta fight harder and blaze brighter and cast spells stronger and swing my Libra swords harder over the next several years. When you're living on your knees you rise up. 2017 is the year of Zero Fucks Given. My fucks for nonsense and garbage opinions died with Prince, Bowie, Debbie Reynolds, Carrie Fisher, George Michael, Richard Adams, and American Democracy.¹ Rejected Princesses just kick more ass.

That being said, hi, y'all. Sit down and let's get this show on the road. Guess who went to AG Seattle yesterday? It's ya girl, Nethie. And while I have been quiet on the blog front--sorry--I have been on AGC and Instagram talking my doll shit and getting my things done. And when I saw the Girl of the Year leaks, I squealed and burst into the happiest of happy tears.

Because for the very first time in seventeen years and fifteen girls (seventeen if you count Gwen and Sonali) we have a black girl of the year. And yes, I brought her home yesterday. Meet Gabriela "Gabby" McBride. She's a black artist, poet, and dancer. And I've got like, three-quarters of those traits. She's me in a dolly form and I fell so in love with her I am still reeling from her utter preciousness. I'm so happy I could plotz.

Does this mean that we're successful with #AGDoCGotY? No. Yes, we got a Black Girl of the Year, and she's precious. That being said, there is lot to critique. She in many ways feels like a called out afterthought by AG as if they planned another white chick² and then, after GMA pointed out last February that they had never had a black girl of the year on national television, they pulled #46 off the shelf and whipped up some work for her. She doesn't have a movie planned, or a large item--though if that means a trend away from $500 Stupid Bakeries I can live with it. But you know what? She's here. She's here and she's black and she's a beautiful dancing step in the right direction.

Thank you American Girl, for finally releasing a Black girl of the Year.

Now keep doing it. Represent everyone. Release more girls of color for girl of the year. Don't make the next little girl like me, who is a black writer and artist, wait til she's in her thirties to see herself represented as a modern girl. Don't let this be the only step. Let it be the first.

And for those who claim that we still aren't happy because we're always complaining and so we shouldn't get anything else, then? Go sit on a boomstick. Seriously. Get the hell out and eat some Lego. Black people in AG fandom have every right to have what we have, love that we have her, want her to succeed and still want more. I will remind you that this is only the first ever Black Girl, there has still never been a full East Asian Girl or Native Girl of the Year, and the only South Asian Girl was a companion. I want Gabby to blow the fuck up, because then maybe it'll sink into the thick heads that we want and crave and need diversity. We need the doors and the windows.

Oh and heads up? I know Felicity is coming back, books and likely new clothes and maybe even a new face. We'll talk about her when she's out. Lesbians for everyone!

This post is gonna cover Gabby My Baby, the other new stuff I saw, and the hair stuff that I forgot to do. Like I said, hell year.

In Which Neth is Terrified about Everything For A While.

What do we do, now?

I was going to start working on review posts, for outfits. Posts about creativity. Posts about the fandom. Posts about money management, about my Chicago Store Trip, about new items I have pics of. I have a backlog here like you would not believe.

Then this evening, the election happened. I would like to know what I did to piss November off, because first my father three years ago and now this.

I was shown a lot, in a few hours. I was shown that not only does American Girl choose not to properly represent me, and not only does a large part of the mainstream fandom not care about me or other collectors that are minorities of any kind--gender, religious, racial, class, what have you--as long as they can have their squee without "politics"....

I was also shown that millions of people hate me, and hate everything I fight for, enough to vote against their own best interests to hold on for a little longer to themselves on top of everyone. Tonight, I saw that when Hope is given to a people, hope and change that shows that that maybe we are moving forward as a people, that White people will snatch it away from us all and replace it with Hate. That White, Christian, male supremacy has won yet again in history, and will hold on and squash us all down to have white power on top of the heap.

That I truly am an outsider.

Many of you know Addy's story, if you have read her books and short stories. You will know she was so happy after the end of the Civil War, happy enough she chose the day for her birthday. Then a week later Abraham Lincoln was murdered and she was terrified of what might come next.

That is me right now. I am Addy in the wake of Lincoln's Death.

I am motherfucking terrified, and so are so many of my friends, and we don't know what the fuck is coming next. All we know is that we could lose everything--gay rights, womens rights, PoC rights, and some of us will lose our very lives.

The rest of my thirties is going to be horrible in so many ways.

I've voluntarily ended two friendships in this fandom in the span of less than 24 hours. I may lose more. I don't care. At this point, I have nearly nothing left to lose.  

I'm still gonna do all I can to fight, mind you. This blog isn't going anywhere. I am a bard, and a bard sings even when the enemy is at your gates.

I just can't do it right now. All I can do is hold my first girl, my Addy FirstArrival Walker, and pray to Yemaya Herself to Watch Over one of her very scared children.

I'll be back in December, once the month is done. I'm going to be concentrating on Nano, because that is a world where I have some control.

I just can't do anything right now but be scared.

If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

--frequently attributed to Lyndon Bates Johnson.

 --Nethilia

Pajama Jammy Jams: Sleepover Set (Costco Holiday 2016 Exclusive)

Now with skinned polar bears and --oh hey someone's new.

Blog more than once a goddamn month, Neth, the people and my brains say. Say it to my Seasonal Affective Disorder and chronic depression Brain Weasels, I snap back, before sitting down and opening up le Blogger.

It's been a challenging month, especially on my birthday weekend. Dear Oya of the Winds, my birthday weekend. I had birthday plans. My age is a square now,¹ and I was going to AG Seattle and enjoying dinner with two of my fellow AG collectors. And then the PNW Windstorm had the mall close hours early. I was able to duck up there just to get my birthday presents and then came home, cranky and the opposite of pleased with the events of the day. Still, better safe that crushed by a tree.² I really should have listened to my Astrological Forecast for October, it said right there that the 14th (my father's birthday) and 15th (mine) would be challenging. Le cry, le sigh, le unhappy bi.

But I do have new stuff to review, and I was able to take pictures soon after getting my goodies. At the start of the month, the Bae and I went to Costco to stock up on apple juice and toilet paper, like yah do, and I came across AG Costco Holiday Goodies. Ever since I first moved up here and could get the old school story collections at Costco, I've been getting AG stuff from there, and once they started doing things like exclusive book bundles and pet sets, I've been rather on it. It's how I got my BeForever Addy book set, my Pomeranian before they came out widespread, and both Lea's and Grace's book sets with extra stuff.³ 

This, however, is a major first: a Costco Exclusive outfit bundle. Leaks were seen before the Holiday Moddie release of a blue PJ top and shorts with blue slippers, but they didn't come with that. A few weeks later, out came the Costco Sleepover Set and that's where the aforementioned PJs were, along with a lot of accessories to make the pack worth the $39.99 it cost. Along with the blue pajamas and slippers, the set comes with a white fur pillow and sleeping bag, two drink glasses, a bowl of popcorn, a book and AG magazine, and a miniature version of Junior Apples to Apples. So basically it's a new outfit and sleeping bag with a tweaked version of the Sleepover Accessories from 2011.

All Boxed up.

The set comes in a box bundle, with all the bits visible and encased in various plastic. I did not keep the box. I have enough boxes around here without keeping AG boxes for no damn reason. How long will this be in Costco? I have no idea. Costco flips stock on the regular, and it'll probably cost more on eBay once it's not there anymore.

Deboxed.

After I got it, I got out one of my gang members and got her all dressed up in it for both Wiki-shots and this review, as seen above. But Neth, that's not a new girl, that's just Addy without her earrings. Nope! First of all, Addy here can barely be talked into a yukata; she'd try to throttle me if I put her in something this modern. Secondly, Addy's earrings don't come out.

Jamiya "Miya/Mimi" Bissett, y'all.

So who is she? This is Jamiya Bissett, who goes by Miya (or sometimes Mimi). She's an #1--aka the doll that I tell everyone to get when they ask which doll to get and I honestly can't be assed to care. One of the first Moddies to come out in 1995--textured dark hair, darker brown eyes, no bangs, and dark skin--she was around until 2009, when she was retired. I found her for a good cost on eBay with some rough hair, and after some braid spray and scrub down, she is a cutie pie. Miya is from inner city Houston, hood as they come and don't give a fuck, speaks fluent AAVE, and likes her baby hair with baby hair and afros. Between her and Mellie, I have a mini-me.

And she's making her debut in pajamas. Cause that's how we roll.

Why I'm An Outsider: Part Eight: Summer Chaos in AG > 18 and Persona Non Grata, or How I Got Banned (Temporarily) From A Goddamn Community I Started

Felicity in a flower garden. I need all the floofy pictures for this one.

Good lord it's almost October. Where did my month go? Oh, right. Seasonal Affected Depression. Or something like that. Fall comes on and I get moody and sad like a punk. Pbbbth. Well, that should be the best time to pull this painful tooth of my time in the AG fandom in the late 2000s, right? Right.

I've been trying to do my posts in chronological order, which is why this one has been hard to get to. Which is probably why I've been putting it off forever, even though I wrote about it once before. But not in a huge public format like this. But I can't get to the garbage that happened to me on AGPT if I don't get through the garbage that happened to me by my then-best friend in the fandom. I honestly thought it had happened after my AGPT shit, but when I started to dig through the archeological mess that is my recordings, I found out that no, this happened first. Fun. Welp, can't have my arsenic til I have my strychnine.

So, the setup, for those new to the Outsider Series who will later go back and read the other seven posts.¹ By summer 2007, there were two major American Girl groups to participate in, not including flittering  message boards which were the way tweens and teens begged for fandom attention before bokeh pictures with song lyrics on Instagram. The first major gathering of AG fans--called, appropriately enough, AG Fans MB--was slowly dying after restricting everyone from the group that didn't fit into their doorways, because you can't live when you close your communities to a small faction. But I was beyond them for the most part. I was part of two major AG fandom communities. AG Playthings was the big, open forum gathering, like the main hallways of a high school. AG >18, which had been started in summer 2006, was the back woods near the school where we smoked, drank, talked shit, and shipped queerly. They worked in balance with each other: AGPT was the public place found when searching for American Girl collectors,² and AG >18 was sort of an open secret place where you could talk some shit and not get hit. I'd started it with my then best friend, PNG, whose name--online or otherwise--I don't use. AG > 18 was doing pretty good at that time. That April, we'd installed two new mods: Bean and Colette. This took the modship of AG >18 to a grand total of four, including me and PNG. We were a self-running community, so we didn't need huge amounts of moderating. At most we were just semi-public figures, who if some one needed some business taken care of beyond public work, we did it. But we were all friends of varying levels, and PNG was my closest friend. To the point she had my address and even my phone number. She complimented my sewing. She praised my Fel-Beth shipping--I was even writing fic.

So that's why it hurt like a motherfucker when, in the summer of 2007, she stabbed me in the motherfucking back.

Prologue: Not Such a Sweet Baby Face
Part One: Finding AG Fans, or How Periods are Bad For Children
Part Two: There's Fundies in My Fandom
Part Three: The Wicked Witch of Customizing and the Birth of AG > 18
Part Four: Halloween is for Jesus, or How Otters Offended a Nation
Part Five: The AG Fans Revamp: No Pagans Allowed 
Part Six: The Great Mass Banning of Aught-Six
Part Seven: The Rise of AG Playthings  

Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Sing a Song of Civil Rights: Meet Melody Ellison of the 1960s (PS: Some Other New Things)

Come See About Melody!

Me: AHHHHHH---AHHHHHHHHHHHHH MELODY IS OUT MELODY IS OUT MELODY IS OUT TIME TO MELODY STUFF--

Logical Side: Neth, that can't be the opening to your blog post, you have to be articulate and poised and--

Me: *Shoves Logic Side into a wall and beelines for the front door of AG* you're not my momma you can't tell me what to do! I've been itching for since 2015 when AG made a one line Facebook post about a black historical for next year and then her books came out and I've been hyped since last December or longer so if I want the entire opening to be nothing but me screaming my head off like an idiot and singing every early Motown song that ever came out, then I can do that--

Logic Side: ...Neth, there's more that came out than Melody. Also you have to bitch about things for a short point.

Me: ...Damn you, logic side. *kicks dirt*

Well, you heard my Logic Side. As much as I'd like my entire opening to be me screaming so loud about DeeDee that they hear me in Hawaii before the cut, I gotta talk about stuff a little properly. So. On the 25th of August in the Year of our Documentation Twenty-Sixteen, the culmination of books and designs and items and Black history and work came together finally to manifest and release as the cutest American Girl historical released in the last four years,¹ Melody "DeeDee" Ellison. Sorry Ellie, I love you so much--but you knew DeeDee was going to bump you when she got here and you understood that. We major? We major.

It's not like y'all didn't expect this of me, I've been hype for DeeDee ever since they showed her first book cover. I snapped up all her books as they came out, on February I declared my entire wallet dead in lieu of seeing her and Edith realized she was queer, and as soon as I could preorder her I did that without regrets.² And on Friday the 26th, my close AG friend and I went to the store midday to go to Melody's Block Party so we could get tiny doll shirts, poke tiny doll things, talk shit about people there and back cause that's hella fun, actually run into people from IG out of nowhere who recognized us, and buy dolly stuffs as soon as possible. I might have had DeeDee in the gang since the 14th, but I still had to go squeal and dance over her stuff. Melody means a million things to me, as a child of black children who grew up in the 1960s, and who represents me and my history. When AG launched, the grandparents were of the World War II generation³ and about ten when there were victory gardens and rationing and Damn War. But those kids grew up, several had kids in the 60s, and that's the new throwback for grandparents.

Why didn't I write about things sooner, even though I was there Friday midday? Saturday I was exhausted--I'm an ambivert, so sometimes social interaction can be draining for people like me. So I slept until the evening and then pissed around on the internet, making sure all the articles were on the AG Wiki. On Sunday I went out on errands, and Monday I had to go to the dentist because gotta keep my teeth their prettiest. Once again, some of the new stuff wasn't there and others I missed in the walkthrough, because there were a lot of people there to see about DeeDee and her stuff. (The Lea section was being half abandoned. I may have had the schadenfreude.) So I'll have to use the Wiki images until I can go back and take shots, which might be in a few weeks into September. And I'm taking a break from redoing my braids to get my squeal out, because squeal! Not only was there stuff for DeeDee, but some bursts for other Historicals, the Moddie End of Year Release, and a bit of WellieWishers Stuff.

But with DeeDee already, there's a not at all small contingent of people who are out there that are already being racist shitwads. Y'all out there showing your pale chicken cutlet asses and it hasn't even been a month. Y'all think it's okay to take DeeDee's things for your white stank 60s girls from England, disregard her love of Motown⁴ and the rich sounds thereof to have her like only the boring ass Beatles because you're scared of the "race" music like it's the 1920s and the loud Jazz might give you accidental melanin and teach you to spice your food, talk shit about her hair being too rough because you fucking can't get over the idea of silky White Hair being better and you have European Dominance Poisoning and are going to try to straighten already straightened hair and end up with tangled rat nests that even braid spray can't save the soul of, and continue to barf all over Instagram and other locations that her clothes aren't part of Black History (Black folk didn't dress 100% like the whitebread faves) so you want to feel justified in slapping them on your stupid wonderbread brats and then try to come at me like I won't hex your dry overcooked chicken-with-cheese-as-seasoning ass.

I hope y'all get booty rash you can't scratch in public that runs all the way up to your shoulders, the elastic in your dolls breaks at the most inopportune time with restringing nowhere near convenient, your fave customs get unexpected ink stains on their face, you get a bad haircut you have to let grow out for six months, you realize your wallet isn't in your purse after you've already made a custom order at Starbucks that the barista didn't wanna make anyways, and a cat leaves dead things in your house you can't find and suck up with the vacuum attachments. Play me if you want. I'm Too Witches to be challenged.⁵ I will hurt all your little feelings and even some you didn't know you had til I hurt them.

Ahem. *brushes that dirt off her shoulders*

Also two bits of Historical news. First of all, Addy was out of her display box, cut down to almost nothing at the store and a lot of the stuff being online only. I suspect soon they will announce her retirement, which means I need to get one for my mom along with some of her stuff, and her new bed, for me. How do I feel about this? That Addy's had a good long run and that, while it's hella problematic to remove her and only leave one Black Historical again when there's so many white dolls in the historical line that are out and about oh my god Samantha go back in the damn vault already, she is the oldest one out other than Second Release Samantha so it is her turn to go into the Vault and take a break. (Also, maybe now people can stop bitch-barfing in badly written articles that the only black doll is a slave!!1!11!!)

Ah, yes, the Vault. Let's touch on that, because it's come out recently that there's three BeForever books due out in early 2017:  A Stand for Independence, Love and Loyalty, and Gunpowder and Tea Cakes. I don't know about y'all but that sounds like Revolutionary Revolutions to me. So is Felicity coming back out? This is a strong hint. They're at least rereleasing her stories, which means I have to buy yet another copy of them. What can I say, I'm a book crazy kid, and I like having AG books of all my faves. I already have four versions of Sam's books.

Me: *looks at Logic side* Have I said enough proper talk now? Are you pleased?

Logical Side: ...g'won. I can't stop you any longer.

Me: EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE---

MCM: The Biggest AG Discount Sale That Happens Once a Year

AG Dolls at Rock Bottom prices!

S'up, y'all? I'm back home--have been for like two weeks--and have been watching the Olympics with rapt attention.¹ At the same time, I've been prepping for AG's best upcoming release this year - One Melody Elizabeth Ellison, of Detroit, Michigan. Thanks to your generous donations and utter love, I'm ready to buy DeeDee's entire wardrobe!

But not DeeDee. Why not DeeDee?

#TheDeeDeeIntensifies

Cause she's already here! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH GET HYPE GET HYPE GET HYPE FOR DEEDEE--

Lemme rewind and catch y'all up. AG now has a rewards program - aptly named AG Rewards - and I signed up because hey, rewards for blowing cash on what I already blow all my little funds on, that sounds like a good thing. And, if you signed up before around the end of July or so, AG offered a preorder of DeeDee: Her, her dog Bo, her accessories, and her Floral Dress and hairset. Not much of a discount, but with free shipping and delivery on or before the 18th? I had to do it I had to. So that ate all my little gift cards that my Bae got for me for DeeDee purchases, which was what it was supposed to do anyways. I bought her the night I was back in Seattle and she shipped out on the 9th. And, after cussing out the post office for messing up the damn tracking, I got her Sunday! There's a whole photostory on my Instagram on her getting out and her and Edith already being crushy cute on each other - with a bonus "fucking hell can y'all not put her clothes on all your little white and light/Asian dolls the moment you got her I swear to fuck." She's the best. We are in love with DeeDee in the gang, Edith has her "Elizabeth," and hey mama welcome to the 60s! I'm still going to the launch party and taking lots of pictures with all my opinions on them. Also because I have to get all her clothes. Like all of them. All of them. I know there's stuff for others, thank you Pintrest leak, but August 26th - 28th is The Weekend of Melody and I will blog hella about her.

Speaking of weekends. Let's go back a month about.

So, if you've kept up with me on my social media some - that is, IG cause that's all my bitch ass does - you will know that last month, I went to Milwaukee to visit my mom and relatives. I was born in Milwaukee and a lot of my folk still live there, and my mom moved back both to help take care of family and to give my younger sister a stable place to deal with her life. This meant seeing my grandma, visiting my uncles (I only have two living uncles), lots of cousins...and being close enough to go to the Madison Children's Museum American Girl Sale. When I proposed the idea to my mom, she said sure - my mom enjoys new experiences, and she says that I'm probably her main child that takes her to new places she's never expected on the basis of "let's go to this!" So, after ordering tickets at the start of May and getting them, I headed out to Wisconsin, and my first weekend in town we loaded into the van and headed to MCM. This was my first time ever going to this, and I'd got pros and cons of the trip.

Before we talk about my experiences, though, let's go into the backdata on what MCM is and why it's a thing in the AG community. Under the cut for the history, useless pics, and some of what I got for me and the Mommish.

Vacation Bits and Bobbles.

Meet Cinnamon Peschel, an American Girl!

Greetings from the Cheese State of Wisconsin! 

Ladies and gentlemen and both and neither and other, I have had what folk call "a busy vacation." I came out mid July to visit my mom and grandma in Milwaukee--the last time I was here, I was here for my father's funeral. I had planned some reviews, posts, and other talky bits on dolls but to be honest I've been enjoying myself with family and trips, so I haven't really had the hours I do at home to sit and blog. I had brought stuff out to take pictures and blog about, but yeah--so busy, between my mom's place and my grandma Goose and festivals and trips to Chicago, IL and Madison, WI. But I will get on that as soon as I'm home, likely. I have been busy as shit on AGC and my Instagram account. Great ways to check to make sure I'm still about.

Til then, have a gander at my newest gang member: I got my Cinnamon! Her full name is Cinnamon  "Cinna" Demaree Peschel, after a drama teacher I had in middle school I loved and a street name I adored in high school. She's from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and she loves acting, music, and craftwork, including designing her own clothes, and if she had to pick an era to play around in it would be pretty much any and all of them! She's Black with some white and Native in her background, but most of it is black, and that's how she IDs.

So just a note to say I've got plans and haven't forgotten all you beautiful people. Some of the many talky topics after I'm back in the PNW that I'll do, not necessarily in this order:

* MCM: The Biggest AG Discount Sale That Happens Once a Year
* My First Trip to AG Chicago: The Flagship Mecca of AG Buying and the Truly Me Design Studio
* Girls of Many Lands: Isabel of 1592 Tudor England
* Dolling on a Budget: Collecting AG without EOYBA (yes I have been working on that post for a year, my bad)
* Reviews of several sets for my gang members, including both of Addy's School Sets and Nightgowns
* Rambled Opinions and General Snarkiness: Sing a Song of Civil Rights: Meet Melody Ellison of the 1960s
* #StopAGIGRacism: The Racism in AG Communities and The Reasons We (and You!) Should Fight Against It

And for all those that love my Outsider Series, the next part: "Summer Chaos in AG > 18, or How I got Banned from A Goddamn Community I Started."

As Kat Blaque says and I adore: Always remember and never forget that you are beautiful, and you are loved.

--Neth