Crafting Creatively: Picking Perfect Prints and Fabric

Kit's dress looks good because I started with good fabrics.¹

So there you are, doing your first AG sewing project! You've already decided to avoid the Generidress profile--or if you're working with it (because it's a great starter project), you're tweaking it to look like more than that. Maybe you bought a pattern or two from Etsy, or are doing a basic gathered skirt, or something. Either way, you're all ready to cut and sew and make something neat for your doll wardrobe. It's go time!

Wait, no it's not. Don't cut that fabric just yet. Let's make sure that your fabric fits what you're doing. Set the scissors down and listen, cause we can all learn a little something before we get into the cutting. Learn twice, cut once, cause you can't uncut fabric or trims.

There's a lot of good, cute fabrics out there, and a lot of good, cute clothing patterns. I own several patterns and like buying them from Etsy shops. But part of working with an American Girl doll and making clothes for them is working to scale. Like I said with my knitting post, messing up the scale, the print, or the add-ons and not trying to work within some limits for dolls can turn what might have been a nice outfit into a hot, oversized, terrible looking mess. And this is especially true with fabric. I got a lot of my mistakes out as a kid on other doll brands, but I also didn't have the internet to show these failings.² I fucked it up so you don't have to.

This doesn't just include the fabric, it includes the trims. Let's hop below the cut for the things to do, and things not to do.

Creating Original Historicals for Fun and Frivolity: Naming Tips

Edith May Anderson and Dorothy Gale McNeil. I researched hard.

So you've picked a time period to put your created historical in. Congrats! One of the hardest steps is done. You've picked the decade you want to set this all in. Now on to another hard step: naming your character. Names make the doll--and the character in this case. The name you pick can either cause you to crash and burn or soar and fly.

The main thing is that authenticity will get you. Every damn time. It is the major way people fuck up making a historical character and it's where I find myself face palming every time. If you want to name your character McKayla Piper Wallace, that's all well and good for your modern girl¹, but they didn't name girls that back in the 19th century, and it's really going to jar your authenticity to do that mess.

Let's stop you from naming historical your girl a name that makes us go "Eugh, that's...nice." and get you to to a name that makes us go "Oooo, that's nice!"

Crafting Creatively: Avoiding the GeneriDress

Welcome to Crafting Creatively: the column where I--the woman who has been sewing since she was four, crocheting since she was seven, and knitting since she was twelve, along with other craft skills that keep scaling up--show others the good, the bad, and the ugly of doll crafting. There will be tips, techniques, and snippy commentary (because well, that's I roll) as well as displays of my own crafts.

But a lot of this will be What Not To Do. Because we all have to start somewhere, but not everything we start with needs to be displayed online or sold, and we can always improve on our crafting technique. Trust me on this. I'm still learning new things.

Today's column will be on that plague that runs not just through AG, but through way too many doll crafting communities--what I like to call the GeneriDress.

Meet the GeneriDress.