autumn

1939 White Dress with Red Trim and Autumn Leaf Pattern for Thanksgiving

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A white dress patterned all over with small orange, yellow and red leaves in different shapes. The sleeves are short, slightly puffed at the shoulder and bordered at the bottom edge with a looped pattern in bright red. It has a V-neck, also bordered with the same red pattern, and pintucks at the shoulders. There's a row of three tightly-spaced small white buttons over the bust, and it's cinched at the waist with a red-patterned belt which has a white circle-shaped buckle. The skirt is a simple A-line skirt with a hemline a few inches below the knee.Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Today is Thanksgiving here in America, and last year I did a Thanksgiving-themed 1860s ball gown as a reference to the year the holiday was established. But in 1939, in the middle of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed it up a week so that there would be a longer shopping period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. As you might imagine, this didn’t go over well with everyone at the time, but for my purposes I am imagining my dolls to be early adopters. So this year, we have a 1939-style dress with an autumn leaf pattern to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Do I ever feel like I have a lot to be thankful for this year! My husband, my family, my friends, the entire medical establishment — I could really go on and on. I won’t bore you all, though, but rather will leave you with one piece of new information: we went in for the ultrasound yesterday, and it’s a boy!

I hope that those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving today will have a lovely one!

1863 Ball Gown in Yellow with Green Ribbons over White Lace Skirt with Harvest Trimmings for Thanksgiving

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

Happy Thanksgiving to those of you who are celebrating it today! Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays, and I’m really happy to be celebrating it with my family this year, now that we’re all in the same state again. Most of my extended family is in the Pacific Northwest, but when I was young my mom, dad, brother and I moved around the country on account of my dad’s job, and so for me Thanksgiving dinners remind me of a very small group around the table, stuffing in the crock-pot and Alice’s Restaurant on the radio. This year, as I understand it, there’ll be a bit of a crowd, but that’s fine too — it means more people to admire my baklava, for one thing. (A friend of mine from Turkey taught me to make exquisite baklava, but my baklava-related self-esteem has taken a bit of a hit since my husband took pictures of it after it came out of the oven. Somehow, the pictures turned out rather alien due to the way the phyllo dough crinkles up and his penchant for close-ups — and then he adjusted them to look vaguely green and called it “Night of the Living Baklava.” I am not so sure I will let him have any.)

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day, so for today’s dress I have an 1860s-style ball gown with harvest motifs. I hope you like it, even if you’re not celebrating Thanksgiving today!

Why not — silly poll time!

poll by twiigs.com

Evening Gown in Layered Fall Colors

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Click for larger version (PNG); click for PDF version. Click here for the list of dolls.

So I was talking to my husband about what I should do for today’s paperdoll. “You should make a beginning of fall fairy,” he said. “Nah,” I said, “not if I’m going to end up doing fairies for the first week of Halloween costumes.” “You should make a beginning of fall mermaid,” he said. “Nah,” I said, “I just did a mermaid.” “You should make a beginning of fall human,” he said. “What a great idea!” I replied.

That is what it is often like talking to me, I’m afraid. I’m a lousy brainstormer. But anyways, he’s a good one, and that’s why we have this dress today. Remember that, when you are wondering why I have a Mega Man costume up, sometime in the next couple of days.

Congratulations to Catie, who guessed my favorite Prismacolor color: ultramarine! Now, you may be clicking back to the list of Prismacolors thinking “wait, what, that ugly thing?” For some reason, the color on the website is completely different from the actual color the pencil produces, a heavenly rich blue. I actually don’t use it all that often, because it can be a little finicky to blend with the other blues – it has a kind of reddish undertone, and most of the blues really don’t – but when I do it really makes me happy. The 1893 bathing suit’s blue is primarily done in ultramarine, with blue violet lake and cloud blue blended in – and still the scan doesn’t do the original justice.

The poll is still open for set 1 of Halloween costumes!

poll by twiigs.com