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ok i don’t want to be This Person, but my nieces are now entering the age of being old enough to play with dolls. My mother, in the culmination of a vast conspiracy, Got Rid of all the dolls from her house, so now I’m in possession of my childhood American Girl doll. (I had Samantha, as one does. Listen, there were only three of them at the relevant era. Now there’s like an entirely proportional representation of the US Census and I am all about that but those were not the options I had as a child, OK.)
So now one of my nieces has Mary Ellen, and the other has one of the smaller 15″ dolls, a Wellie Wisher (whyy such a dumb name, I don’t know).
I am really really really not a Doll Person, but.
I mean. I loved this doll when I was a kid. And my mom made us all these outfits, and clothes that matched for us and our dolls, and such. And I’m going to leave the matching girl-and-doll outfits to her, because I’m not allowed to buy fabric.
But I have all this old shit I should cut up, and it’s too small to make into clothing for grown people. So, doll clothes and such.
My preliminary searches for tutorials and patterns and such have been a terrifying insight into the sorts of people who are Into Dolls. And listen. Listen! If you’re Into Dolls, that’s super cool, and I don’t mean to knock it. I’m just discovering that while I have many fond memories of playing with the doll, and have a modicum of sewing skill and an imagination that I think would lend itself well to making new outfits for my own doll– I am not Into Dolls and am a little worried about, like, people mistaking my intentions here. I don’t get what it is that makes people so into dolls, and I’m worried of like, knocking up against that accidentally. (It’s not a sex thing! I mean, I’m like, 90% sure it’s not a sex thing! If it was I wouldn’t judge but I’d be skeeved as fuck just because, like, little kids, ok, no! Too much overlap!)
There’s just. There are a lot of moms who are into making doll clothes for their kids’ dolls, and I get that, I’m on board, but I don’t exactly fit in. Whatever, that’s probably fine.
But there are a lot of people who are emphatically not making these doll clothes for their childrens’ dolls, but for themselves. And i get that, and you do you, but I don’t… exactly… get… what the deal is. And since that’s on some level what I’m doing, I’m a little nervous of allying myself too closely to that group since I don’t get it. (I mean like… grown-ass people going out and buying brand-new dolls on a pretty frequent basis and crafting whole personas and outfits for them. That is super fine, there is literally nothing wrong with it, but I don’t… I just keep worrying I’m missing something about this.)
(Also we had a really creepy customer who would come into the camera store to print photos of her dolls and it wasn’t… that the dolls were creepy… and it wasn’t that she… I mean… she sort of was… it was mostly that she seemed to sort of demand that we cared about these dolls too? she was like these outfits are hand-made! like this was some sort of staggering thing, and I was like so were all of my barbie outfits? because that’s the truth. I get it, it’s not nothing, I was so lucky my mom is so crafty, but– lady I just work here, and the previous customer had photos of a Hindu wedding and frankly the entire rest of human experience pales in comparison so don’t ask me to care about literally anything else, OK. [real talk: the ONLY photos customers EVER printed that I EVER was impressed with or cared about were photos of Hindu weddings. Look it up if you can’t guess why, and prepare for a treat. That is the only thing in the world beautiful enough that the skill of the photographer literally doesn’t matter, every photo is incredible.])
Anyway. My Samantha doll suffered a bit from me not being entirely sure how to brush a wig correctly in 1989 so she’s kind of… thin in a couple spots, and frizzy, and I’ve found some nerve-wracking tutorials on using small amounts of heat to de-frizz plastic hair, but I haven’t yet found any information on sewing in new extensions to replace thinned-out ones, and getting the new hair to blend in with the old hair. I bet I could just… do that, though. Her scalp looks exactly like a wig cap.
But I’m kind of scared of Doll People and I don’t yet know enough to be confident in my search results.
Ugh, apparently an original Samantha like mine is worth a lot of $$$ and I shouldn’t do anything drastic to fix her hair, which is in acceptable condition especially if I re-style it nicely. I’m almost tempted to put the doll back in her original outfit and sell her, and just buy a new one to put with all my lovely sentimental vintage homemade accessories. I was never that attached to the doll herself, but all the things we did with the doll, and all the beautiful things my mother made me. I mostly took her because my mother has been letting the four-year-old play with her, and the four-year-old’s idea of gentle handling is… well, not.
(Your picture was not posted)
ok i don’t want to be This Person, but my nieces are now entering the age of being old enough to play with dolls. My mother, in the culmination of a vast conspiracy, Got Rid of all the dolls from her house, so now I’m in possession of my childhood American Girl doll. (I had Samantha, as one does. Listen, there were only three of them at the relevant era. Now there’s like an entirely proportional representation of the US Census and I am all about that but those were not the options I had as a child, OK.)
So now one of my nieces has Mary Ellen, and the other has one of the smaller 15″ dolls, a Wellie Wisher (whyy such a dumb name, I don’t know).
I am really really really not a Doll Person, but.
I mean. I loved this doll when I was a kid. And my mom made us all these outfits, and clothes that matched for us and our dolls, and such. And I’m going to leave the matching girl-and-doll outfits to her, because I’m not allowed to buy fabric.
But I have all this old shit I should cut up, and it’s too small to make into clothing for grown people. So, doll clothes and such.
My preliminary searches for tutorials and patterns and such have been a terrifying insight into the sorts of people who are Into Dolls. And listen. Listen! If you’re Into Dolls, that’s super cool, and I don’t mean to knock it. I’m just discovering that while I have many fond memories of playing with the doll, and have a modicum of sewing skill and an imagination that I think would lend itself well to making new outfits for my own doll– I am not Into Dolls and am a little worried about, like, people mistaking my intentions here. I don’t get what it is that makes people so into dolls, and I’m worried of like, knocking up against that accidentally. (It’s not a sex thing! I mean, I’m like, 90% sure it’s not a sex thing! If it was I wouldn’t judge but I’d be skeeved as fuck just because, like, little kids, ok, no! Too much overlap!)
There’s just. There are a lot of moms who are into making doll clothes for their kids’ dolls, and I get that, I’m on board, but I don’t exactly fit in. Whatever, that’s probably fine.
But there are a lot of people who are emphatically not making these doll clothes for their childrens’ dolls, but for themselves. And i get that, and you do you, but I don’t… exactly… get… what the deal is. And since that’s on some level what I’m doing, I’m a little nervous of allying myself too closely to that group since I don’t get it. (I mean like… grown-ass people going out and buying brand-new dolls on a pretty frequent basis and crafting whole personas and outfits for them. That is super fine, there is literally nothing wrong with it, but I don’t… I just keep worrying I’m missing something about this.)
(Also we had a really creepy customer who would come into the camera store to print photos of her dolls and it wasn’t… that the dolls were creepy… and it wasn’t that she… I mean… she sort of was… it was mostly that she seemed to sort of demand that we cared about these dolls too? she was like these outfits are hand-made! like this was some sort of staggering thing, and I was like so were all of my barbie outfits? because that’s the truth. I get it, it’s not nothing, I was so lucky my mom is so crafty, but– lady I just work here, and the previous customer had photos of a Hindu wedding and frankly the entire rest of human experience pales in comparison so don’t ask me to care about literally anything else, OK. [real talk: the ONLY photos customers EVER printed that I EVER was impressed with or cared about were photos of Hindu weddings. Look it up if you can’t guess why, and prepare for a treat. That is the only thing in the world beautiful enough that the skill of the photographer literally doesn’t matter, every photo is incredible.])
Anyway. My Samantha doll suffered a bit from me not being entirely sure how to brush a wig correctly in 1989 so she’s kind of… thin in a couple spots, and frizzy, and I’ve found some nerve-wracking tutorials on using small amounts of heat to de-frizz plastic hair, but I haven’t yet found any information on sewing in new extensions to replace thinned-out ones, and getting the new hair to blend in with the old hair. I bet I could just… do that, though. Her scalp looks exactly like a wig cap.
But I’m kind of scared of Doll People and I don’t yet know enough to be confident in my search results.
Ugh, apparently an original Samantha like mine is worth a lot of $$$ and I shouldn’t do anything drastic to fix her hair, which is in acceptable condition especially if I re-style it nicely. I’m almost tempted to put the doll back in her original outfit and sell her, and just buy a new one to put with all my lovely sentimental vintage homemade accessories. I was never that attached to the doll herself, but all the things we did with the doll, and all the beautiful things my mother made me. I mostly took her because my mother has been letting the four-year-old play with her, and the four-year-old’s idea of gentle handling is… well, not.
(Your picture was not posted)
no subject
Date: 2018-05-31 03:31 am (UTC)