Hollywood Dolls

I thought I would finish these patterns over a week ago but I got distracted by another project.



To purchase these patterns please visit my blog store.

Patterns are $11.00 and are sold separately.

This is the last costume from the film "Rear Window" that I planned on making. Actually I am planning on making another small batch of green suits and a bunch of yellow print dresses in a few months.



This dress isn't as well known as the black and white dress, but I think it is a beautiful dress.





The bodice is made of chiffon underlined in satin. The sleeves are also chiffon that are lined in peach organza to give them a sheer look. The satin collar ties in the front and the ends are sewn into the bodice side seams.









After I designed and made my prototype, I came across this picture on the Internet.



It was the most detailed photograph of this dress that I have ever seen. I sort of wish I hadn't seen it. "Well dang-it!", I thought "There are pleats on the bodice too." I decided I wasn't going to change my design, because it would be too hard to figure out how to do the pleats on the bodice. I also needed all of my prepleated fabric that I had for the skirts.

Look at the detail at the neckline! What the heck! I never saw that in the film! But then again, black doesn't show detail very well.

I'm really glad I didn't see that other picture while I was making these dresses. It would have been very hard to do that detail in miniature.

Prepleated fabric is very hard to find. Even though I bought a pleater a few months ago, I'm not crazy, brave enough to try to pleat chiffon. My mother picked up this skirt at a second-hand store.



The pictures don't show the details very well, but the skirt was divided into three different sections. The top of the skirt had tiny micro pleats. A third of the way down the skirt the pleats get bigger.



At the bottom of the skirt the pleats get very soft. I would love to have 10 of these skirts. One for me to wear in a size that fits me and 9 to cut up and make more doll dresses out of.

I took this skirt to the dry cleaners and the lady working there commented on how lovely it was. I made the mistake of telling her that I was going to cut it up and make doll clothes out of it. She freaked out! "You can't do that!" she cried. I told her that I wouldn't be able to wear a size 8 in my wildest dreams and that I would be able to make 6 doll dresses out of it. She didn't get me at all, sigh. What is so weird about cutting up a nice skirt to make doll clothes? Doesn't everyone do that? Whatever, I'm recycling!



I used the top 2/3rds of the skirt to make four dresses. The other dresses were made out of some prepleated fabric that I bought years ago and always wished I had bought more of.

I have never been happier to be done making a batch of doll clothes. I pretty much spent the whole Summer making only two outfits from the film "Rear Window". The green suits weren't so bad to make, but my batch was larger than normal. I was very ambitious when I originally decided to make ten of these dresses.



I had made this costume before, back in 2006 . I hadn't made myself a copy though, and I knew there were many Gene fans interested in this design. It is a very popular costume and I have seen other doll clothes designers make it and they are all beautiful.







I briefly entertained the idea of making the bodice with set-in sleeves, but I decided against it. I couldn't really tell in the movie if the sleeves were set in or not and I knew they would be a pain to do in miniature. I have seen them on a Barbie sized version of this dress. All I can say to Natalia Sheppard is I am beyond impressed.



I think I got the look I wanted doing the sleeves my way, and I needed to save my patience for the skirt.





I originally wanted to make the bodice of the dress in a black silk crepe, and the skirt in silk organza lined in dupioni. After several failed attempts with the crepe, I decided it couldn't hold the shape I wanted, especially in the neckline. I also couldn't find a good source for silk organza, and the full circle skirt is a real fabric hog, which would have made the dresses really expensive to make.





I ended up using casa satin and organza. The casa satin is not very shiny and has a lot of body to it. I also like the way the organza skirt shimmers. I tried using a matte organza, but it was kind of boring. Tulle was also considered for the skirt, but I didn't think it would work well with the embroidery. The underskirt is casa satin, I tried a stiffer satin at first, but it was too stiff to me.



I suffered a few setbacks with the skirts. My original batch of organza ended up having holes in it, so I had to exchange it. Thank goodness I caught it before I had sewn the dresses (or so I thought).

I wasn't sure how I should hem the organza skirt. Super narrow hems are hard on circular skirts for me to do perfectly. I did some research in my sewing books and chose a fine zigzag. I ruined two dresses trying to sew the hem using clear nylon thread. Ordinary white thread ended up working better.

The worst setback though was when I thought I was in the home stretch. I had sewn up my second batch of dresses, the snaps were even done and I was starting my third embroidered "leaf" on one of the dresses. That is when I noticed a d_ _ n hole in the organza skirt. It must have been cut from the first bad batch of organza and I had missed the hole when I inspected the skirts because it was a lot smaller than the others had been. I was devastated! So much time lost! I went through my new batch and found another dress with a bad skirt. I didn't have the heart to make two new dresses or pick apart the bad dresses and replace the skirts. I ended up making only eight dresses.

The embroidery on the skirt was my biggest challenge. It needed to look good from both sides of the fabric because the organza is sheer. I used satin embroidery floss and used a stem stitch backstich. I passed the floss through the stitches on the wrong side of the skirt to hide the threads and to back track on the leaves.

French knots or beads were my choices for the other part of the leaf. I ruled out French knots because I knew that they might look bad. The thread would show through from the underside, and the knots risked being pulled through the fabric. I used the smallest beads I could find. Some of the dresses had two groups of beads on each leaf, and others had one. I was experimenting with my technique with each dress.

Each leaf took over an hour to do, and each dress had seven leaves. You do the math.




I wish I had seen this photo earlier. It is the best picture of how the beads look on the skirt.





Only my last two dresses have the beads like this. It took me that long to figure out how to do it!







Blue Parasol is perfect as Grace Kelly. She was meant to model this dress.

I am finally able to blog about this suit! I started working on a large batch of suits not long after I got home from the Gene convention. Then life happened; home improvement projects, internet problems, computer problems, Cub Scout day camp, I kept sewing during all of it, but I was unable to blog or participate much on my favorite doll boards. I have been going crazy! OK enough with the complaining Diane, on with the blog.





"Rear Window" is one of my favorite movies. I love Grace Kelly's costumes, and the story is pretty good too.



The suit is made out of green linen-like fabric. I wanted to use silk noil, but I couldn't find it in the right shade of green. Like before, I wish I had bought more of this fabric. I don't know why it is photographing so weird in the full body shots, it isn't shiny fabric. I was told it is probably the resolution of the picture.



The fabric photographs much better close up. I must say I am pleased with how the hats turned out, since I don't consider myself much of a hat maker, but I am getting better. The hat is made out of white ultra suede, I hope I can remember how I made them if I ever want to make them again.









The veil was the hardest thing on the hat to do. I made it so it can be worn down or flipped up.









I lined the jacket and made the halter top out of white silk dupioni. The halter top was a challenge. I had to keep the bulk to a minimum at the waistline, while working with a lot of layers of the dupoini.







I flipped the top snaps to add interest.







The next "Rear Window" costume is the black and white cocktail dress. I am working on a batch of them right now.