House of Rodentia

I don't really know how many folks these days take inspiration from Beatrix Potter.  A lot maybe, but  have never really bothered to query anyone.  I have always been a huge fan of small animals in human clothes.  Probably something weird about my brain, to be honest. The story of the Tailor of Gloucester is a favorite.  I especially like the opening paragraph that reads:  

In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in 

Gloucester.

It turns out that the story was based on an actual tailor, one John Pritchard.  Apparently he had a similar situation to the tale (he had been given the task of making a coat for the mayor, but then, unfortunately, took ill.  Upon his return from his sick bed, the tailor found that his assistants had made up the coat for him in his absence).  He supposedly spread the story that fairies had done it, but Beatrix Potter liked the idea of mice assistants and so her version of the tale reads that way.  The opening words Potter used in her story, "periwigs," "lappets," and "paduasoy," hark back to the 18th Century, which is the style and era I like best to borrow from in my own miniature dressmaking work.

When I was a child, my parents took me to see Disney's Cinderella, or at least that's how I remember it.  I was pretty young on my first viewing of the movie.  What I most remember is the dressmaking assistants.  The mice!  I have kept that in my mind over the years, as well as the mice from the Tailor of Gloucester and always imagined that my own little dress shop should have mice and rats to do the assisting.  

I have been making rats and mice as miniature dolls since about 2015. I have sold quite a bundle of them.  Over time I have tweaked the ears and shape of the head over and over and over, and finally feel pretty satisfied.  The newest version has wired legs and arms, so a bit more posable. I have gone to a jewel nose, stuck with the German glass eyes and jointed limbs and head.  I have continued with the painted feet and quilting fabric arms and legs.  All in all, I feel good about them as they are today.

I have been designing miniature fashions now, well, since childhood.  I imagine my assistants as small mice and rats I have designed from mohair and cloth.  There are no actual rodents on the premises.  I have 2 trustworthy cats, after all.  The imaginary mice and rats are inspiration for miniature clothing that I like to make for small cloth animal dolls designed by me (rats, mice, bears, bunnies and sometimes others if I am in the mood) and the larger plastic Blythe dolls that I have had in my house since 2009.  I have recently given my miniature dress shop the name House of Rodentia.  I think it has a certain ring to it, though perhaps a bit crazy.  But, well...

In my dressmaking, I often switch around, alter, or resize pattern pieces I designed for one thing, to go with things they weren't originally meant for.  Which leads me to the serendipitous discovery I made this morning.  The 18th century dresses, coats and waistcoats I have been designing this month for my newest mouse and rat dolls fit (although in a far shortened version) perfectly the Blythe dolls, the giant Alice girls that seem to have slid down the rat hole.  A girl's gotta have decent dresses if she finds herself in an alternate world, for goodness sake! This may sound silly to you, but to me, it is a boon.  Because it means that the clothing can be switched, and if someone gets one of these newer mouse dolls, they will also have a dress that their Blythe dolls (and probably other dolls as well) can share.  How's that for economy?  Always trying to be helpful :)

I hope your creative time is keeping you busy, happy and healthy.  It's summer here.  I am loving the heat!

Nights in White Satin

Well maybe not white satin, but white silk in any case. I actually spend most of my nights more in plaid flannel. It's Vermont, after all. White satin, silk or otherwise just sounds better, doesn't it?

I really love couture. I wish I owned some. I wish I had somewhere to actually wear it. I mostly like looking at couture in magazines. I also love dollie couture. That, I like making myself. I like photographing it, too. I have been concentrating on making some strictly OOAK things lately. I really don't love making things twice. I don't know what it is about that, but once I have made something, I am ready to move on. I admire people who are more patient than I am. They can design something with the intent of making it a dozen times. I think in many ways, that is the more profitable way to be. If I make something twice, it will usually not be quite the same as the first time. I am just not that consistent. So maybe OOAK is really more my thing.

The trouble comes in pricing things that are OOAK. If you make something only once, the time you take to design it and construct it is going to be a lot more than the making of something multiple times when the kinks are already worked out. It's one of the reasons I have pretty much put a halt to taking custom commissions for clothing in my etsy shop. I can't charge enough to make it worthwhile. If it takes me all day to do something and I can only charge $30, then I am a very lovely person, but also kind of poor :) It's a hard call. For OOAK couture, it seems like the prices should reflect the time and materials. The dresses I am showing here did take me most of the day to make. I made one at a time and spent a day on each, more or less. I usually am not using patterns, because honestly, any that I have drafted up, I haven't marked clearly and who knows what goes with what? So, when I make a OOAK gown or outfit, I am starting from zero. Usually I am using white silk or a similar fabric and I am then constructing the outfit from scratch. I may start with a pattern shape I have already worked out for part of an outfit, but then I pinch here or there, taking in fabric where it is too full, or adding something where it isn't full enough, changing what I started with to suit me. When I am finished, I usually have no idea what I actually did, because I was more or less immersed in that particular dress. It just exists as it does, and there is only 1.

At that point I will generally dye the finished dress to a color of my liking. I mix a bunch of colors in a haphazard way, and voila, a new color emerges, but I have no idea how to recreate it. If there is something I have made that I really do want 2 of, well, I can go back and try to remake it, and maybe I will come close, but at the very least, probably the color will not be the same. So, rather than try to fit a square peg into a round hole, I am just telling myself that OOAK is the way to go. For this week anyway :)

Autumn is in full swing here in Vermont. I cannot believe how colorful it can get here in Vermont in just a week! Kind of like this dress shown :)