The Marvelous Miss Alexander

The other day I was visiting with Betsy on the phone when we got to talking about television shows.  She was asking me if I was watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.  I haven't been.  I can't.  We don't have high speed Internet or Netflix.  It sucks living in an unincorporated rural area - at least when it comes to TV shows.  She was telling me how fabulous the 1950's costuming was, and how Midge, the main character, is always dressed up like a big Cissy doll.  Well I had to look her up.  Wow.  What a fun show this would be to enjoy.  Sadly the only DVD versions are from the U.K.  Why do they do that to us?  But, I can assure you I'll be saving off some images of the Midge's costuming for ideas for Cissy.  There's one in particular that comes to mind.  Its a halter top with wrap skirt over green bathing bottoms.

I can't believe how much fun I'm having with this doll.  She, of course, has a story all of her own.  On rainy days she goes to the bookstore and shops for books on etiquette and travel.  As I write, a miniature version of a travel book is on its way here.

For a short while, we were having some rainy days, and beautiful, fun rain wear has always been a staple in my dolls' wardrobes.  So Cissy needed one.  Especially since Madame Alexander never thought to make her one.  Imagine!  I loved rainy days as a child and used to watch my mother get into some elaborate gear to go out.  Of this wardrobe was a fold up rain bonnet and these clear rubber boots that your shoed foot would go into.  It even had a little heel.  These boots intrigued me solely for the high heel portion.  I guess every heel would have to fit in that space, and since my shoes did not have heels, I was stuck with galoshes.

I've been going nuts buying fabric lately.  Seriously bad ass fabric shopping. There was this particular wisteria colored floral cameo print fabric at Farmhouse Fabrics, that I'd been eye balling for a year and could never seem to click into my cart.  It was less than a yard and the programming didn't like that.  I finally wrote to Customer Care and they fixed it for me.  So I sat down and created Wisteria Rain for Cissy.

I also had this lovely wisteria colored silk taffeta on hand and knew right away that this would make a gorgeous rain coat.  Its the illusion we're chasing after all.  Slick and shiny, but classy.  All I needed was the right pattern.  If Cissy planned on spending this rainy day in taxis going to the bookstore and out to lunch, the last thing she'd be wearing is a cocktail or summer dress.  I wanted something demure, and a proper day dress.  So I did what I normally do and made the bodice pattern myself.  No easy task as I used a vintage pattern to start from for proportions.  You cannot just mix and match pattern pieces from different pattern sets.  And, I really love the long waisted look.  So I spent a couple of days messing with paper towels (some to cry into!  not really), and got the look I wanted.  I included a white Peter Pan collar and matching cuff bands on the three-quarter semi puffed sleeves.

The next task was the coat and I did use a vintage pattern for this, but the pattern was not proportioned to be lined.  Even though I measured it on the doll, and added length to the coat and sleeve hems, they were still a bit short.  This was very disappointing as I normally would have just remade the whole doggone thing, but I didn't have enough silk left to make another.  And, the yardage was no longer available for purchase.  So I took the coat apart and added lined cuffs to the ends of the sleeves.  I also found that the sleeves were very narrow as the pattern was for a dress coat to go over a sleeveless cocktail dress.  I will make this coat again, and when I do, I will redo the armholes, sleeves and add a generous 2" to the hem length.

The next thing she needed was a rain bonnet, so I went to Pinterest to see what I could find.  I didn't want a sea captain's hat, although they were featured.  And, I didn't want a rain bonnet in the shape of those fold up ones, but it was a consideration.  And, then I found this advertisement from a 1950's London magazine.  Wow!  This was perfect!  Here we go again with my love of hooded capes.  But, this one was an adorable little capelet and I could imagine the designer creating this so rain wouldn't trickle down the back of her neck.  I think people were expected just to make their own draft from this drawing, but I did something else.  I enlarged it on a copier.  The interesting thing is that people's patterns are proportional to the human form, whereas dolls have larger heads.  They do.  Especially when they have thick wigs.  The hood needed about a 20% more enlargement than the cape - if you'd like to copy this and try it.

I did not line the hooded capelet.  I felt that this would be more in line with a true rain bonnet.  The coat is lined with a pretty white cotton with little violet flowers on it.  A photo of the lining can be seen at the end of this journal posting.

Cissy needed an umbrella.  No proper girl should go out tin the rain without one.  I recalled that I had this adorable black salesman sample umbrella that up to this point, no doll I owned was large enough for.  It was the perfect size.  I'm not only a doll collector, but in the past, I used to collect pretty umbrellas.  I also used to be a shoe hound.  Love shoes!  Now that I don't go out much, my dolls benefit from my collecting pursuits.

I was also toying with the idea of lucite purses.  There's a couple of Ebay artisans who make these from plastic click-lock boxes.  Believe it or not, I couldn't find any of these boxes on Amazon or anywhere.  So I put my thinking cap on and did some research.  I have some darling ones made, which I'll share another time, but for this outfit, I emptied a straight pin box and used it.   Also, the handles on their purses were simple ribbons or picot trims.  I wanted a more authentic look.  So I looked up how to drill holes in plastic boxes.  There's a YouTube on this, and the fellow uses a miniature soldering iron.  These get very hot and have pointy tips.  All you need to do is gentle poke the plastic box and "instant hole"!  Proceed with your jewelry making skills for the handles.  I was very pleased with this technique, but it does take some care to create.

Lastly I just had to make Cissy a pair of those rubber boots.  I did some extensive research on PVC sheeting and wasn't happy with any of it.  It would not be thin enough to create little boots from.  Also, you need a special chemical (HH-88 or something like that), to glue PVC to PVC, plastic to plastic.  I did not want to mess with that, at least yet.

Then I came up with the idea to cut up a shower curtain.  Its made from PVC and is very thin.  No kidding.  A shower curtain, or what some may call a shower curtain liner.  You could probably get a five hundred pairs out of a single curtain.  But we won't do that.

I spent untold hours and pattern styles trying to make this little bootie.  It had to be sewn since I wasn't about to start messing with big cans of chemicals.  I must have made fifteen patterns before drafting one that I was satisfied with.  After all, it needed that little heel.  In retrospect, a heavier cloth would be wonderful, but I'm not sure you could turn it inside out after seaming.  The boots close with little mother of pearl buttons and a slash button hole on the other flap.  I'm tickled to pieces that I could make these.  I may go back and try to improve on these at some point, but after fifteen or so different tries, these will do.

Finding these marvelous photo advertisements is one of the neatest things.  I love Pinterest for research and ideas.  People put everything and anything up there from every era and interest imaginable.

The lucite purses Madame Alexander featured and the ones the Ebay artisans list, always have flowers in them.  What lady puts flowers in her purse?  I know they make contemporary lucite purses now, and I was sorely tempted to buy one for the novelty of it, but who wants everyone to see what kind of crap you keep in your purse?  I find this idea a little puzzling, but love the novelty of it nonetheless.

So what I did was start looking for things like fans and combs (Madame Alexander had a comb in one of hers), and found a little vintage pink plastic comb, and with that added some vintage flowers - maybe because its expected.

Well, this is a long journal post, but we're not done yet.  Before I began Wisteria Rain, I was playing with another pattern from the vintage sets.  This dress sported a natural waistline on the bodice, and an interesting way to not include darts.  Gathers under the bustline do the trick in this two piece bodice style.  I'm calling this outfit Peachy Keen. I just came up with that today.  And, I also looked up the term.  You might think its a relatively contemporary slang term, but it initiated in 1948.  I didn't read beyond that, but at least it could be appropriate for the fifties, even if I add an endearing quality to it.  

I bought this salmon or peach fabric at JoAnn's.  I don't normally shop for good fabric there, but I was looking for netting at the time to include beneath the skirt for volume.  After I tried this, I never did it again.  You can't get enough gather with the extra layer thin as netting is.  So, yes, I bought this pretty fabric at JoAnn's.  I love hues of orange and found the white daisy's with dark grey centers interesting.  Different.

Poking around Michael's for jewelry bits, and netting on ribbon rolls for hats, I found this flocked white netting with black dots.  I'm an impulsive shopper.  I'm impulsive about a lot of things, but when I find something interesting, I don't pass it up.  I just figure I'll be able to use it at some point.  How often I have arrived back home wishing I'd picked this or that up after all.  

It was never my intention to include ribbon on the dress.  In fact, I liked it plain.  And, that has always been a problem with me artistically.  Some people bomb their project with so much frou-frou that a garment beneath is almost undetectable.  I have the opposite problem and it stems from the fear of having to use the seam ripper.  But, I did something I'm learning to do, and that's read the doggone pattern.  This is where I discovered that it called for ribbon trim and even little bows, but I dismissed the bows.  Would dark gray ribbon have looked better?  I fussed with this a great deal before added black silk-satin ribbon trim to this dress.  I had anxiety over whether or not I ruined the dress after sewing it on.  The centers of the daisies are a dark gray, not black.  Would the black ribbon detract or upset the overall look?  So what to do in this case?  Play up the theme.

I'd purchased some reproduction shoes with elastic to match the dress in both white and black bases.  Using the ones with black heels would compliment the black ribbon.  But it wasn't enough.  And, for some reason I was determined to use that flocked netting on a hat for this dress.  It is busy.  A bit wild, and definitely out of my comfort zone, and that's exactly what I wanted.  I've been sewing French Fashion and period costumes for so long that I don't know how to play with color and prints.

I would add a white hat and decorate it to pull the outfit together.  While waiting for my PNB order of hat straw, I decided to make Cissy a straw bag from some leftover white straw that I had.  I love making purses.  I love making accessories, and probably spent three days on this little purse.  I made one similar to it for Daisy quite a few years ago.  It was just a matter of recalling what I did and pushing through.

This little purse is very fine.  Its a lovely straw bag with all the details. It is lined with the fabric from Cissy's dress, which will make it unique to the dress alone.  I made a straw flower with a black center to add to the front of it.  It closes with a gold bead and gold thread loop on the other half.  It is large enough for a pink comb, but I'm not sure Cissy sunglasses would fit.  It also boasts a braided straw purse handle on findings.  I spent a good deal of time shopping jewelry findings to make the handle.  Etsy is a good choice for that.  I like it.  Can you tell I used to collected purses, too?  Shoes, umbrellas, purses.

Finally when dressing up the hat, I added that flocked netting and remade three white millinery daisy flowers with black pom-pom centers, and stitched them on.  

My only regret is that I did not take photos of this outfit with Cissy wearing white gloves.  That would have finished the look nicely.  But, then she couldn't wear her pearl ring.  I do have a couple of lovely reproduction gloves made by an Ebay seamstress.  Speaking of pearls, I also made her two pairs of pearl earrings, a stretchy pearl bracelet, and a lovely classic pearl necklace.

Cissy now has three complete outfits, and I have a couple of other projects in the hopper that I must begin.  But, honestly, I could keep sewing for The Marvelous Miss Alexander throughout the entire year ahead of us.  And, I may just to that after these other two projects are complete.  I'm just getting started and beginning to understand her wardrobe, dart and bodice design.

Thank you to the two readers who posted in comments recently.  I love hearing from you.

Cissy's such a fun doll to dress!

Love,
Melissa