From My Little Hole in the Wall: Ten Ping Siblie in Summer Work Clothing

Have you ever had one of those months where you had so much hope for it, so many positive plans in mind, and a great positive attitude to go with it? Then almost immediately, things go left, right, up, down and sometimes spiral? June has been that way for me. I like predictability. I love routine. But something happened back in February that upset my cookie cart and I've been dealing with this imminent change since then. What was it? Something as simple as the company that made the journal-diary I kept, decided not to continue with the large format planner, and to top that off, made the decision to take their product off the U.S. market.

I'm a writer. I've been keeping a journal or diary of sorts since I was a child and had one of those little diaries with a lock and key. What was lovely about Boxclever's planner, was that it had a whole page next to the week blocks where you write, to scrapbook on! So instead of just keeping the day-to-day journal of activities, I could keep a pictorial one to

correspond with those days as well. This journal satisfied the creative mouse in me as well as the writer. Then BOOM...they decided to pull the rug out from under me. Oh, I wrote to them alright. BEGGED and pleaded for them to at least keep the large format, and I'd buy their planner with no U.S. holidays in it direct from them. Nope. "Let's fix what's not broken." That's what these companies do. So as the days have slowly or rapidly marched their way toward the end of June, so has the end of this journal because it was a July to June issue.

So, what's my personal little grump got to do with this journal posting anyway? Well, I wanted to scrapbook my last journal page in this precious pictorial of my last six months with something special.

I'd been wanting to make a special outfit for the Ten Ping Siblie since I received her. Ruby Ho, of Ruby Red Galleria, made this special doll to honor her mother for Mother's Day this year, with a doll dressed in the birthday dress her mother made for her when she was five years old.

The original Ten Ping dolls were 8" tall, but with the popularity of Ruby Red Friends, the play doll line Ruby designed, she decided to make this doll on the body of the "Friends' Sibling" (little sister), dolls they call Siblies.

She must have had lots of left over fabrics and scraps to use for this project, because each of the LE dolls would be dressed in a different fabric. I bought two. One to play with, and one to keep mint.

I'll have to admit that this little 12" child doll looks most like the real Ruby Ho than her 8" version. Ten Ping, Ruby's Chinese name, is one of my favorite lines of dolls. So when this moppet came out, I was thrilled. She's so much easier to sew for than the tiny 8" doll.

The first thing I did was go through my Ten Ping wardrobe and select one of my favorite outfits to copy. I don't mess with perfection. Ruby designed these for her mini-me self, so it was best for me to simply take one of them and make it larger to fit the Siblie body.

And for those who've stuck with me over these years, you may recall that this apron shape was one I'd made a pattern for during the Year of the Dog, for a UFDC Doll News article, as Ruby Ho was the featured artist that year.

I started with the loose-legged pants. Many of the outfits that Ruby designed for Ten Ping were of mixed fabrics. They were also working clothes. Ten Ping grew up in dire conditions in China during the 1950s. When her mother left her and her sisters and brothers in the care of her grandmother, to work in the city to earn money for the family, Ten Ping, the eldest child, worked as hard as her mother had to help rear her sisters and brothers. So many of her outfits were for housekeeping purposes. And given the dire circumstances, I'm guessing you would put an outfit together with whatever fabric you could find, hence, the mixed fabrics. Like a quilt of colors.

I've had this gorgeous trim sitting in a bag for an eternity, and it was just the perfect trim for the hemline of these pants of striped linen.

Then I made the double ruffled skirt. I'm simply not seeing this as a fashion concept of the 50s, much less 60s, but Ruby obviously loves this look on her dolls, so I made the skirt to go with.

Both the pants and skirt have elastic threaded through a self-casing at the waistline.

Then it was time to make the top. This is where the fun came in. I really enjoy putting together this kind of medley of fabrics to create a somewhat "boho" look. The burnt-orange with black pinstripes used for the collar, is something I picked up for a Victorian doll dress, so you just may see it again.

So far, so good, this was all coming together nicely.

Next, I had to make some slippers. This doll seems to have very long feet. Like the Maggie Iacono dolls. I don't know why some dolls' feet just seem long, but they do. This coral peony lawn was purchased for a flapper doll dress, so again, you just may see it in the future. It went so well, picking up the colors in the skirt's flowers and the collar, that I had to use it.

The slipper pattern will take a bit of tweaking, but at least I got a pair made.

Finally, it was time to make the pear-shaped apron. I had some Michael Miller Chinese Children fabric, and the little man in the boat seemed like a perfect center for a summer apron.

I made salmon-pink silk piping for the edges, and also used the silk for the ties around the neck and waist. The "pear shape" got a little lost in the apron while sewing in the piping, and I guess that just happens sometimes. We'll do better next time.

Bottom line is that I finished a special outfit for this Ten Ping doll, just in the nick of time to scrapbook the image on the last page of my journal. I will truly miss this journaling format, and have had some bad days over losing it. There is literally NOTHING to compare out there. I'm going to use a Bloom planner because it had enough space to write each day, and the large format, but I lose the scrapbooking angle I so enjoyed.

What motivates a person to create something? In this instance, it was a seamstress on Facebook, who'd posted in the Ruby Red Friends Fan Club. Her name is Lydia and when I complimented her on the outfit she'd made her doll and told her that I was reminded that I wished to make something for my own, she said she'd like to see it. Sound like a challenge? It was. The completion of the outfit by yesterday, was motivated by wishing to have one last beautiful thing to scrapbook into my journal before I say good-bye.

My journals are like a friend to me I visit each night before bed. There is comfort in writing down my thoughts and doings of the day that has just passed. This blog also serves that purpose, but for the things I create.

June offered me some challenges and I met them head on. Change was one of them, and it came in several forms.

Summer is in full swing! Enjoy every single moment no matter what. Period.

Love, Melissa