Sunshine Family - Take Two

Happy Monday to you! As you know, I've been working on the restoration of some Mattel Sunshine Family dolls that I found languishing in a thrift store. I found these poor moppets and just had to have them!

I restored Liberty Girl and Indian Maiden for a customer who wanted them to be customized. You can check out my previous blog entry on that. They turned out really cute, and my customer was tickled to have them in her collection!

Getting Sunshine Steffie and Steve back up to par was a bit of a job. I didn't have a pattern for Steve's jeans, so I had to make a pattern, make a sloper to make sure it fit, then do a final pattern. You probably know the process, but I did take a few pictures of the steps. It's tedious, but well worth it!

As usual, I start by putting some artist's tape on the doll. I just find that this is the best and easiest way to get the basic bones of a pattern. After I am sure the tape is placed in such a way that it will give me a good pattern, I carefully cut it off of the doll. In this case, I cut it up the outside of his leg.

This gives me the first basic pattern, from which I make the sloper. I make the sloper out of a material called "Pattern Ease." It's a very lightweight and inexpensive material that I can actually sew together and from that make a mock up of the garment to fit to the moppet.

I usually try to make the initial sloper bigger than I think it will need to be. That way, when I put it on the doll, I can pin or mark with a pen where the actual seam needs to be. Once I've adjusted the sloper to fit the moppet, I take that off, pick the stitches out, and make the final pattern from it.

And here is the final pattern. Now, I could pin this to my fabric and cut from there as I would a regular pattern; however, I don't like to do that. Wood fibers, from which paper is made, are notorious for dulling scissors, and my sewing shears never - and I mean never! - touch paper.

Paper is the anti-scissors, their worst enemy.

So I make another sloper. Yes, another sloper. The final sloper. Since it's made out of "Pattern Ease," it won't harm my shears if I cut a little too close to the edge and catch some the sloper in my shears as I cut the fabric. The other advantage is that my pattern will remain in good condition, and I can make as many slopers from that as I need to in the future. And the sloper can be used many times over before it wears out.

Fortunately, I did have a pattern for Steffie's clothes. I also had a Baby Sweets and a few of her accessories already on hand, so the family was complete!

This was such a fun project to do, and I think they turned out really cute. And my husband and I had a blast taking the moppets to different sites to get some good pictures. Have you done something creative today? Switch off that TV and make some beauty for the world to enjoy. Blessings,

#SunshineSteve #SunshineSteffie #BabySweets #SunshineFamily #Mattel