Thursday, August 27, 2009

To Clothe A Cat

Warning: this post may look like a bad imitation of a Sanrio shop.


The Hello Kitties have clothes.

Was very surprised at the level of interest in the past
comments, in Hello Kitty's clothes and accessories.
Thought I'd better put some pictures out for all you
secret HK fans. I must warn you first, though, that there
is an overdose of lurid primary colors coming up.
And some pastels.


First, the bows and flowers.

Here's a bunch of felt flowers, very lightly stuffed:

And a bunch of felt bows. They are essentially a single
layer of hourglass-shaped felt, pinched in the middle
and sandwiched between two identical circles.


You all know I am partial to velcro as a toy
embellishment tool, right?
And that I rather like the kids
to have options to decorate and interact with their toys?

So here, too: the bows and flowers attach by velcro
circles to HK's forehead (which has a white velcro circle).


Now here is the original outfit I thought I'd make,
in different color combinations, to go along with
the interchangeable bow/flower:




But it seemed a lot of work to do all those curved
necklines and armholes.
So I fell back on the shirred
spaghetti strap sundress - a better option to mass-produce.


And mass produce I did. The word lunacy flitted
through my mind several times.


Oh well, it was good practice for french seams. I am all
shirred out now. Have I said before that I am not a fan
of quilting cotton/broadcloth/whatever? It is easy to work
with, yes, but it is the stiffest material on earth for
garments. Like paper. Absolutely no give and no
movement. But for doll clothes - quite good.


It might be Hello Kitty but it shall not all be pink, was
my motto. I rather like the blue (because I am biased).
The red-and-yellow is a bit Chinese New Year-ish,
on hindsight.
Here are nine permutations of
the different colors and accessories






and one very excited birthday-girl-to-be:

Incidentally, I am really enjoying how involved Emily is
in the party prep. She made the invitations, decorated the
paper cups, stuffed the Hello Kitties, contributed all sorts
of ideas for the games and food and made a papier-
mache pinata (which we will paint this weekend).
I love watching her own this party!

13 comments:

  1. They look fantastic! I love the options for the head decoration and the variations in colors. Looks like a little girls dream. Also the size of the dolls seems to be substantial which is nice.

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  2. If you hadn't used the 'L' word, I would have...gila indeed...

    But so proud of you for not vomiting after so many Hello Kitties (!!). May I never have to - yet I know I will if it comes down to it! For the love of our children indeed :)

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  3. Emily does look really excited, sounds like she will have a very fun fourth birthday!

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  4. Wow, this looks like it's going to be an awesome party!

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  5. oh wow! i can not WAIT to see the whole sha-bang!

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  6. You can have extra dresses and accessories for prizes.

    Merle

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  7. You are such a great mom Lorraine! Charlotte saw the pix and excited asked if she was invited to Emily's Birthday party :) I had to explain that Emily lived in America, very far away from us :p

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  8. wow are those for the goody bags?

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  9. So fun! Love the velcro too.

    And how fun that emily is right in there with everything. can't wait to see her...

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  10. I can see why she's excited. I'M excited! I didn't think I liked Hello Kitty until I saw a small army of handmade ones with little interchangable bows and shirred dresses.

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  11. My sister, seeing this post of yours, sent it my way and over Thanksgiving her and my mom mass produced 12 of these adorable cats for my daughter's 6th birthday party (this saturday). She has no idea what the theme is as we just took it on and will be SO THRILLED! Thanks for the wonderful ideas! We are also using HK cakepops and playing pin the bow on the kitty!---Jaunel

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