RandomButterflies

My Iplehouse FID girl Raffine got a new outfit from Lyanne... I'm much too impatient and imprecise to sew in this scale (1/4), so really appreciated being able to commission this lovely outfit for Raffine. Lyanne posed and photographed Raffine for me - she's so good at this sort of thing!
Do check out Lyanne's Flickr account; she has several FID ladies and they're always beautifully outfitted!

Later Raffine got replacement arms from Iplehouse - these are slightly longer and the elbow is at waist level as it's supposed to be... I love how the violet blue of her top accentuates her blue eyes;

I got two more wigs from Amadiz Studio - these wigs are just gorgeous.

This is "Milady" in copper, modeled by Iplehouse Doria;

Doria is in the "glow" realskin resin and is wearing urethane eyes by EnchantedDoll Eyes.  Her jewellery is by Lyanne.

  
My new Iplehouse EID woman is Lahela, in glow peach gold resin.  This is a lovely warm colour which photographs beautifully;

Her wig is "Skyfall", which is a lovely silky blond with aqua streaks at the ends.  Lahela aka "Lark" is also wearing urethane eyes by EnchantedDoll Eyes.  Lark is wearing a silk crepe top made by me - I made a few of these over winter, to go with stretch jeans made by Lyanne.

Fantasia sleepy Vivian on her new EID body. I wish I could upgrade my body as easily!

​The little telephone is a clock!

This is Iplehouse Stella (face-up by Angel Toast), with an EID "tattoo" body which has been painted by BJD face-up artist Vitta Vera;

Stella's body originally belonged to Pamela, but I popped Stella on this body for a photo-shoot with my friend Lyanne, and she looked wonderful on it - so she got to keep it!

The "carved" tattoos on the torso and thigh are picked out in peacock blue metallic thread and enhanced with tiny Swarovski crystals.  Stella's hands and feet have been blushed by Vitta Vera and her feet enhanced with "barefoot sandals".  The painting is incredibly delicate and beautiful.

​Here is a close-up of one foot (this is a flat foot - her heel feet have a different design - isn't her "pedicure" just perfect?

And a peacock feather in bronze and blue has been added to her back;

This top took me ages, and one reason was that I kept changing my mind about what I wanted to do.

I'd just bought half a dozen Zhurnal Mod and Duplet crochet magazines, and was absolutely dazzled by the creativity and artistry of the new free-style crochet fashions.  If you are unfamiliar with this, do an internet search on these magazines, and prepare to be amazed!

So I spent the next few weeks trying out different mofits - roses, violets, butterflies. leaves - and getting myself thoroughly muddled about what I was actually trying to create.

It was still a good exercise though, as some of the motifs I tried were really too big for the 1/3rd scale of the doll I was crocheting for.  In the end, I put together what I thought was a rather nice layout on a black template - intending to duplicate it on net later.  As it happens, when I re-fitted the template to Fantasia Vivian, I slimmed the top down so this arrangement didn't fit anymore.  

 
So the top eventually ended up looking like this; the motifs are sewn to the net, which is lined with crepe in a pretty lilac colour.

The motifs continue around the back.  The top is teamed with a flounced chiffon skirt in pretty Spring colours.

Fantasia Sleepy Vivian can be seen in the background.

And that's another thing I did over the Spring - I got an Iplehouse body for sleepy Vivian and rounded the top of the neck off with a hobby dremel, resulting in a pretty decent fit for her head.  So now sleepy Vivian has her own body!  As you can see, she really suits it - I love the curves and the long swan neck.  Although the resin is pinker than that of Fantasia's normal skin, her face-up has plenty of blushing and the overall effect is a nice match between head and body.  Her lovely face-up (like that of open-eyed Vivian) is by Angel Toast. 

I quickly knitted her a top in pretty pastel colours and matched them with silver earrings by Lyanne.  Perfect! And now I really feel that Spring has arrived :)

Goodness me, has it really been that long? ... Yes, yes, it has...

Strangely, I feel that I've doing lots, but my Flickr account certainly doesn't reflect that...  of course, it has been a miserable winter and spring this year, with seemingly endless rain from July right through to October.  I didn't think it would ever stop, but the weather reluctantly (or so it seemed to me) starting clearing up in November, and the first and second days of December have been glorious - blue skies, sunshine and light breezes.  At last!

But I have not been idle over the winter - I've picked up my crochet hooks and have been attempting to make some pretty things for my bigger dolls.  I think it's been thirty years since I last crocheted anything...

The first thing I made was a bolero jacket in little flower motifs - actually for my HID Doria, but seen below on my friend Lyanne's SID Lahela. In fact, it doesn't quite meet at the front on Doria, but fits SID Lahela tolerably well except the sleeves are a little long.  Still, that's the style nowadays, right?

Lahela is wearing stretch cotton jeans by Lyanne - again for EID so a little loose on Lahela, but still very attractive.  Lahela has been posed and photographed by Lyanne, who is brilliant at it.

Doria has her outfit back, but has never been photographed in it.  Poor Doria!

The cardigan took me about two weeks to make - all those itty bitty motif squares - but it did whet my appetite for tackling another crochet project.  Which turned out to be a little more ambitious than I thought...  a free-style crochet motif top for Fantasia Vivian, which will be the subject of my next post.

I've taken up crocheting again, and made Lady B (Iplehouse Carina) a blue bikini.  

​Lady B is eager to try it out;

Lady B loves a challenge...

Game, set and... match?

Bane's beautiful suit is by Freedom Teller.

I don't why Diana suits her so well as a name... maybe it's her huntress vibe, or the Superwoman movie that just came out?

Anyway, the lovely Fantasia Vivian makes a stunning Diana!

Her lovely face-up is by Angel Toast.

Vivian has a "sleepy" face too, with matching face-up;

Vivian's body is of similar size and proportions to Iplehouse's EID and HID ladies, and came in "normal" and "athletic" versions.  I got the athletic version, which has lovely muscle toning in the abdomen, arms and legs.

She really makes a stunning "supermodel"!

Sadly, it appears that the fledgling Fantasia company may have been overwhelmed by its initial production problems, as its website is now offline, although it appears that orders are still trickling out...  their sculpts are so lovely it would be a shame if they did not manage to recover.

In the meantime, I need to get Vivian's second head another body.  She doesn't really fit the neck properly, but she looks good on an Iplehouse EID woman's body;

Funnily enough. despite the Fantasia "normal" being a delicate ivory tending to yellow, whereas Iplehouse normal is pinkish, she looks completely at home on the Iplehouse body (since returned to its owner, my Carina).

I was going to sell this gown... so I thought I'd take some nice photos of it - now I don't want to sell it!

The lovely model is my lplehouse Aria, in light brown resin.  She is a couple of years old, and the current light brown is darker - very close to RacconDoll dark mocha (conveniently!).

Her oh-so-beautiful wig is "Aphrodite", by Amadiz Studio, and her earrings are by me.

Oddly enough, the top skirts of this gown are photographing as a lemon colour - which I thought is was from the promotional photos.  However, they are actually a creme brulee, which is more apparent in this photo.  The model here is my Feeple65 Angela.  For some reason, it is easier to get the SID-size MonaeGlow gowns on Angela than on an SID (very tight squeeze - good thing they don't have to breathe!).

Well, not really - but I did order Iplehouse Isis in normal skin through Iplehouse Doll Choice to get my Doria an HID body and got her the limited Haute Couture face-up.

I popped Isis on Doria's SID body when she arrived.  Isis came out on an nYID body but she looks lovely on the more athletic SID body too.

She had default acrylic eyes when she arrived that had quite large irises;

So I found her some glass eyes in a light blue which I thought looked better on her;

She's doing a nice "Grace Kelly" pose here;  this is a lovely gown by Thai ebay seller MonaeGlow.