Dream of Doll Elf Ducan - BO

I finally got my Elf Ducan home! He's really here! Oh man, this has been a dream for the longest time ever, I'm all over the place with feels! He needs some tlc and the strings need a look at, but he's just so perfect! ❤️😍 The faceup is original and in mint condition, yellowing is minimal except for a patch on his chest but that's an easy fix. He came with original outfit and will have to sew a new corsage waistcoat and arm protectors as they're crumbling away being made of fake leather, and 13 years down the road it would never hold up. Hopefully I will have time and energy to work on him in days to come to be able showing him off properly. Man, I've got an Elf Ducan! I've got him!

Little Deer - A Sewing Project

I made this for DollConDK held back in April of this year. I made everything except the eyes, though after this I do have the courage to try my hand at those as well. My concept was of a Deer in spring, a royal one with all the shimmering jewellery he ended up wearing.

The outfit was supposed to be quite simple, not a whole lot of decor or nothing, but I always end up getting a trillion ideas whenever I sit down to sew something, never stick to my initial design or materials.

There were a lot of first's making all of this, the wig, the shoes, little nail-polish wire flowers, and painting a deer faceup. I admit I have made a wig before, but never got to finish it fully, and never worked with soy fibres until now, but I will definitely be making more wigs in the future!

Wig (Adelé Po)

I don't have any pictures besides the one up top of the process of making the hardcap, not that it is terribly exciting, it's just adding layers upon layers of glue onto a mesh net fastened securely with rubber bands. Nor do I have any of the start up process of layering the wefts onto the cap, but I do have some of when I was half way done. I chose to put them very close together as I wanted a voluminous wig, and that I did indeed achieve!

I struggled a bit with making the parting, I had seen a technique where the wefts had been pre-glued together and then glued onto the headcap, didn't work for me so I glued a weft as centred as possible, where I wanted the parting to be, let it dry for a bit before gluing the other side and then adding small wefts underneath to finish it nicely.

Trousers

I don't have an awful lot of pictures of making these. I shot only two and they don't really show much of anything.

They're made from part of a shirt sleeve. First picture was from before I made a stupid sewing mistake and second is from me getting a different idea as for how to do do the waistline. It closes with snaps and have Swarovski montees sewn onto them, there's also montees at the side of the trouser hems, just above the silken ribbon used to bunch up the fabric.

Shirt (DollCandy)

I changed plans for this shirt like 3-4 times before settling. Ended up costing me a pretty penny in the end, too, in materials used for it. The last genius idea I got was to make the sleeves from embroidered soft tulle, decorate it with hotfix Swarovski crystals and make it look like it had cuff links by sewing a snap and adding two montees on each side. The seller I intended to buy this soft tulle from was amazing, I needed for it to arrive in a timely manner and asked if they could ship using some form of EMS, quickly responded to my enquiry, helpful and added little over 11 yards instead of 10 (rather buy a whole bunch of it than a small amount). I definitely recommend them to anyone!
Also ended up sitting sewing seed beads onto the hem of the shirt and in the collar.

The little capelet wasn't planned, I simply sat playing around with a bit of the embroidery I had cut out and it looked too nice to go to waste. It, too, got decorated with Swarovski crystals and a silver chain in front to hold it together.

Shoes (pattern courtesy of scargeear)

Had never before made a pair of shoes, well, did attempt once, but I gave up even before I'd even started so I don't really count that one.
Was my intent to buy a pair, but didn't find anything of use no where and in my frustration I decided it would be easier to simply make them myself. "Easy".
Found a really good pattern on dA, scaled it down to fit, transferred the pattern onto my fabric of choice (I call it dragon hide as it were fantasy theme I was going with anyway), and cut it out.

Also managed to screw the boots up a bit while adding rivets and had to redo the boot shafts. Was an easy fix, but still annoying as it meant the boots took additional time to finish up on.
I added magnets to the soles of the boots as I wanted to display him standing on a wooden slab, on the initial day it failed as I had accidentally glued the magnets in wrong and didn't have any tools to fix it so he got to sit down instead.

Accessories

I made both jewellery for the antlers, a necklace, and these little nail-polish wire flowers to put in his hair. Tiny little things to make, but they turned out amazing.

I added little pointed back Swarovskies in the middle of each flower now that he was going to be wearing a lot of other bling, might as well, right?

Faceup

Had been a while since I last painted a faceup, and never had I made a faceup such as this one. I was so curious if it had been done on a Chloe before, but I never found any pictures, so I guess this makes him pretty unique in his own right.

I tried to blush the head to match a bit better with the body, didn't exactly succeed, but with wig and outfit it's nothing really bothersome to me.

Because I had to see how it looked with those awesome Altis antlers, along with the jewellery I made for them. A shame the picture isn't better, those little teardrop Swarovski crystals do sparkle quite a bit!

Stand

I had thought of making a great big espalier, but decided against it as it would have been a pain to transport, so made something a little more simple. Binding wire, little cherry paper flowers and leafs stuck into holes drilled in a wooden slab.

The idea itself was a good one, but the surface wasn't flat enough for him to stand properly, perhaps with either hot glue sueding or a few kips in his hips and knees would do the trick.

Carrier

Didn't have any carrier for an MSD so ended up making one of my own. Had an empty box laying around big enough for the purpose, had some upholstery foam to cushion the inside, and some fancy paper to cover the outside.
Glue in hand I got to work on gluing the paper on the outside, letting it dry up overnight.

The upholstery foam I cut out using a sharp knife as I don't have those knives especially meant to cut this with, sharpening steel at hand to keep it nicely sharp at all times. Also chose to add metal bars for the antlers to hold on to so they wouldn't be rolling around in the box while under transport.

Lined the interior with satin and added a few satin roses, chose to fasten the backside with pins as it was easier than using a glue-gun and getting burns all over my fingers.

Added a handle, strap and some metal decór. Looks so fancy, thinking of making another one as I have the same paper, just in purple, laying around. Just need a proper box to make it out of.

Finale (and of course I forgot to add the little nail polish flowers in his hair)

List of materials used:

Soy fibres
Embroidered soft tulle
White cotton voile
Marine blue polyester blend
Polyester lace trim
Silk ribbon
Swarovski montees
Swarovski crystals
Swarovski hotfix crystals
Sterling silver chain
PU leather ("dragon hide")
Mulberry flowers
Wrapping paper
Foam sheet
Satin