Haruka Waloli outfit

Going to that doll show kind of put me in the mood to dig through old stuff. This is the first outfit I ever made for my doll, Haruka. It is a waloli yukata. Waloli is Asian inspired Lolita fashion. It mimics a Japanese yukata but as a frilly mini skirt.

Crossroads Doll & Teddy Bear Show

Today is a convention day! Bobby is in Seattle playing in the L5R Kotei (Legends of the Five Rings collectible card game tournament). I'm hoping he does well! Today I decided at the last minute to go to the Crossroads Doll & Teddy Bear show at the Puyallup Fair Grounds. I brought my BJD, Haruka, with me. I found this nice weeping cherry to take a photo under. Managed to get a picture just before it started raining.
Inside the convention hall are tons of booths selling dolls and bears of all types, mostly antiques. Most of the convention customers are older ladies, and many talked to me when they saw my doll in my arms. Most people will say that Asian ball joint dolls look creepy, I think because they are used to the traditional types of dolls, but more ladies this year said that my doll was very beautiful. I think after a few years of working this convention they've gotten used to seeing the various other BJDs that are carried around, which are mostly goth!
Some of the vendors were rather rude to me. I was talking with a doll wig vendor, nicely told her what I was looking for. She looked around a bit and rudely told me "I got nothing for you. Try someone else." My reaction was, wow, ok.. but I decided to browse anyways in case I found something that would work. But she came back and said "I don't have anything for you!" and shooed me away. I also encountered many rude, elderly customers who had no problems with pushing me around and knocking me over (even though I'm obviously pregnant now! I yelled at one old man for shoving me) and taking things right out of my hands. I wasn't planning on buying anything anyways, but still people need to learn to be more courteous.

Most teddy bears at the show are standard, but I like this lady's creations of dragons. Some look a little cartoonish for my tastes, but some were quiet impressive. They are stuffed animals, but I think some use clay in the heads and especially the horns.
The bodies are velvety and they have wire skeletal structures, so they can be bent and posed however you want. Each one is unique and interesting! She even had a unicorn or two.
Every year there is this one vendor that sells clothes especially for BJDs. The clothes are rather plain, but well made. I guess the theme this year was "Woodstock". I got a picture of Haruka sitting with the vendor's BJDs on display. Haruka looks bigger, but just because she's in the foreground.
At this vendor's booth was a group of BJD owners. They had about 5-6 dolls with them, all of them goth. Most BJDs that I've seen are goth, with white skin etc. The owner of this doll was awesome. She had huge platform boots, wild makeup, grey spiky hair, and was wearing a short satin "kimono" coat.
The owner was nice enough to let me take a picture of one of her dolls. This boy has very white skin and twisted black wings. I forgot to ask what this doll's name was! I wanted a picture of one of her girl dolls, because she had a lovely goth-lolita dress on, but she was in the process of trying doll clothes on the other dolls. This boy doll was the only one fully dressed.

So that was my day at the doll show! I hope to report later how things went with Bobby's card tournament. Hopefully he remembers to take pictures for me. If not, I at least have a picture of the costume he's wearing.

More Haruka pics

I took some pictures around the outside of my workplace yesterday. Here are some good ones:She looks like Bo Peep looking for her sheep.

Asian Ball Joint Doll

A year or two ago I got my first BJD (ball joint doll). This is a type of doll popular in Asian and with a moderate fan base elsewhere. They are an extremely expensive hobby! I first found out about them accidentally when I saw a cover of Haute Doll magazine on the shelves of a Borders bookstore. They all had that Gothic-Lolita look to them that I was attacted to and I became hooked.

The most common BJS is Super Dollfie by Volks, they have a distinctive "anime-ish" look to them. Other brands vary from extremely life-like to cartoon-like. People discribe my doll as looking "anime". I bought the cheapest brand - a doll by Obitsu, called Haruka - I kept this name for my doll since I always liked the name.

Most BJDs come blank and need to be customized - face painted, glass eyes inserted, you need to buy a wig, etc - when I customized Haruka I wanted to make her distictly Japanese with long black hair and glossy brown eyes. I wanted her clothes to be all traditional Japanese kimono and sweet lolita dresses.

The first outfit I made for Haruka was a furisode kimono.

I found the fabric as clothing at thrift stores. The kimono and under kimono is from Chinese silk robes, the obi is from an Indian top. The bear is from ebay. :-)

A closer view of her face. I don't really think she looks anime-ish - but rather like shes from that movie Dark Crystal. These pictures were taken on my cell phone at work, you can see my Puffy Ami Yumi poster in which they are wearing kimono punk-style - their kimono are the only reason I have the poster! I've made more kimono since this one - mostly yukata. Her first yukata was a lolita yukata - with a short puffy skirt!

One day browsing the thrift and antique stores in my area I saw that many porcelain dolls are similar size in the shoulders, so I thought their pretty dresses may fit my Haruka, so I picked up some cheap broken porcelain dolls from the thrift store that had lovely dresses. Here is the first find:

Poor quality picture, sorry! She's underneath a shelf at my work desk flanked by some Japanese temari balls I've made (I'll share about those later). This only picture I could take on my crumby phone that showed any detail to the pink baby doll dress.

Other than the lolita style yukata, this is the first lolita-ish dress I got. That day I took some pictures outside. Here she is sitting on a grassy hill. In such a short baby doll dress you can really tell how long her legs are.

I tried to get some good pictures of her standing next to a rock, but the lighting wasn't working on my cell phone.

I have some more outfits that I've taken off old broken dolls that look good on her that I have yet to photograph. Last night I worked on altering a very fine dress. I found this one at the Crossroads Doll and Teddy Bear show at the Puyallup fair. Its an antique dress for French dolls, I believe it is a reproduction. I saw the bonnet and was reminded of the Japanese sweet lolita look that I'm so drawn to and I had to get it, despite it's expensive price tag. I'm glad I got it! This time she has a curly blonde wig on that I took off a porcelain doll that had shattered. The wig is too big, but the bonnet keeps it on her head.

I'll publish more pictures of other outfits soon. I'll probablly take more pictures of Haruka in this outfit today!