Mumpy and grumpy

Dig the rain in the background of these pictures!  These were taken last Thursday afternoon, but it's been much of the same since, with some thunder and wind thrown in.  Lordy, the weather has been insane lately!  For the Bootheel it's just been rain and temperatures in the eighties, which I'll gladly take over the tornadoes that the Great Plains had.  The outlook for this coming week looks downright bad for a large chunk of the central U.S., and if I recall correctly, some of y'all as well.  "Don't be scared, be prepared," Ryan Hall always says, and indeed I'll be taking every precaution I possibly can.  I know where I can hide at Grandma's house and I know where I can hide at the library, and I never wear sandals anymore so I should be good to go.

Secondly, I send my apologies to Barb the Evil Genius for not emailing sooner; for some reason my email is being very contrary.  I'll keep trying, chica!

Sooooo...with summer creepin' in, I've continued my search for doll clothes, this time for Terri Lee and Mary Jane.  I don't know why I suddenly got bitten by the Terri Lee bug...yeah I do.  She and Mary Jane got moved over to Grandma's house.  I think Terri Lee wishes that I'd left Mary Jane behind. 

Terri Lee:  Seriously, why didn't you???
Mary Jane:  ;-)

Because Mary Jane is special, Terri Lee.  Both of y'all are.  Mary Jane is hard to buy clothes for, not that she or I mind.  She looks so cute in her original outfit!  Or maybe "cute" isn't the word I'd use to describe Mary Jane.  LOL, either way I like her in her original outfit, and that's good because she's got nothing else!

I saw an advertisement that discussed separate outfits for Mary Jane, but I've never seen 'em...not yet, anyway.  On the other hand, Terri Lee got some nice new things.  To my delight she's relatively easy to shop for...on eBay, at least.  Etsy doesn't have much, to my surprise.  Now...remember how I like yellow dolly dresses?

I kinda wish my Terri Lee had dark hair for this dress, but that can't be helped.  LOL, I actually bought this dress after I bought the other three because it's so stinkin' cute.  The skirt has TULIPS on it!

Oh, and little touches of green.

At the library one of my favorite patrons is an older lady who sadly is sick with Alzheimer's disease (let's call her Mrs. A, since both her initials are A, LOL).  These dresses arrived on a day when she was in, and when I told her I collected dolls she replied "Oh, I liked dolls too.  I used to sew for the bigger ones."  When the packages came I thought "If she used to sew, then she must see these."  When I did show her she liked the yellow one best, reserving special admiration for the appliqued tulips.  Mama likes it too, but I expected her to because she loves yellow.

The yellow dress came from vom on eBay, and these next three are from solid-deal-store.  This one is the first one I threw her in; it has hearts, like good dolly dresses sometimes have, but they're not all red or pink.  Indeed, the heart front and center (and partially concealed in a fold) is green.

Interestingly, long ago when I was a rookie on Failbook, I took a quiz and found out that my heart is...purple.  The quiz said that my heart was multifaceted and hard to get to, but was honest and would love whoever managed to get to it.  That fits me...well, not to a T, but it fit pretty well.  I found it ironic though that my heart was my sister's favorite color and not my own, LOL.

The next two Solid Deal dresses have my favorite accessory, the hair bow.  This blue dress...I think I'll save it for next Easter.  It's pretty veronal, and here in the Bootheel it's quickly getting summery.  I love the print, though.  This is just an interesting little dress, period.

It even came with a little bracelet!

Interestingly, the bow attaches to Terri Lee's head with a map pin.  I have exactly one hair bow that attaches to my hair with a pin...and no, I don't use a map pin!  I've worn that bow all of two times in the past year (May fifth of last year and January thirteenth of this year).

Mrs. A astutely pointed out that since this dress is organza/organdy it'll need a petticoat.  Done and...almost done, LOL.  I ordered a nice petticoat right after Mrs. A left, and hopefully it'll be here soon.  Justin's saddle shoes STILL aren't here.

Now to the last little outfit.  I love patriotic clothes, and when I saw this dress I thought "Yep, gotta have that one too."  Mama likes it too, LOL.

This one came with matching bloomers and another little bracelet, but I forgot to show those.  Aesthetically this is my favorite of the dresses, but it is tight around the neck. 

I guess if I wanted to nitpick I could harp about Terri Lee's shoes being black and not matching, but at least she's consistent!  So far I've yet to get a poorly made dress for this particular doll; all four dresses are handmade, and aside from a loose end or two I've found no huge sewing errors.  I have a lot of respect for folks who do this kind of thing for a living, because sewing on such a small scale can't be easy.  I know knitting in this scale isn't always easy!  Anyway, I'm satisfied with these little outfits, but I don't think ANYTHING makes Terri Lee happy.

Terri Lee:  Whyyyy are you looking at me like that???

Mary Jane:  I think y'look nice!

Darn it, Terri Lee, you two are gonna have to learn to get along!  I've seen other Terri Lee and Mary Jane dolls peacefully coexisting, so I know it can be done.  But anyway, now that I know that stuff is available for Mary Jane, I'm gonna keep my eyes peeled.  She deserves to have nice new things too.

Hugs and rain,
RagingMoon1987