Dress-up doll revival!

 None of the readers of this blog (my English blog) know what this doll is. If you are my Japanese blog reader from ancient time, there would be a very small chance that you remember this little girl. I made this doll for my daughter when she was only two years old (Wow, that was six years ago!). I expected that my girl would start playing dress-up dolls soon just like my sister and I did when we were little. And I thought I made this doll so adorable so she is going to be a very good friend of my daughter's for long time.

 Nina seemed to love this doll for a short while and even named that Amy. Then soon she failed to meet my expectation. I was pretty much disappointed, as you can imagine. Since then this little one had been sleeping in Nina's toy box like princess Aurora in the Sleeping Beauty.  Nina has never wanted to play with any dolls like Barbies and baby dolls. She loves stuffed animals but just cannot consider dolls made of plastic and rubber pretty. (Do they use rubber to make those dolls? Well, what ever they use.....) She says they are just spooky.

Look at this! Nina was such a little girl only six years ago! (You can find the post about this doll here.)

Lately, we had a chance to wake up the doll Amy. Nina was invited to a friend's sleepover birthday party and she was asked to bring a doll to play with. She still didn't want to take a plastic doll (actually she has some of them but they are hidden under the bed).  I thought of this homemade doll and Nina recalled she had that one for long time. She says this doll isn't spooky because this is not made of plastic. It is soft just like her stuffed animals. She even renamed it "Nina Jr.". She asked me if I could make a set of PJ's for the sleepover.

Nina drew the design of PJ's she wants.

I made patterns.

The hand sewn PJ's are finished!

Then finally Nina started enjoying to play a dress-up doll! She drew more designs she wants me to make. I love to work on a small scale so I enjoy making clothes for our new friend Nina Jr.

An everyday shirt and a pair of jeans.

A long, long dress.

Nina made a closet with an empty soy milk carton. Also invented tiny hangers made with straws and paper clips.

If you had a girl in Nina's age (she is eight), does she play dolls in a tiny corner of a huge room? We have plenty of empty space in our living room. And she likes to play in that little space only when she plays doll. Funny.