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I've been pretty excited about these!  A new line of articulated Harry Potter dolls with Ron, Harry, Hermione & Ginny with adult McGonagall and Dumbledore (no Snape? Boo!) Anyhoo, they obviously had articulation, but they were kid sizes so did that mean that finally Skipper would have some articulated options?  OMG!  Finally!    So when I saw Hermione in the store (note, these guys seem to be sold in cases by character, so your store may not get all the characters but you also don't have to worry about having 1 Harry in a box of 5 Rons for whatever reason),...

(Yes!) At the 1/4 aka 16" scale, (Poppy Parker Teen, FR:16 and Tulabelle 16) they all have the same proportions and so are easy to design for.  They're one of the dolls I regularly test my 1/4 patterns on. At 1/6 scale though, things got way more complicated! There are dozens of bodies, and I admit I was intimidated by them into staying away from sewing for them for a long time!   But people often ask about them, and I would really like to see my clothes on such cool dolls, so after looking at HUNDREDS of pictures, I...

When the new Ken dolls were announced, most things I read about them talked about how the new "broad" and "slim" sizes were joining the original size.  That isn't really the case.  The new "Original" ken is as much of a new body as the other two.  I thought it might be possible "original" refers to the actual original Ken, who was much less beefy in his early years than the one introduced in the late 60s because it is a lot more similar to that than the later one: (not my pic) ...But I'm going to say no.  Until...

When the new male bodies were released for Fashionista Ken dolls, I quickly grabbed one of each for review and comparison One thing that bothered me at the time though was the 'original' body.  I know sculpting can be deceptive, since the DC Super Hero Girls body is essentially a bigger Ever After High body with more muscle tone in the sculpt, but the original Ken doll was a tall skinny guy in reasonably good shape but not exactly muscle bound.  I mean, what 16 year old boy is?  Not many of the ones I went to school with!  First...

If you followed my odyssey on Facebook, you know that the first time I tried to go to Nippori Textile Street, I got super, super lost, and wandered around a residential area in Tokyo for an hour and a half before getting there with less than an hour to closing time left. Then the second time I went there, there was a heat spike at the exact time I visited, with 90+ degrees and percent humidity and I got heat stroke (gimme a break, I was shoveling snow less than a month before).  But I'm persistent!  I went back a...