Mystery of the Pharoh's Tomb (or: I didn't make the rules).

 

This blog has zero readers so if anyone's here, they probably already know about this, but a quick summary anyway.

There are four book covers out there for Magic Attic Club books that were never released. According to someone who said they personally talked with Sheryl Sinikyn, the manuscripts were never written and the covers were made without the go-ahead from the authors. That conversation is not publicly available. 

I also don't know where the covers came from, how they ended up on the internet, where the descriptions of each book came from. I'm going to admit that I haven't done very much research. but my idle google has left me with questions.

Those books are A Tale of Two Alisons, Heather's Fashion World, Jane in a Land of Enchantment, and The Mystery of the Pharoh's Tomb.

When Ellie invites Jane, Alison's new math partner, to her open house and then up the attic, Heather, Alison, Rose, Megan, and Keisha don't know what to think. With the knowledge that Ellie sent Jane to the attic, the girls take a chance and invite her on their newest adventure through the mirror -- a search for a lost Pharaoh's tomb. When a golden amulet is stolen, the girls fear the curse of the tomb is upon them. Can Jane help figure out if the curse is real or just a hoax?

Obviously, Jane isn't a character that was ever released, but Pharoh's Tomb was going to be her introductory book. It's a group adventure. 

Considering that the last group adventure we got was Jewel of the Sea Cruise, which ranked somewhere between meaningless and just awful, I feel like it's time to start some wild guessing about the book we never got, as well as some sewing and designing.

Here we have an AI-upscale of the cover, which looks a little bit uncanny but is at least easier to view than a 400 pixel image. 

The first thing that caught me is that all 6 of the kids are wearing casual clothing. They're not in sort of traditional adventure gear.

The second thing that I noticed was that the image looks unfinished. I'm sure that, with books that tie into a fashion doll line, the images can't actually be finished until the outfits are finished. We've got rough colors blocking in Megan, Rose's skirt, and Alison's shirt. Jane(?)'s skirt looks like it started to get a print on it, but that was scrapped. I can't tell that for sure, because it might just be a shadow? I'm assuming that whoever was responsible for this illustration isn't about to find a blog in 2024 and give more insight. 

Moving on to some guessing:

I'm suspecting that this book was intended to be the new starter book, introducing new starter outfits. If they were going to be just a one-off adventure, Whispering Pines style, there's a lot of really creative ways that could have done. Putting the kids in everyday outfits makes me think that these would be new Starter outfits for the dolls.

Also, because of the formula of "dress up, mirror, adventure", we know that the kids had to be wearing something else and decided to change in the Attic. I refuse to believe that the attic mirror would let them go on an adventure in their everyday clothing. And since I appear to be one of maybe 6 people in 2024 who cares about the lore of a doll line that is older than many of my friends, I kind of get to decide that. Sorry, I didn't make the rules. Since they're all in relatively summery clothing, I'm assuming the book had to be originally set in winter. The only way I can imagine that these clothes were appealing enough to select for an adventure is if they are very unsuitable for the weather outside. "I don't care what the adventure is, as long as there's no snow," is a kind of reasonable line.

That's about the only insight I've got here, so it's time to move onto "things I decided I have to do if I'm making these clothes."

Part 1) Jane vs Chloe. Here's the problem: Jane actually got a pitched book, but Chloe actually exists as a doll. If you're making clothes for a doll, who do you include in the adventure?

Things we know about Jane:

• Alison's math partner
• Got invited to the attic by Ellie
• I'm seeing some people online say that she met Ellie at an open house? There's not a source for that but there's not a source for pretty much any of this. 

Because of the fact that the Magic Attic Club webpage gave Chloe a bio, there's a few things we know about Chloe: 

• Likes poetry
• Plays guitar and writes music
• Is from California
• Surfs, swims, and skateboards
• Has a twin brother, Connor, who shares a lot of her interests
• Interested in fashion and dressing up
• Teaches young girls to kayak and raft. Is a camp counselor and a lifeguard.

Okay so that last bullet point annoys me. Alison has the stories about going rafting and being a counselor, and Keisha gets the stories about being a lifeguard. IDK it kind of bugs me that Chloe gets to do the things in normal life that the other girls have mirror adventures to do. IDK why that feels weird to me, but it's sticking weirdly.

So quick summary for people who arean't aware, most large collaborative projects like this will have what's called a Bible or a Series Bible. This is one book or other resource that's agreed to have the correct information. Other writers, designers, and builders can then all be referencing the same source material. If two people are writing books for two different characters at the same time, they don't need to talk to each other, as long as everything that they reference is going off the same bible. Information like, "Alison likes blue, is being tutored for dyslexia, plays soccer, has three brothers," can be referenced by any author, designer, person writing a catalog blurb, and it's known to be correct.

The Magic Attic Club bible was written by Sheri Sinykin. However, by the time that Knickerbocker bought the company (and released Chloe), she was not happy with the company and said she wasn't being paid royalties on all the books she wrote. (Again, I don't have a primary source for this, but I don't have reason to believe it's particularly wrong).

What I think this sums up to is that whoever included Chloe into the series bible did it without Sheri Sinykin's input. And there's not really anything wrong with that. It's very common in big franchise projects like this for personnel to be changed and replaced. It's just that there's a lot of evidence that Chloe wasn't incorporated into the project in the same manner as the other kids.

Backstory time, when I was a kid, I has Alison, and my sister had Heather. I was later gifted Chloe (I believe because the paperwork said she was Alison's friend) and we never really liked her. Eventually, her leg fell off and we threw her away. So I both don't like her back story and feel like I can't do wrong by her because I owe fair treatment of her to my past self.

Anyway, I need to get back to the story. We've spent too long on side topics. Quick summary:

Things we know about Jane: She was actually in the books
Things we know about Chloe: Actiually like 3x as much as we know about Jane.

And here's the big thing: Chole has a brother, who is her age, and who is named Connor. And is probably blond. I have a boy doll who is her age and is blonde. So we have Connor now.

There's someone editing the Magic Attic Wiki who is insistent that Chloe is not Jane. However, since  Jane is blonde and Chloe is also blonde, there's at least a little bit of evidence that they had the doll partially finished, and then changed the accessorization to make her tough and cool and kool and tuff. Also the doll is high quality and the accessories and clothes she came with are a bit cheap, so I chose to believe that Chloe is a pivot to rebrand a partially-complete Jane. Since there is next to no information about either of them, anything that could be Jane OR Chloe is now acceptable headcanon. Sorry if some people disagree with that. I didn't make the rules. 

So let's check out where we're going here: 

 Crop of an AI upscale here, so please forgive the faces and hands. Let's look at what we've got here:

• Rose has teal t-shirt looking something and a long skirt. Probably below knee.
• Alison definitely has gray pants/shorts and then appears to have some kind of sleeveless or cap sleeve shirt with some kind of text of graphic on it.
• Megan has a cardigan? Some kind of long sleeve top, bottoms are not seen.
• Blonde girl holding the flashlight has a wrap skirt of some kind? there's a purple tie that could be connected to the skirt, to the skirt, or as a belt. Shirt is tucked in. 
• Keisha is in GREEN???
• Bucket Hat Kid is in some kind of plaid without a defined seam at the underbust or waist. She appears to not have sleeves, either. 

Let's get into some designs, then.

Keisha: Okay, so for starters. Every group of kids who want to travel through space, time, and dimensions needs to know the number one rule: All travelers must maintain color coordination, or else coordinate all costumes across the group, when on a group event. 

Didn't make the rules on that one.

Anyway, we have Keisha back in her proper color, purple. We can't see too much of the look on the book cover, just that it's got polka dots and a high neck. I figure a little bit of lace can keep it fun and quirky, as well as keeping a summery feel.

I'm assuming that the Pharaoh's Tomb they're going to go explore is in the desert, though you can't assume anything when it comes to the magic mirror. There's unicorns and talking flowers and snow queen worlds out there. 

 

Megan gets like a long cardigan and leggings. Maybe some Uggs. I don't get why she's got the long sleeves and everyone else has short sleeves, so she's getting a very light cardigan and a brown cami. Let's get those kids paying the female layering tax as a young age. 

The cardigan has a pocket for her glasses. 

 Rose's v-neck t-shirt has white on it in the reference images, but I think that looks more like it being unfinished rather than it being canonically white. I might slap some white trim/piping in the v-neck when I make this. We don't know. No one knows what I'm doing until I'm done, especially not me.

I'm going to go through the MAC lore (it's only, what, 7 years? 1994-2001 was the books) and see if there's anything that looks like that logo-ish section. I'd love to have a shirt with some secret Magic Attic Club reference on it.

If I'm lazy I can just use her shorts from the Alison on the Trail set.

Who's up for some creative liberties? This is the tucked in shirt with the wrap skirt and purple belt, the only costume you can see really clearly on the cover.

And we're putting it on Heather. 

There's a couple of justifiable reasons for that, like that it's pink and Heather's color is pink. There's also some non-justifiable reasons for that like that my older sister had Heather as a doll, and my older sister has never liked free size waists (babydoll cuts) or bucket hats, but loved and still loves a good tucked in shirt look. So Heather gets the look that my older sister would like, because in this case i DID get to make that rule, and so I made the decision.

Chloe does have one really huge problem. As previously mentioned, all travelers through time, space, or parallel realities must be assigned an identifying color and they must wear that color on all group events. I can't even begin to explain how much of that rule I didn't make. 

Chloe's starter outfit is pink. Heather is pink. The Magic Attic Club wiki says that Jane's color was intended to be orange, but I think that's just based off the picture on her book cover. I also think that book cover is of unfinished art.

However, the downside to being number 6 in the group is that a lot of the other colors have already been taken. I'm not about to make Chloe wear orange with her fair complexion, so she's getting red. That's it. 

We'll find her a nice red plaid with some lovely purple or fuchsia stripes in it. We'll ease her out of the pink and into the red nice and slowly, to avoid as much trauma as possible. But we simply cannot have two mirror travelers wearing the same color. 

I'd let it slide if I could, but this is yet another case where the rules are out of my hands.

But I think these would be fun new meet outfits or starter outfits that I could keep the dolls in when I have them in storage. I'll have some fun collecting new accessories for them as well.

As for the lore, I'm not really emotionally sure how comfortable I am with 10-11 year olds going into a literal tomb where dead bodies are to just have a fun look around. I think this is probably the kind of thing I'd imagine doing when I was a kid before learning about how therre's no more mummies because victorians are them all. Maybe we could have some fun where the kids solve the mystery by convincing all the tourists that the place is cursed and that the pharaoh should be left to its afterlife in peace. Maybe that's the only way I can come to terms with this concept.
My local fashion club is doing a graveyard meet and I had to opt out because I think graveyard meets are in absolutely awful taste.
Maybe they're in a tomb and think they're cursed and then at the end they find it's a movie set. I think I like that too. Like, what are all the kids doing on the set of Indiana Jones 6? 

We'll do the clothes first and then get into the rest.

So anyway, my new rule is that I'm not allowed to buy another doll unless I 1) have made this whole collection or 2) it's in really bad shape, under $35, and I think I can save it from going in the trash,

Alison Saves the Wedding, pt2

[Part 1 is here]

So, Alison's got her shiny, clean dress, so now she's only missing three pieces.

Two and a half if you count the fact that she has one of her shoes. One shoe is still zero pairs of shoes, though, so I'm not counting that.

It's really a pity that I lost the other shoe, because Alison's wedding shoes are probably the prettiest MAC shoes I own.  They're a sturdy vinyl. They don't have any seams except the back one, so I think they'll (cross fingers) be pretty easy to replicate.

And now, for her petticoat/slip.

Spoiler alert, it looks like this.


Since I recently got a pretty devastating bout of Ebay Disease that's trashed my bank account until my next paycheck (and I got paid on Friday, bad news), all the doll clothes I make for a while are going to come off the Wall of Fabric.

As you can see on the left, the wall of fabric is en restaro right now, due to the water-gushing-from-my-ceiling incident. At the bottom shelf of the case on the left is my box of fabric flowers, so I'll have to unbury that eventually. Thankfully, Clone Zero, my Wheeler and Wilson D-9/W9 treadle sewing machine from 1901 was uninjured, even though most of the water fell on him.

Basically everything I own has a name. It's a bit childish. I'm also a 25-year-old woman who plays with dolls and has a blog where she shares stories about their made-up lives.

Where were we? Right. Weddings.

 So, up there on the wall of fabric was a double-layer of nylon crystal organza. It had been sewn together at the top. I'm sure I bought it for petticoats or something. It's not a Layer Cake Dress leftover because the texture's wrong. I have a lot of fabric on the Wall that I don't know where it came from.
Apparently I had started something with this and then just put it on the wall, because I'd already sewn it up.

So, time to pull out Sergestiel and find my cones of thread.

Couple of narrow hems (not rolled hems, narrow hems. Rolled hems don't like working on organza like this, trust me) on the bottom. I hemmed the two layers at different heights, so you could see both layers through the clear fabric.

Then comes the lining, which is a bleached muslin. Eye Dee Kay why I had bleached muslin, because I only buy natural muslin for draping. No real reason, just that it's the same price and I like the way pencil marks show on it better. Okay, one real reason, I like the way pencil marks show up on it better. That's all I need.

It turns out I don't know where most of my stuff on the Wall came from.

After this, it's just gathering the three layers into each other.
Remember the rule, kiddos: Bell shape, gather at the waist, A-shape and you gather at the hem.
You can't see it, but the lining inside has a blue bias tape bound hem. I want to pretend that it's a design call, but I actually just cut it too short (meaning it technically has a bias tape banded hem, but who's keeping score?)
It's elasticized in the back with some really wide 1" elastic because it's what I had and I'm not allowed to buy anything because of aforementioned Ebay Disease.

And here's a work in progress shot on our dear model, though not a very good one because you can't see the poof that the petti provides at all. It honestly doesn't provide a lot of poof, but GDI it says she has one in the catalogues, so she's going to get one.

The ribbon I used for the picture is stiff and way too wide, but it's what I could pull out of the wall of fabric without toppling the whole mess. She'll get a real flower crown pretty soon, but not this paychek unless someone outbid me and saves my sorry butt.

Not sharing on what I bought. That's secret for now.

Also, I have found an absolutely fantastic doll blog, American Girl Outsider. She's well-known in the American Girl community, but I haven't been part of the American Girl community, so I didn't know of her. Anyway, if you'd like to read something more interesting than the backlog of my blog, take a look.

Alison Saves The Wedding, part 1

At some point I owned this set:

(Image thanks to dollightful dolls' scans of the MAC catalogues)

 

Okay, I never owned the table, chair, cake, or place settings (it was $64 in 1997 dollars, and my parents weren't interested in figuring out where my 18" doll furniture would go when it's put away), but I had that dress (with full slip, shoes, and flower crown) and the veil and bouquet.

These days, I have the dress, and one shoe. To be fair, it was one of the first sets that I got for Alison. All of the Magic Attic girls had a full length princess dress, and I think my sister got Heather's at the same time. They made for some fun stories.

After a while, as I grew up, I started storing my Alison things in a cardboard box without a lid. This worked out really well, for the most part.

The only problem was that, between the years of 2004 and 2014, I had an adorable cat named Maggie. Having Maggie was not a problem itself, but Maggie was very special. Maggie spent two years refusing to walk on the floor, and instead jumping between pieces of furniture. We had to start putting her food on the bathroom counter, or else she wouldn't eat. She would express her desire to go into a room by reaching directly for the door knob, like she understood its purpose and just wasn't tall enough to touch it. She spent a good chunk of time sitting in the shower, staring at the wall. My dad swears he saw her teleport several inches one time. And, if the shower door was closed for some reason, she peed on piles of fabric.
Maggie had a stroke and had to be put to sleep just after Christmas of 2014. She was a good cat, and I frequently remind Smudge (the new cat) that she's not as good as Maggie, not yet.

However, this all resulted in me wanting to dress Alison up in her nice dress and finding this on it:

Thanks, Maggie. Glad to know you're still with us in some form.

I definitely had concerns about trying to clean a 10-year-old, irreplaceable dress, especially this one. One of the very annoying things about dresses with overlays is that the overlay can shrink more than the dress, and become too short. The little hearts are flocked onto the overlay, and I was concerned that they could rub off. There's a silk flower that's glued on, and I don't know what kind of glue it is, or how it could react to water, or how it reacted to time. Finally, the under dress is taffeta of unknown fiber, but might be acetate or not be colorfast. If it's not colorfast, it could bleed blue into the ribbon, or the ribbon could bleed pink onto the dress.

But the pee's got to come out, one way or another.

Enter Oxi-Clean. Not only was it Billy May's favorite cleaner, but it's also the cleaner for the job. For those of you who don't know how Oxi-Clean works, here's a quick summary:

• Oxi-Clean is a powder that, when mixed with water, creates a chemical reaction that makes a gentle peroxide.
• Peroxide binds to organic things, like dirt and sweat and urine. Peroxide does not bind to synthetic things, like dye or glue. 
• This is very good for cleaning Alison's bridesmaid dress, because it means the only dye or glue damage will be caused by the water. 
• The fact that Oxi-Clean will keep producing peroxide for six hours means the peroxide won't be used up in the first few minutes of soaking, like it would if you just put H2O2 on the stain. The fact that it only produces it for six hours means there is NO benefit to soaking it overnight.
• Since the peroxide binds with water in addition to binding with organic soils, when you wash the Oxi-Clean out, it takes the dirt and piss away with it. 

That's pretty simplified, but I wanted to explain it somewhat. Science is cool, folks.

 So, the process was simple: Oxi-Clean soak for as long as necessary to remove the visible urine. Wash in cold water with cold water detergent (like Woolite, but I use the Amway brand because my mom's hella into Amway and gifts it to me a lot). Rinse it out as well as possible.

I didn't take pictures, but that's the process.

Since the dress is so small, I got to do my favorite test to make sure all the soap's out. I filled my baby-sized wash tub up with cold water, and put the rinsed-out dress in it for a minute or so. If a lot of soap comes out, I need to rinse it again. If a tiny bit of soap comes out, I need to swirl the water around to get it out, and then be confident that diluting it in 1 gal of water only leaves a negligible amount in. This method isn't really possible with a garment that's human-sized due to the water necessary, but when it's just a gallon it works out nicely.
It's important to get all the soap out. Soap binds to dirt, which is why we use it. If there's soap left in the dress, it'll bind dirt to the dress.

(Lazy final picture taken from my bed, because I didn't want to move)

I dried it flat on a towel until it was just damp, and then put it on a hanger and carefully pulled the overlay down so it'd dry without shrinking and leaving the under dress exposed. I let it dry hanging. The taffeta really didn't want to hold onto water, and that made it dry really quickly.

The overlay didn't shrink, and the fabric flower's still attached just fine. The Oxi-Clean didn't soak long enough to get the flocking in the overlay back to white, but I would rather have it gray than hurt the overall dress.
The satin ribbon on the sash has faded quite a bit, but that's mostly from time, and not from being soaked. It's almost white in some places.
Something about the process has made the hole in the overlay in the back much less visible. I'd guess the process of pulling straight has made it close. Either way, it'll let me close it up without patching it, which I thought I'd have to do before it closed up. It's good news.

Anyhoozie, the dress is pretty much fixed up. I've decided I'm going to make the missing pieces, and maybe do that for all of her outfits. I'm not going on Ebay for a while, since I recently fell victim to Double Ebay Disease and that looks like it's going to cost me $250. Because of this, and because I'm both crafty and getting 20% off everything I buy at the craft superstore, I'm going to be making as much of it as I can. It doesn't really matter to me as much if it's original or not. I just want the whole set to make up for losing it as a kid.

Again, I really don't feel bad about losing all the pieces. The stories my sister and I told about the dolls adventures and all the crazy costume changing shit they did, and the fact that we had fun playing with them makes me happy.

So, to do list: slip/petticoat for the dress, flower crown, new shoes, maybe the veil and bouquet. Maybe.

It's 12:17am. Good night, everyone.

Alison clothing, progressing

Quick summary of today's progress. Here's Ali in her new pants and most of her new shirt.

First, the pants. They're still lacking a back closure because guess who forgot to buy velcro DESPITE WORKING AT A CRAFT FUCKING STORE

As you can see, the pockets are wanky as fuck, but I'm letting myself get away with this.
I haven't faded the jeans, though I'd like to. I had some fun adding distressed patches, but I'm also keeping track of the fact that these are for a canonically 10-13 year old, so I'm being careful to not let any distressed patch get too high up on the leg. I'm sort of shooting with the clothes for around age 13-14, because that's freshman year of high school, which was when I started really making choices about my own clothes, and I'm working a lot of Alison's personality (both from the books and from what I made up as a kid) into her clothes.
Wow, that was a long sentence. I should stop writing htese when I"m so tired.
What we do know, all canon aside, we do know from the dolls themselves that none of them have developed chests, or wear bras. I didn't have boobs till I was in like my junior year of high school, so I'm saying that's a passable thing for 14. I developed way later than most girls but shhh whatever.

Something I'd forgotten is that her t-shirt (from her starter outfit) snaps in the back so she can get it on. When I realized this, I had to adjust my plans.

I went from plans to do a full jersey shirt to making it raglan sleeved. Raglan sleeves aren't super 'in' right now with the cool kids in freshman high school who are hip to the jive and go to the sock hops. They're still very associated with modern sporty things, and they'll be fun to put on a graphic tee.
Bonus point about raglan sleeves: I can put a snap closure on the back of one sleeve, and make a discrete connection for a closure to let her head in. The black fabric is something I had hanging around after the Lin Beifong cosplay. It's an athletic semi-mesh, which wasn't intentional, but I like it.

I'm still not sure what to put on the shirt. I'm tempted to copy the polyvore I originally used as an inspiration, and just put, "weirdo," but I also might put "dyslexics UNTIE" on it. In canon, Alison is dyslexic, and has to come to accept how getting after school tutoring affects her social life, so I want to represent the way she comes to terms with that. I saw the shirt in person and thought it was funny, but it's always tough for me to represent a disability that I don't have. I need to think this one over more.

Also, found her hat that I made her yesterday when I was at work today.
I'm going to work the teal/blue color theme into the outfit more than it currently is. Wouldn't be the Magic Attic Club without the girls being color coded for our convenience. To be fair, I love the color coded thing.

And a last and final shout out to Sergestiel, my serger, making that shirt much easier.

in the continuing theme of pants

Background's dirty because the background's always dirty, and these pants need a closure in the back (fake fly in the front because lazy). They're not patterned any more than tracing the pieces of her old jeans, but it's kind of nice to give her something new. There's faux western pockets in the front and patch pockets in the back, all of which are lopsided or different between one and another, because haha who needs patterns.
The pants still need a waistband, too. But hey, at least she's got something. Distressing will happen later.

They look pretty silly with her heavily 90's jean jacket.

I knitted her a hat today, too, but I think I dropped it in the fabric store. Handily, I work at the fabric store, so I'll be able to pick it up tomorrow.

I used the same yarn I used for Helena's hat, so they just have matching ones and y'all have to deal with it.

I'm sleepy, so that's all you get for tonight.