The Saga Collection

Introducing "The Saga Collection"

In my multi-month search for Saga, I had an abundance of time to imagine, plan, and acquire her wardrobe and accessories. The resulting colorful story board is a visual representation Saga's core collection.

I hope to eventually create these fun graphics for all of my poppets as a way to help me to keep track of my sprawling collection. All my poppets share and swap their clothing, but this way I can see with a quick glance who has made a primary claim on an outfit or accessory.

Additionally, with the recent rumor of the retirement of the GOTY line, I felt I needed to take a more active role in the creation of my own characters and stories. In other words, the GOTY line made acquiring new poppets and their collections a bit too easy and passive. In moving toward creating my own collection of "Saga Sisters" an entire new way of creatively interacting with my poppets and my collections has emerged.

Kit Preview: Monogram Dress

A new monogramed dress for Kit?

The orange and blue striped dress with bows, buttons, and a peter pan collar features Kit's monogram from her full name of Margaret Mildred Kittredge.

Saga's Saga

A new poppet officially joins the family. Meet Saga!

Saga debuts wearing the new San Francisco/Bay Area Star Tee from American Girl (2016), black textured shorts from Grace's City Love Outfit (2015), and platform sandals from the Karaoke Outfit (1999). 

We thought we had a name all picked out for her before her debut, but within minutes of being out of her box she promptly claimed her name was Saga.

Saga is feisty, adventurous, and curiously introverted. She loves to take long hikes or explore in the woods, often by herself. She is equal parts country mouse and city mouse and is comfortable in cities as diverse as Tokyo, Paris, or Oslo. She writes and is intensely interested art and photography.

Finding Saga was a bit of a saga in itself. Saga is a Truly Me 54* who was revised in May 2015 with the addition of notches at the corners of her eyes. However, six months after her May 2015 debut the TM 54* disappeared from the shelves of the AGPSF retail store and the doll stocked in her place since then has been the older version without the notches at the corners.

Additionally, current inventory through online ordering seems to only yield the older model without the eye notches. I know this since I ordered her two different times online and disappointingly received the older doll. AG customer service was helpless in verifying if it even had the newer TM 54* stock with the notched eyes. So look closely when buying or ordering TM 54! The older version is also darling and has the almond shaped eyes but she is missing the revised eye notches.

I have not been able to determine if the company is simply trying to quietly get rid of older, original stock of this doll without the eye notches or if they have stopped production and are letting the revised TM 54* slowly empty off shelves in anticipation of using a similar notched eyes/hair-with-bangs combo on the rumored BeForever Pearl. BeForever Pearl (code name only) will be an Asian American girl living in Hawaii during the attack on Pearl Harbor. 

Welcome Saga!

Etsy Corner: Peplum Jacket

Iolanthe is ready for a cool night out and about in her new Peplum Jacket.

The Peplum Jacket coordinates with the Chiffon Print Dress, both made by Maddie's Girls. The jacket is based on a Liberty Jane Boomerit pattern, part of the Outback Libby collection.

The Peplum Jacket is made of an army green twill with princess seams sewn with rough edges. The jacket is fully lined, boasts working buttons and pocket flaps which lift up, and the jacket is beautifully top stitched throughout.

The tiered peplum on the back of the jacket also features the distressed frayed edges. The sleeves end with fabric ties laced through real grommets.

Iolanthe is thrilled with her all her closet finds!

Etsy Corner: Chiffon Print Dress

Poppet Iolanthe fetchingly presents a beautiful Chiffon Print Dress.

The dress is made of chiffon and has a button and loop front closure and fastens with two snaps on the back yoke and a single hook and eye at the back waist. The dress pattern design is Liberty Jane Woomera, part of the Outback Libby collection.

The dress was handmade by Maddie's Girls with great care and precision.

The hem of the dress is short in the front and low in the back. The sheer dress comes with a lacy white slip made of soft and stretchy material for underneath the sheer chiffon dress.

Today Iolanthe will pair the Chiffon Print Dress with ruffled sandals from Saige's Sweater Outfit.

Light, breezy, and subtle, the dress works well both in casual and formal settings.

Maddie's Girls is a wonderful Etsy shop and her clothing is so much fun to receive in the mail. All the items are carefully wrapped as if coming straight from a high end boutique. I love her branded tags, labels, and darling shopping bags.

So cute! But how about a coordinating jacket?

Hair She Is! A Melody Pre-Order

Some terrific detailed pictures of Melody and a new first: Pre-Order Melody via AG Rewards!

Unfortunately, the deal is not too sweet--a $217 package sold for $212. A $5 savings is not much to shout about. However, perhaps the real deal is the ability to have her shipped (presumably) without delay on day one of her debut.

Melody's Rewards Collection includes Melody Doll and Book, Melody's Accessories (hat, purse, glasses, campaign button), Melody's Dog Bo, her Fancy Floral Dress and her Hairstyling Set.

Melody's Fancy Floral Dress looks great in her catalog shoot. Super classy!

Check out Melody's Hairstyling Set! It includes a hair flip extension on a headband with a bow as well as a flower hand corsage.

Best close-up of Melody's hair color and texture. Also we can see she has the pinwheel style iris eyes.

A fabulous hat!

So are you in for a $212 pre-order of Melody's Reward Collection? It looks exiting, but I think I will keep my cash in my pocket for now. (AG Kitchen!)

Holiday 2016 Preview: Sequins and Jazz

More sequins are popping up for this upcoming holiday season at American Girl, this time it looks like a jazz dance ensemble.

The pattern of the sequins on the top remind me of the New York City skyline.

The ensemble looks to include a sleeveless sequined top, black pants, shoes, glittery fingerless gloves and a glittery headband.

This looks like a great jazz ensemble, but as it is more a dance/movement/performance outfit, I don't know if this will be a requested outfit by my poppets unless one of them takes up tap, jazz, or baton twirling.