Wednesday 30 April 2014

Playing With Barbie

What a glorious day we had yesterday - gorgeous sunshine and lovely and hot.

I soon got bored with gardening and so turned my attention to Barbie!

I'm sure I'm not alone in hoarding stuff.  We are reaching the point were we almost have as much stuff in the loft as in the rest of the house.  Obviously all the girls' toys are up there, including a large box and a large bag full of Barbie dolls, Barbie clothes and Barbie accessories.  This was put away when the girls no longer played with them.  Both my daughters are out of her teens and the Barbie collection has not been touched for a very long time.  So I decided to sort through, throw out the broken, ripped and battered and then put the rest into careful storage, maybe for some future generation to play with, but if not at some point they will reach the stage of being antique!

So I laid out some cloths on the patio and tipped it all out.



And started sorting.

Most of the clothes were in reasonable condition, not too much needing a wash.


Barbie will never be short of a hair brush...


...or shoes.


Even gold ones.


Sadly there was only one of these boots, so no retro 70s outfit for Barbie.


Barbie shouldn't have any problems with transport.  The jeep is looking good...


As it Barbie's horse...


...and toboggan.


Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much left of the bicycle!


The dog is looking in need of some grooming.


And now to the dolls themselves.  We have 'spare parts' Barbie!


Three fake Barbies.


Three Ken's and two Action men.  Check out those muscles.


Several small relatives.


Mulan.


Pocahontas (more on her dress later).


Two posh Barbies - the type whose clothes don't come off.


And many others whose names I have forgotten (I think one of them is Rapunzel Barbie), including a pregnant Barbie and a weird one with purple hair.


Many of them are having bad hair days - so attention needed.

I have discovered a Swedish website that has over a 1000 knitting patterns for clothes for Barbie.  It's wonderful and they are all free.  The site is called Sticka till Barbie.  The patterns are available in English, German, Swedish, Danish, Dutch, French, Italian, Norwegian, Russian and Spanish - wow!

So far I've made the dress for Pocahontas, as seen above, and this lovely little ensemble.


There will be more.  The Barbie dolls may not make it back into storage - I'm having far too much fun playing with them.

4 comments:

  1. My daughter never had a Barbie, didn't realise there was so many different ones. She had a Cindy and a Pippa. Pippa was a bit too small for asking clothes for but Cindy had some lovely outfits that I knitted. Can't remember what happened to them, maybe sold at a school fete.

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  2. So much fun!!! What a great way to spend a day (or several!). =)

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  3. When I was at college learning to be a teaching assistant our lecturer handed out a Barbie dress knitting pattern, and told us we were going to be given needles and wool and have to knit it. We then had to say how we felt. The idea was to see what children feel like if asked to do something beyond their ability. We didn't have to knit the dress in the end, it was just an exercise. I took the pattern home and made it for my daughter, a bit disappointed as I had been looking forward to a bit of showing off.

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  4. Yes, I'm always fascinated by Barbies too. My favourites are two I bought at a local brocante, with hand-knitted dresses - although THAT pattern is not on Sticka till Barbie's page.

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