Must be funny in a rich man's world...

 First ABBA costumes of the year!  Yay!  

 I've always had quite a fondness for these costumes that ABBA wore from mid to late 1976 sort of inspired by the style of 1920s flapper dresses.  I liked these costumes so much that I first attempted to make them for my dolls almost exactly10 years ago, in May of 2013.  Of course my sewing skills were pretty much garbage at the time, but I had good concepts, and I redid my new versions using similar methods.  

Before we take a look at my first versions of these costumes, I just wanted to mention that this project got really delayed due to my dear budgie, Skyler's declining health the last two months, and ultimately his passing away on March 1st.  Skyler Bird was the love of my life, my sweet companion who loved to sit on my shoulder while I worked on my hobbies.  Almost all the doll costumes that I've made these last two and a half years were done with him sitting on my shoulder, (of course I never painted or glued anything when he was with me- bird safety always comes first) at least when he felt like staying with me.  Sometimes he'd fly away and insist I take a break, which I always did.  He was the absolute best bird you could ever have, and I miss him so, so much.  Thank you Skyler, for being my companion and best birdy friend these last two and a half years.  I wish we had longer.

On to my first doll costumes from 10 years ago, they're honestly not all that terrible, like I get what I was going for.  Agnetha and Frida's dresses were made out of tiered pieces of cotton from Walmart, the straps were made of beads strung across pieces of satin ribbon, and I got craft feathers specifically for this project.  I still have those craft feathers, and all the excess white and black beads, which is pretty cool.  Because I didn't have any striped black or white fabric, I pieced together panels of black and white cotton for the boys' vests.  I did not do a good job at that, there was no seam allowance and the stripes were always splitting apart, not to mention they weren't cut straight, haha, but it was a clever idea. 

In December, just three months ago, I began working on making my new and improved versions of these costumes.  I had been slowly gathering fabric and supplies for this project all of last year, and finally got around to starting it in December.  This time I used actual tassles for Agnetha and Frida's dresses, and for the feathers in their headbands, I had a bit of a dilemma....

Over the years I've bought a few different craft feathers in a variety of colors and sizes, and I was under the impression that craft feathers were not real feathers, that they're faux feathers made of out something that wasn't actual feathers plucked or dropped from birds.  Now birds do naturally molt out their feathers every couple of months or a couple of times a year depending on the type of bird.  While Agnetha and Frida's actual feathers appear to be peacock feathers, I wasn't gonna try and source that since it's really expensive and I oddly couldn't find any faux peacock feathers.  So I decided to delve into the history of craft feathers, find out if they're real or not, and well, learned the unpleasant reality that the majority of these craft feathers come from the cruelties in the food and meat industry.  While some may be left over after the birds are killed for food, a lot of them are specifically plucked from the bird, while the bird is still alive, which is just so cruel!

 From this point onward I will not be buying any more feathers unless the feathers are known to be from true, cruelty-free sources, but the question arises of what to do with the feathers I already have.  Is it wrong if I use them for future projects since I already have them, or should I just not touch them anymore?  I don't know the answer, and I can't say I won't be using them for future projects, but I know I won't be buying anymore.

So what did I use for my dolls' headbands this time around?  I was thinking of maybe making my own feathers out of felt or something, but I ultimately found the perfect solution - Skyler's feathers.  At the time that I made these headbands, he was still alive, which is why I didn't mind taking from my stash of naturally molted, 100% cruelty-free feathers that I had collected over the years with Skyler.  I found two of his flight feathers that were the perfect size for my dolls, colored one black using a sharpie marker, and sewed them into place, and now I get to feel good that absolutely no birds were hurt or harmed for these costumes. 

Anyways, without further ado, here are the complete costumes:

For Agnetha and Frida's dresses, I made the slip out of satin, and sewed on the fringes in three different layers, getting that tiered effect that their dresses have. 

I glued on the little gem stones (that are actually just some nail art supplies that I wasn't planning on using) individually onto the headband that attaches to itself with velcro for easy removal, and I bought these little brooches that looked similar enough to the jewels on Agnetha and Frida's actual headbands, gluing them on with a very strong jewelry glue.  There's also a small piece of the tassle on the headband as well.

I attached all the beads by hand using thread.  They're not the strongest, so I have to remember to be as careful as possible when putting my dolls into these dresses.

A closer look at Frida's headband:

And the back of Frida's dress.  I find it to be so interesting how Agnetha and Frida's dresses are almost identical, but they have variations in the straps, keeping the dresses similar enough with stubtle differences between them.

For Bjorn and Benny's outfits, I made their shirts out of white cotton, and sewed the vests out of panels of black and white satin, attaching them together with a decent seam allowance, and with a lining inside to keep them as secure as possible.  I used a silver rick-rack for the collars.  They're not 100% accurate to the actual trim on top of their collar, but luckily it can always be swapped out should I ever get my hands on a more accurate looking silver trim.  For now this'll do.

For these arm bands, I just took strips of black satin, used the same fancy shmancy buttons I used for the vests for the crystal thingies, and have them attached with velcro.

I put in a lot of work to make the sleeves all nice and puffy, and I even made my own cuff-links using wire to attach the buttons together.

And the back of each vest has a little dart and a band in the back that you should pretend has a belt buckle across it.  I just couldn't be bothered to made one out of wire and have my dad solder it like he has done for my other costumes.

And that's pretty much it. I hope to get to work on more doll costumes and just sewing in general this year, but I have to admit that sewing kind of makes me sad right now because it makes me think of Skyler.  Honestly everything reminds me of Skyler since we legit did everything together.  It will take time, but I hope I'll be able to do more sewing soon.  :)