What's Behind Door #8? A Christmas Surprise!

Welcome to the next installment in our Christmas Advent Calendar unboxing! 

Today is Day Eight!

I'm a little on edge this morning. We're getting threatened with some winter weather, our first for the season. We're not supposed to get a lot but around here a little is a big deal. We're also supposed to get some on Saturday, which is the date of the Holiday Party for my doll club. Depending on the conditions of the roads I may not be going. We live an hour and a half away from where the meeting is and the roads might be icy. Since it's the holiday party I have to leave pretty early so there's not a lot of time for things to warm up after the overnight lows. This kind of weather wouldn't have been much of a concern up in Connecticut, but down here they don't treat the roads at all (unless with a brine sometimes), so it's more dangerous to be out and about during winter weather. I'm hoping if the roads are iffy they'll cancel the meeting and move it to a different day, but if the roads are bad I'm just not going. It's not worth the risk to me.

Anyway, we find our day 8 chocolate door just below our day 4 door (Santa's arm):

This door doesn't have any part of Santa on it, but does have his sack full of presents. Most of the door is covered by this girl in a weird pose. She has a pile of presents in front of her, but she's staring directly ahead of her and paying them no mind. I do not understand this girl, there isn't even anything over there for her to be looking at!

I pop open the door and find....

A shooting star!

The drawn image on the inside of the calendar is a little fancier with more little stars around the main star, but the chocolate is just the main star. Unlike the past few doors this one is only a little bit below the bottom of the door so it was easier to get out.


Barbie's day eight door is in the almost center of the box (if you don't include the door that contained the doll. It's on the ballerina doll, I know she's the largest image but it's been surprising how many of the door so far have been under that illustration.

Anyway, we peel back the door to reveal:

A pink dress!

A very wrinkled pink dress.

I guess we are done with the ice skating outfit and are starting a brand new outfit. I put the dress on a Barbie body I'm Frankensteining from several different dolls because I wanted to see how it fit on the belly button body, also I had it handy and didn't feel like undressing the doll that came with the set.

Like with the tiara, I was looking forward to this dress, but it kind of falls flat. It's a simple sheath dress made from a pink jersey knit material. I was concerned it was going to be that terrible polyester Mattel's been using for everything but it's a really nice soft jersey knit fabric. However my issues lie with the construction and sewing. The neckline of this dress is very usual. It looks like it has a normal neckline, but it actually has an elastic thread sewn on the inside to gather it (I think it's shirred), and I assume give it more stretch when putting it on the doll since there's no opening in the back for dressing and undressing. This technique gives it a kind of lumpy neckline in places

It's also very unfitted. The dress is very large in most places especially around the doll's hips. Ironically it's more fitted in the bust and shows off the outline of the doll's bust joint. The hips would be even looser on the doll that came with the set since the belly button body has more pronounced hips. I assume they used a pattern that can be shared with the curvy body since that's what Mattel does these days. Instead of making a fitted outfit for the different body types they use stretchy materials and make it slightly tight on the curvy bodies and rather baggy on the smaller bodies. I'm just surprised since the bodysuit was so fitted but this dress is so loose.

My dress also has some sewing errors. There's a couple places where the stitches are wonky, but the worst issues are at the shoulders. The right shoulder seam near the neck is very uneven and the two pieces that make up the front and back don't connect properly. I haven't tested it, but I wouldn't be surprised if that seam might be weak and start to come undone with use. Also, one shoulder strap is much wider than the other one. Since I do sew and have some experiences with knits, I could fix most of these issues, however I'd basically have to take apart the entire dress to do that. That seems like a lot of work for a dress that I could just make for less work. It's a nice fabric, but it's just t-shirt material and that color isn't that hard to find at a thrift store. I don't plan on remaking this dress but I do have that option if I so choose. I might just fix that shoulder seam and hold onto it in case I ever find that curvy MTM doll. I've bought lots of Curvy and Tall dolls, but usually I resell them and keep parts of their outfits. I do like the body shape, but I need articulation!

But that's enough rambling for today. Join me tomorrow for day 9!