Goodbye 2021, bring on 2022!

 We've reached the end of the year again, which means it's usually time for my year in review/recap type posts, but honestly, I hardly remember half the things that went on this year, aside from ABBA's glorious return, of course. xD  

As usual, during today's pandemic filled world, it's been a wacky year.  Plans get canceled, things don't end up happening, etc.  And you can imagine my year certainly started out pretty badly when YouTube took down my channel LITERALLY a couple of days before my YouTube channel's anniversary. :(  But I didn't let that get to me all that much.  Of course it's disappointing, but it's just a YouTube channel, right?  Now, I have a second channel, that I'm being very cautions about uploading on, but it's been fun slowly getting back into that. :)

I've always been a very introverted, somewhat unmotivated person.  I've become the type of person who just wants to spend every waking moment with my bird, Skyler, and never leave the house, like ever, haha, and honestly, this year I didn't get much done in regards to creative things.  I didn't do much digital drawings, I did a couple of physical drawings, mostly just commissions and nothing on my own, and my sewing projects had been very sporadic.  But I am proud of what I achieved, the few things that they were.  

For 2022, I want to get back onto the creative horse, and I already have a few things in mind.  One of which is remaking my Waterloo costumes for my dolls, as you can probably tell from my previous post.  I'm just really excited to do more doll costumes that surely won't be as complicated as the Voyage costumes haha.  And there's something just super thrilling about making the outfits in accurate fabrics. :')

Then, I have some thing planned that I've actually been planning since earlier this year, and worked on a little bit, but simply didn't have the motivation to continue.  I don't want to give away too much, especially since I have this fear of people stealing my ideas and things, but let's just say that my book, The Story of ABBA for Young Readers is now inaccurate seeing as ABBA did in fact get back together, and I have to do something about that.  And, well, once a perfectionist, always a perfectionist, so....  I hope you can see where I'm going with this. xD  My drawings have improved a lot over the years, so I knew this would have to happen eventually.  To clarify, I'm not doing whole new drawings, I'm just converting the older ones to digital, plus adding something for Voyage.  And this gives me the chance to fix up simple things, like proportions or facial expressions I didn't quite like,  And then while I'm at it, I may or may not have a coloring book in mind as well... :)

 No promises as to when these projects are going to see the light of day, but it is something I hope to actively start working on this coming year,  Wish me luck. xD

And with that, I want to wish you all a happy 2022, and let's hope 2022 will be even better!

-Becky/ABBAFan456

Bjorn's pants...

 So I've been doing research for *one* of my next sewing projects (yes I've made these outfits before and yes I'm making them yet again), and as I was looking through pictures of ABBA's Waterloo costumes, I noticed something interesting about that time ABBA performed wearing those costumes once again in 1981.

At first glance, the biggest differences are Agnetha's pants, as she's wearing a stretchy blue pants instead of her satiny blue ones from 1974, Benny's jeans, as he didn't wear jeans with his costume, rather he wore black satin pants like the rest of them, and also Bjorn's boots, as he's wearing his boots from late 1974 to 1975 instead of his Waterloo boots.  The only member to be wearing their complete outfit is Frida.  

But then I noticed Bjorn's pants.  What pants is he wearing in 1981?  See, his 1974 pants have a silver trim in this like spiky shape, whereas his pants in 1981 just have a little silver trim on the bottom.  That's when I realized, he's actually wearing his pants backwards.  xD  See photos below:

 The front of his pants with the spiky design:

And if you look closely, you can see that they dip down as they get to the back, meaning:

This is what the back of his trousers look like: 

So really both Bjorn and Frida have their complete outfits (minus Bjorn's boots of course).  Anyways, this was just a random thought.  At least now I have a reference photo for what the back looks like when I get around to making them *again* for my dolls. xD

ABBA Voyage costumes

 

Yep, I did it,  I made these outfits for my dolls. And it was a nightmare,  More detailed post here: https://amazing-sewing.blogspot.com/2021/12/abba-voyage-costumes.html 

And a video:

Happy 75th birthday, Benny!!

 Wishing a happy 75th birthday to the one and only Benny Andersson, 1/2 of ABBA's songwriting duo and piano player extraordinaire! Thank you for the music!! ❤️🎉

 

Happy 10th birthday, Benny Anderdoll

 10 years ago today I finished making my homemade Benny doll. :)  

Apologies for how chaotic the background of this photo looks.  My dolls are all currently living in my sewing section in the basement since I've been working on this project that has been totally kicking my butt, but as of yesterday I've finally made positive progress on it! :D