Ow, my achin' thumb

I don't know what happened, but I did something awful to my thumb a couple of weeks ago. Fred said it was all the knitting doll clothes. It started by jamming my thumb a few months ago, but something (maybe the knitting) really did a number on it about 2 weeks ago and I was almost in tears it hurt so much. I ended up buying a thumb brace... I hadn't even known such a thing existed until I went looking for something to help. And resting it for a week or so did the trick. It still hurts if I bump it wrong, but at least I can use my hand. The bad thing was that it was my right thumb and I'm right handed. What a pain in the, well, thumb.

But the good thing is that I'm functioning like a reasonably normal person now, and have a couple of dollies, a number of sweaters and quite a few sets of clothing in various stages of completion. Last night when I was working on doll heads, one slipped off my lap and bounced across the carpet. I boomed in my best doomsday, catastrophic sounding voice, "Heads will roll!!!" Fred burst out laughing... turns out he was just about to say the same thing.

Here are a couple of disembodied heads waiting patiently (well really, what choice do they have) for torsos, arms, and the works.

Sailing away in a shoe box

Have you seen the Priority Mail Shoe boxes? I didn't realize there was such a size. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself. Someone bought Lily! Yippee! You can't see it, but I'm doing a happy dance right now... or more of a happy fanny wiggle, since I'm sitting in an office chair. Today I went to send her to sunny CA where her new family is and wasn't sure what box to put her in. I didn't really want to pay for one of the large Priority boxes, but wasn't going to smash her into one of the boxes that's only 3 1/2 inches deep. Owie nose! I asked the postmaster if I could try various boxes to see what would work best and he showed me this perfect one. Well, it's slightly shorter than she is, so she is hugging her knees a little. But overall, I think she'll be quite comfortable on her trip. She's in a sweet little drawstring bag I made (which happens to match her cute, ruffly pants), so that will keep her cozy, too. I'm sad though, because I meant to take a picture of her bon voyage at the Post Office, but then I totally spaced it. Imagine that.

So just in case you haven't seen these groovy boxes, just perfect for a lovely new dolly, here's a pic. Not nearly as cute as Lily in her darling pink bag but maybe it'll help you out when you're looking for just the right box. Oh, and it was just $7.95 to send (if you don't get insurance and tracking like I did). Bonus!

Lily

Can I introduce you to my newest little Darling? I'm so thrilled with the sweet personality that this newest little one seems to have. She is absolutely charming everyone she meets! She had great fun at her photo shoot with Princess Sydney. Now I must explain that I'm not the greatest photographer in the world, but we did luck into some very pretty sunlight streaming through the trees and I think their photos turned out just lovely.

I've put Lily on Etsy, in case you're interested in welcoming her to your house for tea parties and sleepovers.A couple of closeups...
And her cute dress and pants...
I knit her sweater and crocheted her cloche and shoes of matching wool, and sewed her little cotton dress, pants and undies (not shown, for modesty :) ).

And I love how my new Etsy banner turned out, so I thought I'd show it off, too...

Dolly siblings

Spencer was so cute loving on my first doll, I just had to make him one of his own. I finished "baby" (that's as original a name as he has come up with... not bad for only 23 months old, I guess) last week, but for awhile all he had was a hat. I figured some modesty was in order, so today I sewed him some clothes. What a pain in the patooty! Serging and doing a coverstitch (on my regular sewing machine) in those skinny little arms surely tested my patience. And while I was mumbling under my breath about how tiny they were, it turned out to be big and baggy on Baby. Oh well, it's his style, I guess, and goes with the baggy jeans I made him. Baby's hat is sewn on, which seemed like the best idea for Spencer. I really love his hair peeking out from under it.


It's really cute to see Spencer hugging and kissing his doll, making Daddy hug the doll and pointing out various body parts (but no, it's not anatomically correct, haha).

Since he had his first photo shoot today, I figured he needed some with his "big sister." So here's the two of them together...
And a closeup of the two cuties...She just didn't want to look at the camera.

I'm in love

It's been awhile coming on. And honestly, you might think I was a bit old for this kind of love affair. I stumbled onto Waldorf dolls years ago, thinking they were darling but not putting much more thought into it. About a year ago, I found them again and fell madly in love. I started following doll makers on FB, hearting them on Etsy and reading everything I could find about making them. Supplies aren't exactly inexpensive, though. They're made with all natural supplies, lovely cotton skin, beautiful wool inside, wonderful wool yarn for hair. I bought a book a couple of months ago, Making Waldorf Dolls, and read through it a couple of times.

My favorite dolls are the larger limbed ones. Each doll maker does them a little differently, but they have similar aspects to them. Sage has latched onto my new little obsession and wanted to make one, too. So we decided to make this part of her schooling... feed the obsession, learn some skills, win-win situation. We bought enough for both of us to make dolls, and a little left over. I thought I might want to make more than one (yeah, I was right). I've been working on this little darling on and off for a couple of weeks. I've taken it slow, wanting to get it right. I also made a few mistakes and took things out. And when I was at the kids swim lessons or my fingers were tired from tiny needles, I'd grab my knitting needles and have made 3 or 4 doll sweaters.

***Little aside here, wool yarn is NOT cheap. I found some fun stuff on clearance at fabric.com, but needed more. Have I mentioned that this might be turning into a slight obsession? So I went to Goodwill and found 4 or 5 wool sweaters which I've been taking apart. Bonus! The day I went all sweaters were 50% off. So I paid about $15 for probably $200 worth of yarn or more. It is a bit of a sneezy, eye-itching job to take them apart, but I figure it's well worth my time.***

As I've been working on her, Spencer has fallen in love, too. He hugs her and kisses her, it's pretty adorable. He's not as thrilled with her now that she has long hair, though. I'm thinking I need to make him a little boy version. And Sabrina is completely smitten with my sweet dolly, she carried her around all day yesterday.

I finally finished her. She's not perfect, I'm not exactly thrilled with her neck and her arms are a little on the long side. But then again, she has personality and she gives really good hugs. She has a sweet little sweater I knit mostly from this sweet pattern, and a frilly little skirt I just made up. She could use a blouse under the sweater and maybe some undies and shoes. But I couldn't wait to take her on a little photo shoot! After all that, you wanna see? I know you do! Here you go...

Tada! (She does still need a name. Any suggestions? Fred calls her Hippy Baby because she has pink hair.)And in case you wondered, dolly #2 is well underway... with a head made, face embroidered, and arms, belly and legs sewn and stuffed. Now I just need to put it together and decide if it'll be a boy or girl baby.

I'm awesome, Leah says so!

After I decided to quit designing, I was looking forward to being on Inspiration Lane's site CT. But Jen decided to close up shop suddenly, and I suddenly had no digi "home" so to speak. I started doing challenges at Catscrap and SugarHill Co. (a fairly new-to-me shop with some fabulous designers). Then a couple of weeks ago I was super excited to see that Leah Riordan was designing there and was forming a new CT. She took a break from designing and is back again. I have liked her designs forever! This cute LO I did 4 years ago was with a super cute kit from her (don't laugh at my shadowing or anything, it was FOUR years ago)...

So anyway, OF COURSE I applied to her call. And YIPPEE, she picked me!!! One of the basic requirements, in addition to that normal stuff of scrapping pages with her fabulous designs, is to daily recite the mantra, I am awesome. So there, one thing to check off on my daily to-do list. I'm awesome, Leah says so.


Here's my first LO with her rockin' , new kit Rockabilly,



about my equally awesome sweetheart...

Yay for challenges!

I'm having a ball with scrapbooking again! But sometimes it helps to have an incentive. When I was on a CT or two, I'd have the kits or templates to push me to scrap. I don't have that right now, so I'm playing with challenges from a couple of sites. I discovered a fun shop I wasn't really familiar with, Sugarhill Co. and they have some fun challenges and a great point system where you can earn $ to their shop. Plus, they had a Valentine's scavenger hunt with a great kit, that I was able to use to get started... then of course I bought a couple of darling kits, too. I also really like the challenges and wonderful designers at Catscrap. A couple of LOs I posted before were from those challenges. Here's the couple I've done most recently...