St. Nicholas is right around the corner!

And I haven't started cleaning and sewing yet! Eek! I have a week though and I think I can do it. Willa picked out a lovely flowered flannel sheet at Goodwill and would like a lovely long nightgown. I would like it to have matching long pants. Nightgowns are pointless for keeping you warm at night, I like flannel pants and wool socks --through the end of April usually.

My plan for St. Nicholas gifts was to bath and mend the waldorf dolls and make them new outfits. I was thinking of a nice bunting like the one in yellow. Willa, oddly enough, prefers something with a long skirt and ruffles. Huh? Who would have guessed. Anyway, I will make them something and the girls will doubtless either like it or get over it.

Our new addition!

Welcome Clyde! This morning Rose's baby brother (contrary to my previous information, apparently they are not twins) arrived. Well, actually, Willa kidnapped him off of my sewing table two days before her birthday and just kept him, but officially, he arrived this morning. He has a comfy red sweatsuit and a blue wool suit (for those more formal days). I picked up a $2 box of fabric at a garage sale which has all of these wonderful little bits of wool fabric. There is an absolutely gorgeous soft brown that I already made some pants for Clyde in and I am going to make a matching jacket for him. Or maybe a vest. I also made him a blue pinstripe shirt out of the remains of my all time favorite men's shirt from my college days. I got it at a garage sale in Olympia and wore it incessantly. It's nice to see it put to good use.

What I'm working on.

So yesterday I used my t-shirt pattern to whip up two more t-shirts! Another one in brown, and a lovely teal (I'm wearing it now and it appears to have something sticky on the back). I also finished topstitching the hem of the lovely Silverlake jacket that I just finished. Yippee!! I can't believe how much I've learned in this year of sewing. The importance of clipping the seam allowances for one thing. The Silverlake jacket has as many as 8 pieces of fabric all clumped together on the bottom hem. If they're not trimmed back it is absolutely impossible for my machine to traverse them. I am also (somewhat tardily) starting on Clyde, the twin brother of Rose, Wilhelmina's Waldorf doll. I realized when I sat down to sew Clyde up on the machine, that I needed to use a zig-zag stitch, because he's made of a knit. That's when it occurred to me that the reason that Rose has blown so many seams is because I made her with a straight stitch --because I'd never sewn knits before. I'm so glad that I know how to do it correctly now. So now here I am, not stitching, but instead I'm carding wool, because I need 10 oz of carded wool to fill Clyde and I only have 4 oz carded so far. I guess I know how I'll be spending my weekend. Only 3 days before Clyde needs to be ready to go, with at least one wearable outfit. And, if at all possible, Rose could really use a bath. There have been way too many camping trips where she ended up face down in the dust.

Flower gets some work done

I never really liked the hair that I put on Primrose's doll, Flower, and I always knew that it would probably have to be replaced with longer hair at some point. A month or two ago someone (just who I do not know, but probably not the cats) unpicked Flower's eyes. I replaced them but my blue selection of embroidery thread was limited and they ended up being a terrifying blue (sorry, I don't have any photos). I decided to redo the eyes again and to tackle the hair problem at the same time. I like this hair quite a bit and the new eyes are fine, a bit paler might have been better. I obviously, (as you can see from the rear view) need to put in more hair, it's a bit thin in spots.

Monkey-Style Crafting

One of my teachers used to watch me as I embarked on yet another new enthusiasm and then he would say "you see, that is the monkey, they pick a peach and take a bite, then they see another peach and grab it and let the first peach drop." Not entirely complimentary, but, on the whole, a very accurate description of me and my enthusiasms.

This is a record of my passing crafting passions. I have quite a back-log of them so I should be able to stay quite busy posting about crafts past and future.

I think I'll start with the Waldorf dolls that I made for my daughters last winter solstice. These became quite an obsession for a while. They are now VERY well dressed. My eldest took hers out for a walk in the stroller and the dolls feet dragged on the wet pavement for blocks, which quickly wore away the toes. Now she has some lovely black linen slippers in place of her feet.

Part of my crafting inadequacy is my lack of interest in measuring very accurately, as you'll notice, some of the clothing isn't quite the right size. I eye-ball stuff a little too frequently.

The green knit dress was actually made for my first daughter before she was born. I never put on any fasteners so she never wore it. It makes a lovely doll dress. The green knit hat was made for my second daughter. She did wear it once or twice. Not more than that. But it makes a lovely doll hat.