I've moved on to dolls

I shifted my crafting focus this week from dresses to dolls and made up a sweet little maiden for my ETSY shop. It's the third time I have used felting needles for attatching the hair and I am pleased with the result. I made her in the style of the nature table dolls I had been making, but made her taller and not based on a flower. She came out nice but I was a little nervous about posting her. She's not a doll for a young chile and an older child might miss the fun of changing her (her clothes are her body) so I don't know if she will sell. But I simply sat down without a plan and made her as I guess she wanted to be made. It was fun and in the end that is the point for me.

Then I got so inspired by how nice my maiden looked that I decided to go with my fantasy impulses and make a mermaid. She was a little tricky and had some design challenges and I am not going to be selling her because of them. I am going to try again and make her a sister to list on my shop. My daughter is loving her "fishy-lady" and I feel the usual satisfaction I feel when I have worked my way through some problems.

Fun stuff

I recently purchased 2 mixed lots of vintage trim and bias tapes on EBay. I got the first one the other day and had a blast pouring though it. A bunch of the stuff I won't use (like 20 packages of iron on hem tape in various colors) and I might eBay it or offer it to someone who wants it (comment if you do). The funniest part about the whole thing was I received it at work, I am a nanny to 2 boys aged 7&10, and the boys were so interested I let them paw through it too. They ended up organizing it and spent almost an hour categorizing and bundling it, one color coordinated and one bundled by type. It was a largely useless exercise as my daughter undid the whole thing when we got home and she had her turn. They had a blast and kept commenting on how fun it was. Now if the other package would just get here! My stepson even messed around with it a bit.

I have been playing with it some and made a few dresses with it but my favorite by far is the one I made tonight. I got a huge roll of (get this) 1.5 inch wide AVOCADO lace. Now there aren't too many thing you can do with avocado lace but I thought I should try seeing as I have a TON of it. I ended up finding the perfect fabric to match it and voila, a lovely dress. Now the only problem is that my daughter doesn't look all that good in green... lol.

I have also decided that I need to get me a book or two on pattern making. I love making the pillow-case dresses and the 2 styles of rompers I make, but I feel like I should know more. So I requested a ton of books from the library and hopefully soon I'll be armed with a little more knowledge when I set about creating and will waste a little less fabric on the prototypes. At the least I'll be inspired.

Not as good as I wanted....

I recently lucked into a copy of a wonderful book called "Baby Dolls and their Clothes" by Valeria Ferrari. I originally got this book out of the library, fell in love with it's enchanting dolls and went to buy a copy for myself only to find that it was out of print. The cheapest I could find it on Amazon and half.com for a long time was around 70$. I was disappointed because I really liked it but there was NO way I was spending 70.00 on it. One day I happened to randomly type it in on EBay and found it on auction. I ended up getting it for 2.00 and the total with shipping was around 8.00, I was soooo excited. I poured though again and made plans. I finally sat down tonight to make a doll and what I had noticed before became very obvious as I worked. There were few directions and a lot of the technique had to be guessed. I tried making this cute little crawling baby tonight and while it is cute and does resemble the original doll it leaves a lot to be desired. I'd like to chalk it up to it being my first time with the doll, but I really do think it has a lot to do with the fact that there were 3 steps listed in the directions.... 3. I had to guess how she accomplished some of the stuff she didn't explain and I am ok with the results. Not ok enough to post a picture, lol. I am sure my lovely daughter will LOVE it and that in the end is what matters. I have also been making a TON of little "wood and felt Forest folk" for my shop and loving it. They are a lot of fun to make and I have a fun time creating their costumes as I go along. There is no planning, I pick a few colors and just see what happens. So far the yellow and green set are my favorites. My daughter has been requesting a set. I made her some before I had gotten my really nice felt, a bunch with the cheesy acrylic craft felt and decided she deserved some nicer ones. I have 2 out of four done and she is pleased. I can't wait to let her play with them in the morning when the glue is dry.

I sold something!!!!!!

So I woke up this morning to an email that tells me I sold something!!! It was my least favorite of the dresses, the blue one! I have it all bundled and ready to ship in the AM. I am so excited!!! I have already spent the proceeds (lol) on some more supplies for more things to sell but that's sort of what it's for. I made some cute little woodland folk and posted them too. We'll see how they sell, but they are cute and Arrianna is already begging me for them, that's going to be the hard part. But yay!!!

A wonderful day and now I have a Shop!!

I spent the morning this morning picking organic strawberries at an orchard near where I grew up, actually it was the orchard I went to in kindergarten (1979!!!) to pick apples at. It was a lot of fun and my lovely Daughter had a blast. They had gorgeous strawberries and it was a lovely 3/4 of a mile walk to get there and we got to see all the lovely peach, pear and apple trees with their tiny, yet recognizable fruit. It was so fun to show them too her and talk about the seasons of growing things. I know a lot of it went over her head, but she is excited about coming back and was soooo careful about touching their "baby fruit". It inspired me to finally get around to making another "flower child" for my nature table. I am so going to make a strawberry boy and or girl! I might even make one for my shop, speaking of which.....

Tonight I FINALLY began to upload some of the things I have made for sale on my shop!!! I am excited and nervous at the same time. I love making things and am hoping this helps me to fund more of my crafts. The more I poke around the etsy site (which is where my shop is located)the more I worry that no one will look at my store, some of the stuff for sale there is AMAZING. It is fun to poke around though as I always see something that inspires me, I look at blogs for the same reason. So now I am off to upload more things and then to start my little fruit children.

Here is the link to my shop in case you were curious, let me know what you think, I am a little nervous about it. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5202116

Mistakes

I cut out 3 pairs of pants the other day, got lazy and stacked the fabric. This is an efficient way to cut out patterns for me and I do it often. However by the time I got to the second pair I had bought new fabric and wanted to experiment. But I plowed through and finished, they came out cute and are awaiting snaps.

Excited that I could now move on I whipped up a sweet pillowcase style dress (LOVE making these) in the cutest white fabric with musical notes all over it. I made it with black straps and am having a hard time not giving it to my Daughter as I made it to sell. Happily I moved onto the other fabric I got, really cute pirate print on a taupe background. This is where the mistake comes in. I cut the armholes upside-down. I was hot and distracted and stopped paying attention even though I had reminded myself when I sat down to pay attention when I cut the armholes. grrr, so I put it away for a little not wanting to face the fact that I had ruined 2/3 of a yard of fabric.

I eventually came back to it not wanting to admit defeat and I ended up sewing what I had cut away from the end to even up where the armholes had been into a long ruffle and sewed that onto the bottom and proceeded. It came out LOVELY! I am so pleased with it, the ruffles adds just the sweetest touch and because I know there are mistakes in it I don't feel right selling it and now I can happily give it to my daughter guilt free!!! I am so pleased with how it came out that I am starting a ruffled dress with the cutest orange fabric dotted with 2 inch long chili peppers! Generally I am not a fan of ruffles, I find them annoying to make but the effect is so nice I might even get over that.

New Dress

I was on my own tonight so I thought I'd play around with some cute patriotic fabric I bought. I dug through my sewing box, found some big red rickrack and some double fold binding tape in the same shade of red and set to sewing. This was my end result! So cute!! I was thinking of either selling it on my "one of these days ESTY shop" or giving it to my daughter. This is why I never have anything to sell in this "mythical shop" as well as why my daughter has too many clothes. I am quite happy with it. It's made in the style of a "pillow-case dress" but with a modified neck. I have always seen them with a draw-string kind of neck gathering and that always made me nervous, this way is much better. Now mind you I have actually made one of these out of an actual pillow case but have made more of them out of fabric. This one might be my favorite yet. I love the ruffles along the neck and the blue is actually a bit darker than in the picture. I love dressing my little girl in baggy old-fashioned kinds of dresses, the loose comfortable clothes that allow her to be cool in the summer and let her look her age all year. Everytime she's worn one of these she gets LOADS of compliments and everyone always says, "wish I had one of those" and I always think to my self, on her it's cute and a pillow case dress, on a grownup... it's a muumuu! Let me know what you think.

Ramblings on my makings

Currently I am making a sweet white smocked sweater for my little darling as well as sewing up some sweet overalls from a pattern I made up hoping to open an esty shop one of these days. I made up the pattern because my little sweetie is gifted in the tushie department and she wears cloth diapers (some of which I made her myself) which adds to the girth of her bottom. A lot of the clothing I was finding for her was either too tight across the bottom or too grown up for my tastes. So I started making her some clothes to suit her frame and my tastes. I finally finished tailoring a pattern of overalls for her! Now however I am enjoying whipping up the clothing so much that the poor girl has too many clothes still I feel the itch to sew, hence my plans for a shop.

I also have been known to whip up a few gnomes and fairy's waldorf-style and already the poor child has a basket of little people and creatures that's overflowing. She has a whole bunch of Sally Mavor's "Wee felt folk" http://www.weefolkstudio.com/ as well as a few miscellaneous knitted and felt animals. I have some wonderful Waldorf style toy making books that I find endlessly fascinating as well as inspirational and I am sure I will be making something from them soon. The above picture is of the "daffodil child" and "mother nature" dolls that live on my seasonal table. They were fun to make and as soon as my tubular stockinette arrives I will be making more "flower" children to join them.

I have been slowly stocking up my craft supplies recently because nothing annoys me more than not having the materials I need on hand. I like to be able to make what I want when the mood strikes me, some days I sew, some days I knit and some days I make dolls. I love that my little daughter watches me make these things, watches them come together in my hands. I love that when she gets a gift she assumes that whoever gave it to her made it because so much of what she gets from me "mommy make?"

A beginning

I stumbled upon a homeschooling/waldorf blog some time ago (http://theherbalway.blogspot.com/) I think I was looking for inspiration for my seasonal table at the time. I was fascinated by the things I read and followed a few of the blog links on the side and discovered the wonders of craft blogs. After reading them for some time and very occasionally and shyly commenting I thought I might start my own as a way to encourage myself.
I am a knitter and I sew quite a bit though I am largely self taught in both. I am prone to just picking something up and winging it. I started making various dolls since my daughters birth 2 years ago and my crowning achievement was making "Baby Marie" for my Daughter for Yule this past year. I also make my daughters diapers since cloth diapering can be cost prohibitive when you start out. Making diapers for her launched me into making her clothes because I was having difficulty finding some styles of clothing that would fit her bottom while clad in cloth diapers. Now between the dolls I make her, the clothes I sew her and not to mention the sweaters and dresses I knit her she's got more that she needs lol. But still I just can't seem to stop making things.

Currently I am knitting her a lovely cream colored smock style sweater with some sweet cabling and some seedstitch framed diamonds that will eventually have flowers embroidered on them. It's a lovely, girly sweater and as it's knit on size 3 needles it will take me a while which is why I am making it a size larger than she wears now so she will certainly get a lot of wear out of it. I'll post pictures as I finish it. Above is a picture of her on mother's day this year wearing an orange dress I made her in a cotton modal blend yarn, orange is her favorite color.