Loving these Spring Days

Goodness! it has been gorgeous outside. Beautiful blue skies and white clouds and the sun shining softly.

Some of the garden is in. Potatoes, spinach, peas, broccoli, onions etc. The spring stuff. Although, I'm not sure I should say we have spinach. I bought some spinach seed from an heirloom seed place and once again the seed did not come up! I'm about to give up on heirloom seed or at least their heirloom seed.

I've been indoors more than out though. Keeping laundry going, feeding the family, doing school and working on dolls as I can.

2 new dolls are sitting in the shop. Hopefully someone will claim them soon.


This little red is Kelly Jean. I am loving her red curls. Embroidered on her cardigan is a paraphrase from 1 Corinthians 13 "Love hopes all things." There are wool felt hearts stitched on the other side.


Wrennie was a lot of fun to make. I saw her in my mind and she is one of the rare dolls that I saw in my mind and out she came looking like what I was seeing.

Her dress is knit from soft Malabrigo yarn.

I hope all my blogging friends are doing well. :)

Livie Sews

Livia has been on a sewing kick lately. Daily she has been asking to make something for her dolls.
So far she has made the pink shirt that Esther is seen wearing. Both skirts seen in the pictures and a pair of pants for her dolls.

Its easy to see that her seems are getting straighter and she is able to take care of little glitches that come up with her sewing machine.

Spring Spring Spring

Spring is here!
The trees are budding.
Grass is growing and looking fresh and green.
My peach trees are beautiful with their pink blossoms.
I've had the pleasure of being woke up to the joyful sound of birds singing. I've lingered in bed a few mornings to listen and interpret what the sing song chirps and trills are saying.

I found myself humming this this song this morning.
Spring, Spring, Spring from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.



We have raked and raked the yard. Burned and hauled off leaves. The garden is plowed. There are 50lbs of seed potatoes, 2lbs of onions, spinach, pea etc waiting for the rain to go away and the garden to dry out, for planting.

I've been working on a few new dolls. The birds and their singing have inspired me.

Blogging Hiatus

I haven't really meant to not blog. I've had blog ideas rolling in my head.

Lately though, there are so many other things that seem more important than dolls and doll clothes.

Posting on my blog about dolls seems insignificant.

There are children to love, feed, wash and scrap mud off of. Heavy on the love, feed, wash and scrap mud off of. Somewhere in there the 3 r's should be observed and taugh.

There is church and all that goes with loving a church family, which sometimes means just showing up.

People are hurting, having financial troubles, sick and having babies.

I have a lot to say but I'm not so good at saying it. I write it out and then it seems too personal.

I hope all my blogging friends are doing well.

Love to you all.

Dana

I made a new doll....

A really new doll.
 I got out my freezer paper and worked out a new design for my dolls. Some of the pattern is based on the critique, some on a doll buyers input and some on myself and changes I've wanted to incorporate into my design.


I took my time with this dolly. I could see her in my head and she just kept coming together, and when finished...she really looked nothing like the picture in my head but she very much fits the impressions and feelings I had in my head while I was dreaming about her. She has been over 3 weeks in the making. There for awhile I thought about not making dolls any more, but I say that this doll has revived me. I think that is why I named her Ember.

One change I had been wanting to make on my doll pattern is longer, huggy (read curved) arms. I also wanted the arms to be more "floppy." It seems to me that a doll with more floppy arms and dangly legs, make for a more playful doll. I also lengthened my dolls legs just a bit and slimmed out her shoulders.
When I started to put Ember together, on a whim, I decided to try my hand at making a nose. I've always been mildly resistant to putting a nose on my dolls because I REALLY like the simple faces of Waldorf style dolls. It seemed right to give her a nose...new pattern, new thoughts on doll making...new face :)

Her hair is made out of a thick boucle yarn with a bit of a twist...haha, I wound the boucle on knitting needles, wet it down and put it in the oven at a low temp to let the heat set the curl. Boucle alone gives a curly look to a dolly's hair but wrapping it gave it just the right touch. I can't really take credit for the idea though. I've been helping a friend from church make a doll. She has some of this thick boucle too and was trying to figure out a way to make the ends of her dolls hair with a softer look instead of a blunt cut. She wondered about wrapping the hair the way I do and my mind went into overdrive fast. It had never occurred to me to wrap boucle...but what a lovely look it gave her hair.



It was then just a matter of making her clothes. Love Love Love making these little cardigans.

Some of my favorite people

Patrick is getting to such a fun age. He is smiling and cooing. He is a sweet baby.

My husband sure is brown compared to Patrick's soft, white skin.

Patrick and Grandpa. Talkin', talkin'.

Piper, Pearl and Patterns

I've been working on patterns lately. There are so many 15-16 inch dolls out there, I've been wanting to make doll clothes to fit them. I'm hoping to have a few 15-16" dresses in my shop on Friday.

I've gotten two new dolls together.

Meet Piper.

She is showing off her bloomers. They are super cute and comfy to wear.

I took my time with these two dolls. They've been in the works for almost 3 weeks. Sometimes it takes me awhile to dress a doll and it took me awhile with these dolls. I've knit several items but none seemed to suit. Usually, I sit the doll in my knitting basket and decide colors. This time I took them down to my sewing studio and set them in one of my many fabric baskets. A couple of days later, in the mail came the pretty pink and blue fabrics that make up Pipers dress and pinafore.

Pearl is a sweetie. This is one of my favorite doll outfits to make. I like the little smock with a pocket on it.

Her black curls are the "shake and go" type of curls. I like an easy hair style. :)
These dolls will be in my shop on Friday, October 7 at 5 PM. I'll be sewing all afternoon tomorrow on doll clothes.

Knitting

Last year in May, I started a shawl for a friend. I finally finished the shawl last month.

The shawl is La La's Simple Shawl. It is a good shawl pattern for a beginner like me. I enjoyed knitting the shawl. But the truth is, learning to knit doll clothes came with a draw back for me, that being, that doll clothes are small and finished quickly. A shawl is a patient work, in my opinion. Sort of like how Rome wasn't built in a day, neither is a shawl knit in a day. I used a soft wool yarn, Malabrigo in the Stonechat colorway. Its hard to see the stitch pattern in my picture but there is a nice pattern to this shawl.
This weekend I cast on for another shawl. I'm hoping to have this shawl finished by Christmas. I've decided to enjoy the patient work of knitting something as big as a shawl. I think the last shawl took me so long because I found it intimidating to knit on something that got so big. It seemed to big to finish. Once I determined to knit one row whenever I could, the shawl was finished in a short amount of time.

This new shawl is Multnomah and is another easier shawl pattern. I'll be stretching my wings a bit with the boarder but thankfully, if I get stuck, I have a friend who I think will help me. I'm knitting this shawl in the wonderful Madelinetosh Tosh Vintage yarn and the colorway is Dried Rose. Lovely stuff to work with.

Nature Bracelets

I was looking through a friends magazine and came across a fun idea. Nature Bracelets. They are simple and fun and everyone who cares to, can participate.

Materials:
Duct Tape
Anything from nature, preferably from the plant kingdom.

Directions:
Cut the duct tape to the size of the wearers wrist with enough room to overlap a little. Wrap the duct tape around the wrist with the sticky side out. Over lap duct tape on to close up the "bracelet."

Go outside and collect all manner of nature.

Silas is 2.8 years old and he had no trouble figuring out what to do by watching myself and his siblings.

He was creative and found some old poke berries and mushed them onto his bracelet. A very pretty fuchsia color was the result.


Livia was a cautious collector. She looked everything over twice to make sure she wanted it on her bracelet. She went with understated elegance and I think her bracelet suits her.
Jonah tried again and again to catch a cricket to put on his bracelet. He didn't have much luck with the cricket by he did catch some sort of black bug.
Note the black bug there on Jonah's nature bracelet.

I, on the other hand put everything I could find on my bracelet. I thought it would be good to do that to give the children the idea that they could fit a lot on their bracelet and cover all the duct tape.

The was a fun way to spend an hour outside plundering around with the children. They all had a great time and were excited over their cool bracelets. When I first went out, I figured we wouldn't find much because of the early fall season, but when I got to looking there were plenty of pretty little things to pick and use. We just had to be observant and notice the little things.

The Wonderful World of Waldorf Dolls

I love babies. I love little children. Sometimes its easy to forget that they are experiencing everything for the first time with eyes of wonder.

Sometimes if I'm working on a doll wondering if she is going to come out like the idea I had in my head, my daughter, Livia or my little Silas will walk by and with a voice fraught with excitement, will say "Oh mommy, she is so pretty" or "I like your baby, momma" and suddenly it doesn't matter if she comes out like the picture I had in my head.

I made a few dolls for my children and they loved them, bless their hearts. They have played with them and drug them hither, thither and yonder.


My husband is the type of husband that while he encourages me in every way as a mother and home maker he likes for me to have a little bit of industry. For several years I sold tamales on Saturdays at a local farmers market. That was a lot of fun. I met lots of interesting folks and made a some extra money. For different reasons, farmers market became not doable anymore and I was looking for something different to do.

I had been learning to knit and could already sew and somehow or another I got the idea in my head to open an Etsy store to sell dolls and doll clothes. I still remember the feeling of selling my first item....


I sold another doll outfit and was super excited. Then I sold my first doll.


This is Gracie and I've made her two more times....excepting that I find it literally impossible to make an exact replica of a handmade doll. Once she had brown hair and flew with her grandma to Japan to meet a sweet little girl.

Gracie the Brown

And once she was supposed to be a totally different doll with curly hair but on looking through my sold orders on Etsy, the Little Miss decided she wanted a doll like Gracie and I didn't mind because Gracie the First is my most favorite doll ever.

Gracie the Third
I took off most of 2010 off. My husband was gone for a total of 6 months working with the BP Oil Spill way down south in Louisiana. During that time my oldest daughter met a wonderful man and within a 6 month span was courted, fell in love, got engaged and was married in January of 2011. They are now expecting their first baby in February of 2012 and I can hardly wait.

Back in February I was itching to get back into doll making so I started with a new dolly, Missy.
Since starting back to doll making I've sold 13 dolls and many doll outfits. I'm not looking to be a huge business. My dolls are made by me using my hands, sewing machine, crochet hook and knitting needles. I can't mass produce dolls and have no desire too. I enjoy the process of making a doll. If I felt I had to make a bunch or in a manner of speaking "keep up with the Jones" doll making wouldn't be any fun.

There is a verse in the bible that reads: 1 Thessalonians 4:11 And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands , as we commanded you;

I think of this verse when making dolls and when working around the house. I've often quoted it to my children who, at times have been too chatty or rambunctious during our work times.

I felt a bit melancholy today. When I first started making dolls I had no idea there could be contention, hurt feelings, accusations and in general, plain ill will in the doll community. Actually, I had no idea there was a doll community. I was ignorant and it was bliss. I'd been making dollies, expecting little girls and boys to play with them till they were dirty and worn from lots of love and fun.

I think my fellow doll maker  Little Jenny Wren said it best when she said in this blog post...

...thinking about how very strange this on line world can be
and that it is so much better to live most of your life in the real world and make real things
than live in a virtual world and not make much at all.

Simple Woman's Daybook

For Today
September 28, 2011

Outside my window...Beautiful September morning. The birds and sings and I can hear the crickets.

I am thinking...of the day ahead.

I am thankful for...the sweet/cute/funny things little children say.

From the learning rooms....Only one child to do book work with today. Most of the boys are working with dad today.

From the kitchen....Need to make yogurt. Chili for supper.

I am excited...about a knitting group I visited last week.

I am wearing...girly camo tiered skirt, pink shirt, socks and sneakers

I am creating...aprons, dolls and doll clothes. 2 new dolls and this next upload will include some 15-16" doll clothes.

I am going...to wash laundry today, knit and work on a pattern for doll clothes.

I am reading...my bible and a knitting book I checked out of the library.

I am hoping...to lose some weight.

I am hearing...the crickets outside. They are loud this morning.

Things I want to accomplish today...school, knitting for a dolly, laundry finished, and hopefully a nap will be tucked in there somewhere.

Around the house...it looks pretty good. It needs a little attention here and those things will get attention.

One of my favorite things...Little girls with long hair.

A few plans for the rest of the week...knitting, dolls, school, and cleaning my sewing area!

A picture thought I am sharing...Silas, my youngest child. He is such a little man.
My daughter, Autumn took the picture.

Life in General

Its been a good week for me. Busy, full and fun. School has went well, I lived through the first few driving lessons with my 16 year old, and solved a couple of problems I've been challenged with lately. My daughter in law spent the day with us yesterday so we had fun visiting with her and Patrick. Although I think some of my children held him more than I did. :)

I was thinking yesterday of the seasons of motherhood.
Back when I was a "young mom" my days consisted largely of nursing a baby, changing diapers, reading to young children, watching the television and keeping everyone fed, bathed and the laundry kept up. We didn't go much. We stayed at home mostly. There were times I felt it was get out and go somewhere or go crazy. We were doing good to get to church on time. Good times but sort of lonely times too.

Back when I was a "middle mom" my life was consisting largely of the same things except we added real school (home education style) and the television became a thing of the past. We added home school group to our activities and went on field trips, art classes, gym class and roller skating. We got out way more and met more people outside of our church group. I made more of an effort to sew and improve my skills. I was still always nursing a baby and changing diapers but it was a little easier because my once little children were now children who could bathe themselves and get dressed on their own. They could also wash breakfast dishes!

One day during this time, I laid the littles down for a nap and I, myself laid on the couch to catch a doze. I was pregnant and tired. Some where through the fog my oldest son asked me if he could have a snack and I agreed, telling him there were some crackers in the cupboard and that he could look for something to go on them. I dozed off again. I woke a little while later to him eating crackers at the table with mustard, pickle relish and mushrooms on them while his younger sister and brother watched in awe. Good times. (we never ate crackers with mustard, pickle relish and mushrooms before and never have since either)

Now days as an "older mom", there is no nursing baby although Silas was loathe to give it up and would probably still give it a go if would let him and there are no diapers to change. We still home school. We go a lot more! Now, I long to stay at home more. My teens are energetic, active and have a variety of interests...some to my dismay...like the dirt bikes my husband and boys have recently been working on and riding around. I only have one child...ONE CHILD that needs help getting dressed. I have married children. I have grand babies. Still good times.

One day (Lord willing) I will be an "old mom" and all the children will be grown and leading their own lives. I hope that my life will be filled with adult children, lots of grand children and more time to spend holding my husband's hand.

Autumn Dresses

This little dolly has been fun to make.

She started in my yarn pile. Stranger things have happened. We had company for supper a week ago. My friend Angie, looking into my yarn stash picked up the yarn for Autumn's hair and commented that she thought it would make pretty hair with all the highlights in it. I had bought the yarn to make some bib overalls for a boy doll but the more I looked at it, the more I thought that it would be pretty used as doll hair.
The yarn is Madeline Tosh Vintage. Gorgeous stuff and currently my favorite yarn to knit up. The little cardigan is also Madeline Tosh (aka Madtosh). Soft to knit with and the colorways are beautiful.
I'm fairly pleased with her clothing. I made the pattern for her overalls. I'm not much of a wiz at pattern drafting but I've made enough simple doll dresses and pants that I can draw those without much fiddling. I'd been wanting a overall pattern but hadn't seen one that I could use so I came up with this one.
Miss Autumn is a bit of a tomboy. Her momma endevours to girly her up a bit with a pink cardigan and sturdy Mary Janes. Her hair is a wild mass of curls that are hard to tame. Autumn prefers the "shake and go" method of doing her hair. :)

I've sewn tons of doll clothes lately.


Dresses and pinafores by the bunches.





Sleeveless dresses.



Shirts and pants.


I have a big upload scheduled for my shop today. All my new items will be in my shop at 6pm.

Cinnamon Sugar

My oldest daughter was the cutest, little, freckled girl with hair that curled when it was short or she was hot.

Her daddy, because of her freckles, affectionately dubbed her "Cinnamon Sugar."

I miss that little girl.

I named this doll "Autumn" after my daughter and gave her a sprinkling of "Cinnamon Sugar."

Simple Womans Daybook

For Today
September 14, 2011

Outside my window...Not real sunny. Overcast and sort of gray.

I am thinking...of my married children.

I am thankful for...grace, mercy and the promises of God.

From the learning rooms....Learning some new math concepts today.

From the kitchen....Yogurt is in the warmer. Supper is half made. Thinking its time to make lunch for a pack of hungry children.

I am excited...my daughter is having an ultrasound soon and we are hoping to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl.

I am wearing...khaki skirt and black tee shirt and sneakers.

I am creating...aprons, dolls and doll clothes.

I am going...to get milk today. We buy from a family who milks a cow or two. Love that good raw milk!

I am reading...Wives and Daughters by Elisabeth Gaskill.

I am hoping...to lose some weight.

I am hearing...Stephen hum. Jonah talking about his poison ivy. Silas playing with the doll house.

Things I want to accomplish today...school, knitting for a dolly, laundry finished, and try try try to remember to take the yogurt out of the warmer at the right time.

Around the house...making a detailed list for Saturday morning house cleaning. Several windows need cleaned and the wall going down the stairs is DIRTY.

One of my favorite things...getting along with my husband. It is a very nice thing to be so close that most of the time I don't have to explain and neither does he.

A few plans for the rest of the week...school, laundry, feeding the children. Having company over on Saturday evening. And I'm hoping beyond hope to have 3 dolls ready for my shop upload next Wednesday.

A picture thought I am sharing... From one of my favorite artists Mary Engelbreit.

Curly Girl Goodness For Dolls

I've been getting ready to make a couple new dolls so I've been thinking about doll hair.

I happen to really like Little Jenny Wren Dolls and the way she would make curly hair on her dolls. I adore curly hair on little girls and Little Jenny Wren does quite the job of creating the essences of little curly girl goodness. When I began creating my own dolls I wanted to make curly hair on my dolls. So I laboriously knitted doll hair several times for dolls and most of the time I discovered I didn't knit enough so had to knit more. It was a trial to me because at the time I was a slow, beginning knitter and I also knit English which is slower yet than the Continental style of knitting. Needless to say, curly hair was quite the project for me.

A swatch of knitting for doll hair might looks like this.....It is knitted, wet down or "blocked" as it is called, dried and then unraveled.

This is one skein of black yarn minus the cap/wig that has been crocheted for stitching to the dolls head. I wanted tight, kinky black curls for a doll so I knit this yarn, which is a DK weight on size 4 needles. I've been working on it when I sit and listen to the children read or when I have a few minutes here or there. It didn't take long for me to knit. I've gotten faster at knitting. That is what happens...the more I knit the faster I get.

Anyway, back in the day, I couldn't justify taking the time to knit doll hair. It just took me too long! So I had to devise a way to make curly doll hair. It didn't occur to me at the time to search the internet. I wish it had. It would have saved me time and yarn with troubleshooting how to make a curly yarn quicker.

I laid in bed one night thinking about it. In bed at night is where I do my best thinking. I lay in bed and solve whatever problem I'm having. Lots of times I pray about whatever is rolling around my pea brain and try to figure out a solution. I've done this for years with sewing and then with knitting and then with doll hair. And just FYI this method of problem solving also works for husband troubles, children troubles, family troubles and life troubles in general.

I decided to try wrapping my yarn around pencils. That made nice curls but they were big and it was easy to see that they needed to be tighter. Also the type of yarn made a difference. I found that a 100% wool will hold the curl really good while a wool/mohair blend doesn't hold as well even when its blocked.

I began looking around my house for something small and round and thought of my old metal knitting needles that I had given up in favor of wood needles. (the yarn does not slip off the wood needles as easily as it does metal) I wrapped yarn around the needles and Viola I had found what works for a nice corkscrew type curl. A small dowel would work well too but it didn't occurred to me until a commenter said something about it once.

Any yarn that has been blocked and unraveled will lose its curl if it wet down again. It doesn't matter if its been knit or wound on needles. When I mail out a doll, I attach a card that tells how to care for/clean a doll and on the card I give instructions to not wet a curly haired dolls hair or it will lose its curl.

A cap/wig is sewn onto the dolls head and I cut my yarn to the desired length and hook the hair into the cap. Its a sturdy method of attaching the hair and works well.
I also wanted to show this book. I bought it several months ago and wish I had bought it a couple of years ago when I started to make dolls. It would have saved me a lot of time and failed attempts at what I was trying to accomplish.

The book has simple pencil drawings through out that for me make it easier to understand the construction of a doll. There are lots of ideas for making doll hair in this book, including knitting the yarn and unraveling for curly hair. In the coming months I'm going to be trying some different ways to make hair and see if I like it. I almost exclusively do the cap and hook method because that is what I know and what I'm comfortable with. But its good to expand and stretch and reach beyond our comfort zone.

All in a Day's Work

Picked out a stack of fabric today and cut. cut. cut.
The end result was 19 doll outfits cut out and ready to sew. More dress/pinafore combos. Some cute sleeveless dresses, baby doll shirts and pants.

Now to sew it all up. I'll be sewing doll clothes until September 13. Then I stop with the doll clothes to work on making a couple of new dolls to go in my shop. I'm planning a big upload on September 21. :)