If you are interested in trying your hand at dollmaking, here would be a good way to get started! These are pretty simple little dolls, because you can print out the faces on printable fabric. All you have to do is color them in. They are so cute! They are "Shoe Fairies" that are sleeping in lavender filled sleeping bags. You tuck them into your shoes to make them smell good. Adorable! You can go to Toronto to take the Green Man class. If you want to learn how to make these little shoe fairies, you can download Colleen's FREE tutorial online! I think these would make great Christmas presents!
Again, this is offered by Colleen Babcock of The Magic Bean. She has taught the dollmaking classes I've taken. She's awesome, and so are her classes! If you're in the Toronto area maybe you can go to the Creativ Festival October 21-12, 2011, where she'll have a booth. You can also take a class from her there. (Remember, Colleen lives in England, so you can't always take classes from her in North America!)
Colleen Babcock of The Magic Bean is the gal who has taught my doll making classes. Totally adore her. When I was in her last class, one of the owners of Eucalan was in the class! That was really fun! Are you familiar with Eucalan? It's an environmentally friendly, no rince, delicate was. It is awesome. My mom uses it all the time on things she knits, and I want to start using it when I was quilts. Mom says it works great at getting little stains out of her clothes when her iron spits on them, too. She just rubs a little Eucalan on it and the stain is gone. No need to rinse it out.
Colleen has a blog post with a great tutorial for this little doll, which you make using an empty bottle of Eucalan. She also has a free giveaway for some Eucalan if you'll leave a comment on her blog.
I thought you might like to know about it if you're interested in trying Eucalan. Click here to go to her blog post about it. In the post, there are also video tutorials for lots of different uses for Eucalan (e.g., washing knitwear, felting hand knits, treating printer ready fabric, soak dyed fabrics). Good luck in the gieveaway!
Just a quick second note today to let you know that Amanda Herring, of The Quilted Fish is now also designing scrapbook paper! Woo hoo! She's going to be sending some to us design team members to play with, but we won't necessarily be creating tutorials with them. Instead, Amanda is looking to add three or for more people to the team...people who like to scrapbook and who would like to write scrapbooking tutorials!
If you or someone you know would love to join the team as a paper design member, please let Amanda know! It will be so fun to have this new group on board to share with even further. I'm very excited about it all! Please pass the word to your scrapbooking buddies if you don't like working with paper, yourself.
Sorry I've been away for a few days. I've still been trying to catch up (I'm convinced it's hopeless), and then I had some "connectivity" problems. Sigh. I'm so tired of Internet problems at our house. Hopefully I've found a solution. I'll keep you posted. I am having to write this at work on my lunch break! LOL.
Before I begin today's post, I thought I'd update you on the lawn mower situation. So...Papa Pea came home from his month-long trip to Alaska, and I broke the news to him about the lawn mower. Actually, I did it over the phone while he was a couple days away from here. He handled it really well. He said, "Oh, yeah, I knew that weld was broken. Remember, I told you that. That's why I never mow over those tree roots. But I forgot to tell you that." So, whew. I felt much better.
Then, he came home, looked at it, and tried to fix it. Then he got frustrated with me a little. He said, "Yeah, you really bent it up good. I don't think I can fix that." He was a little testy about it.
Then, he took it to the shop, and they said they could heat it up, straighten it out, and fix it for about $100. That wasn't so bad. I mean, I'd rather not spend $100 on that, but I figured the damage was more in the $1,000 range. So we both breathed a sigh of relief at that. And the guy at the shop said, "We see this a lot. It's usually the wife who does it. This is not that uncommon." Geez. I was a little miffed at that one! "Usually the wife...." Well, I said to Papa Pea, "I was just trying to do my job [with a faulty tool, I might add] while you were gone!" And that was that. I think I'm sort of forgiven.
We don't have it back yet. Should be ready this week. The yard looks like crap because it hasn't been mowed for so long. It's sort of embarrassing.
But alas, how about something a little more fun??? How about a pattern review?
Recently, I picked up this pattern. When we were in Arizona, Sweet Pea played with a little girl whose family had moved in next door to my parents. Her name was Lara. She was a little sweetie. Her family is Dutch. They are over here in the US, becasue her dad is a pilot in the Royal Dutch Airforce. They are over here at the Air Force Base near Tucson, training some of their pilots. Super nice family, and so interesting. Sweet Pea and Lara really hit it off and played together every day. They were both really sad when it was time for us to go. (There are not many children in my parents' neighborhood, so she LOVED having a friend next door!)
There was a lot of this going on at Grandma's and Grandpa's house. I didn't include Lara, because I didn't ask her parents' permission to post her photo or video. (I just tried my hand at iMove and uploading a video to YouTube. A first for me! I want to experiment with more video on my blog...think video tutorials and demos! Let me know what you think!)
Before we left, Lara gave Sweet Pea one of her toys. So, on the way home, Sweet Pea and I decided I should make Lara a softie and mail it to her. Sweet Pea picked out this pattern. I also let her pick out the fabrics.
These are the fabrics she picked out, and here are the resulting dogs. She picked out flannels, so they are really soft. Of course, I had to make two, because Sweet Pea wanted one, too. Sweet Pea hates it when dogs wear neckerchiefs/bandanas. Don't know why. She hates it when the groomer puts them on our dog, too! So, she wanted a ribbon around hers instead. I think they turned out pretty cute. I couldn't find a plain black button for the eyes. I had to get these with a little silver circle on them. Sweet Pea and I agree that they look a little crazy with these eyes...sort of like googly eyes. But they are soft and squishy.
As far as the pattern goes...It is not a hugely complicated pattern. However, I think if you're new to making dolls and toys, this might not be the best pattern to start with. There are a few places where I thought the directions could be more clear. For example, in one spot, they tell you clearly where to start sewing (under the dog's tail)--and the spot is even marked on the pattern--and they tell you where to stop sewing. But this isn't the case on other pieces. I found in some places, you wanted to stop short of the end of the fabric (e.g., where the 1/4" seam allowance would be) to make it easier to put together--sort of like making a Y-seam. If you knew to do that, it went together much more easily. Similarly, there's a little football-shaped piece that comes round the back of the head and that joins to the two back seams. This is a little bit of a tricky spot to sew, but because I've sewn that shape with some of my dolls, I could maneuver it pretty easily. I think if you haven't sewn this type of thing before, it might be a little tricky with the instructions they provide (which are something like, "Sew around the back seam, connecting all the pieces").
I also attached the eyes a little differently. The instructions had you running the thread through the head and tying it in the back of the head. That would be nice, because you could pull the eyes in more and make it look more like eye sockets. (They also encouraged you to poke a hole in the fabric for the shank of the button to go into, but I was worried about the hole getting bigger over time, so I didn't.) I couldn't figure out from the instructions how I'd hide that knot, unless I made it come out at the neck, where the neckerchief would hide it. So, I just sewed the buttons on to the face the regular way. I figure, these are 6 and 7 year old girls. They can handle having a button for eyes and if it comes off, they won't eat the button.
Sweet Pea thought it was funny how their faces look so different. "Yes," I told her, "they each have their own personality!" It's hard to see in the photo, but the nose on hers is longer and skinnier, and the mouth is longer than the other. So, the faces really look different when you have them side-by-side. And the eyes on hers are up a little higher. I love that about sewing...you can make things look so different.
Other than that, I thought this was a pretty fun pattern, and it went together quickly. I made both dogs on Friday afternoon. I bought twice the fabric recommended on the pattern, since I was making two dogs. And I bet I have enough left to make at least two more dogs. I am contemplating making them for the boutique in our quilt show this fall. Hmmmm....we'll see if we have time!
By the way, there are two different puppy pattens in this package. The other pattern is for the yo-yo doggie. I haven't made that one yet. Not a huge fan of yo-yos. So, I can't speak to that pattern.
Well, I must get back to work. I'll show you some other stuff from this weekend and hopefully get a little caught up on some stuff from my trip!
By the way, my birthday is coming up next week. And I'm going to have a whole week of giveaways to celebrate! My mom is moving and gave me a bunch of great stuff to give away...and I've added to it as well. So make sure you come by next week and get in on the action!
Then, yesterday, this showed up in my mailbox! Caroll, I assume you made this! Thank you so much! I just LOVE it and can't wait to put it on my scissors!
Here is the back. So cute. Caroll, you're a good friend, and you made my day!!!
Sweet Pea had a good mail day yesterday, too. Recently, Papa Pea rode his motorcycle to Alaska, up to the Arctic Circle (just to do it). He sent Sweet Pea a postcard she REALLY loved. Check it out.
Sweet Pea went, "Gasp! He went to Santa Claus' house?!! That's no fair! Why didn't he take ME?!"
Here was the back. Check out that postmark! Oh, yeah. This is going in the scrapbook, big time.
Here's a funny story...Last night we had a big thunderstorm. Our dog sleeps in the basement. I could hear some noises down there, and I figured it was her, jumping up everytime it thundered. So, this morning I got up to let her out. I called her...
"Belle!"
No dog came.
"That's odd," I thought. "I hope she's okay... Belle!"
No dog.
"Uh-Oh." So, I go downstairs to check it out. Afraid I'll find a dead dog. She is 12 years old, after all.
I look in family room. No dog.
I look in guest bedroom. No dog.
I look in office. No dog.
I look in sewing room. No dog.
I look in bathroom. No dog.
"Oh, crap. Did I leave her outside last night in that terrible thunderstorm? Poor thing."
I look on the front porch. No dog.
"Oh, crap. Did she run away because she was so scared??? Wait. What's that noise?" (It sounds like a mouse, scratching on metal.)
I go downstairs. I call her, "Belle!"
Nothing.
There's that noise again. It's coming from my sewing room.
I go in. "Belle?" Nothing.
Noise.
Behind the washer and dryer.
I look. There's Belle. (Keep in mind, she's a 45-pound border collie. Not a small dog.)
See what I mean?
She had been so scared by the thunder, she had crawled behind the washer and dryer and was hiding there. Now, she was stuck and couldn't get out!
The easiest way to get out would be to back up. But I couldn't get her out. I had to move the dryer out and move my shelves that have fabric and batting on them, so she could come out forward. She got out and knocked the dryer vent off in the process. So, I fixed that and then restored my sewing room.
Ever since she was a puppy, she has been afraid of thunder and loud booms (like in movies). She would run behind our couch and hide between the couch and the wall when she was a puppy. As she got bigger, she would knock the lamp off the table on her way. But she had sort of gotten over that....I thought. I guess not!
Anyway, it was kind of a humorous way to start the day. I was just glad she was okay. I was surprised she didn't give a bark to let me know where she was. She was very grateful to get out! I wonder if she had to sleep standing up.... Sigh. What a dog. I sure do love her. So does Sweet Pea (and Papa Pea, for that matter). She's a good dog.
Gotta run. Guild meeting tonight. Maybe I'll have some good photos to show you. I still need to catch up on lots of stuff from my recent travels, too. Have a great day!