Another To Do - DONE!

Last week I decided to take a break from the computer, tackle a new project and finish another. During a trip to my local fabric shop I was admiring the quilts on display and resolved to make on of my own. Using tutorials from other blogs here and here I actually finished my very first quilt. It's a doll quilt, it's small, but I MADE IT! I was so pleased with my little quilt that I made another! The second one was larger with 12 squares and it turned out well too!

I did all of the quilting by hand and stitched in the ditch of the seams. My hope is that after a few more small practice quilts I will make one for our friends who are expecting a baby later this year. They don't know the sex yet but as soon as they do I'll get started.

I can't tell you how excited I was to complete my first quilt. I know that mine was a simple first try but I never though that I'd be able to tackle one at all. Yippee!

This is the other project that I finished in the past week. Her name is Ella and she's wonderful. She sat naked for a week and I finally worked up the courage to make her a dress. We love Ella very much and Max can't wait to introduce her to her new Waldorf Doll family.

Easter Surprises!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter weekend!

Max was up bright and early excited to hunt down his Easter basket. I love that Max still has that child innocence where he still believes in Santa and the Easter Bunny. We have decided that if we leave an empty basket and some eggs for the bunny to fill, he will stop by our house. The bunny was nice enough to leave Max some little toys, a book and a few chocolates. Mommies can add to the basket too, and Max saw that I also included a handmade bunny. I found the pattern here at Revoluzza.

Our Easter started with a group trip to our local Farmer's Market where we made up our menu on the fly. It was nice to just go with the flow instead of stress out about the menu and feel like you have to have everything perfect. At the market we also picked up some long bean starts which we will be planting today!

We celebrated Easter Dinner with family and family friends. We have clebrated several holidays with The Howards - it's been fun especially for Max because he associated Holiays with "The Howards". They have all sorts of fun big kid toys and a Nintendo Wii - Max has only ever played video games at their house so he's always very excited when we have holidays chez Howard.

I also finished my very first limbed Waldorf Doll this weekend - her name is Millie. . This was the first full head of hair that I have constructed. I found the tutorial for her hair here at Starry Sheep and I love the way that it turned out. I definitely need to work on constructing clothes, this is not my forte. From a distance they are fine but up close the work is a little messy :) See the wet felted eggs in the pic? Max and I eeked those out on Easter eve, we found the tutorial here.

We are now on Easter break - a friend has a house in Tahoe so Max, myself, a school buddy and his mom will be heading up later this week to hopefully squeeze in some end of season sledding!

Say Hello To My Little Friend...........

Welcome to Spring!

The little brown bulb lies quiet and warm,

Sheltered from wind and sheltered from storm.

“Awake, Little Bulb,” call the rain and the sun,

“Wake and unfold

Your green and your gold,

For winter is done.

by Paul King

I have two separate posts today so be sure to read on...................

Last week I bought a Magic Cabin Mermaid Waldorf Doll Kit. The person who I bought it from had already started the head and torso. Let's just say that I can see why she was selling the kit. :) The head and torso looked like a pillow/pancake! I was happy to rescue the 'Mermaid to be' and voila! Here she is!

It was fun to take pictures of her with one of my favourite old paintings in the background and the shells/coral that we have collected.

For my first try on a Waldorf Doll with proper arms and a torso I am very pleased. Attaching the arms was not as difficult as I had thought it would be although they do stick straight out! Any ideas on how I can 'relax' them? My one issue with building these dolls is the face/expression, I'm still struggling with how to structure the face.

All in all a successful project - time for the next ..............

Surprises................

Surprise #1: Finally, it has started to rain. Yippee!

Surprise #2: We love getting packages in the mail. Thank you Beth for the fabulous Handmade Swap items. The memory game is awesome, Max tore the package open as soon as he got home from school. Once I'm done with this post we are going to have our first game. I am so impressed with the bag and all of the pieces inside. Thank you for the soap too!Great job, maybe one day my sewing skills will be so neat and clean. My sewing machine and I need to have a heart to heart.

Surprise #3: Went to a Thrift Shop that I don't usually frequent and found these fab items. I could not resist this salt and pepper set. They are handpainted and named Salty and Peppy, love them! I also found these small spools of thread. I always pick up the ones that are on wooden spools, problem is, I never use them, I just love the way they look. Also picked up some Gutermann thread, 10 cents ea - SCORE!

Surprise #4: Waldorf Doll #2 is now finished. Love the colour but the velvet is probably too stiff. But he's soft and cuddly so you can't go wrong.

My First Waldorf Doll !!!

Unfortunately, my local store was all out of the fabric I needed to finish my very first Waldorf Doll. This minor point did not stop me so I bought some lovely skin fabric in a brown tone, went home and promptly started my second doll. He is officially finished! So I suppose that he may be considered the second doll that I started but the first one finished. For this one I decided to sew him and his clothes completely by hand, no machine. Yes, he does look like a linebacker and he looks like he's wearing a diaper, but isn’t he great?! For a first/second try I am very pleased with how he turned out.

Trying not to spend money on additional supplies, I made his suit and hat from a chopped up a pair of velour pants that I no longer used. It was nice to know that I was remaking an old item into something new. For the next doll that I make I am going to try to perfect the face and add a nose. Maybe I’ll even make proper arms and legs.

Now I can cross one item off of my 2009 Craft To Do List.

Now knitting. Although my sister showed me how to knit, I have now forgotten. Oops. When asked Max for help, he rolled his eyes at me, sighed, and told me that he was busy purling a gnome and he’d help me later. Ha! We love to make things together and he’s often frustrated by my neat, small stitches vs. his big crooked ones. It’s fun for Max that there is something that he can do well, that I can’t. :)

Yippee!

Just a quick post to say that I have finally tackled making a Waldorf Doll! I sat down and did it, finally. After many years of good intentions I have finally done it. It is 90% finished, I need to buy some more flesh coloured material for the hands and then, voila! As soon as it's 100%, hopefully tomorrow I'l post a pic.

I cannot tell you how good it feels to have finally done tackled this project. When Max was a baby (he's 8 years old now) I had bought a kit from Magic Cabin to make a Waldorf Doll. The poor pieces sat in its packaging until I gave it to a mom at Max's school last year. Actually it turned out well, I gave her the kit, she made the doll and then the doll was donated to the school for a silent auction.

Max was very impressed - he's my biggest crafts fan.