Doll Sewing and Random Pretty Things

My old camera finally died.  It was just an inexpensive Canon Powershot camera with minimal frills but it always took good photos!  The shutter button quit working, so I decided to get a new one.  It's a more powerful Canon Powershot SX520 HS and it has more functionality, a bigger lens, and takes nice photos!  Here are the first few I took:

Littlefee Ante in a new dress made with fabric I received in a swap:




Devon Marie (Little Darling by Dianna Effner, painted by Nelly Valentino) [I think this photo would have come out better against a lighter background. The face of the doll is a little washed-out.]


And here I was interested in seeing how the macro focus function does and got some beautiful photos of the mums I was using as a background.  Any of these photos can be clicked on to get the larger version at Flickr.

Some summer projects and photos

I've had a busy summer with not a lot of project time, but the pouch above was made from Bonnie and Camille's Daysail fabric with a pattern from Amy Sinibaldi's book Sweetly Stitched Handmades.  The embroidery is my own design.




This potholder was made for my kitchen and it's from a vintage pattern.  I made it with Dishie yarn from Knitpicks, which I have found to be the BEST worsted weight cotton ever!



This little kitten was fostered and adopted out of our clinic this summer.  He was a cute one!  If anyone knows anybody in need of a cat to adopt, I'm currently fostering five or six lovely adult cats.  :)




My garden has been a flower bonanza this year, but also sort of weedy!




And lastly, this fabric needs to be made into something!  It's Bloom and Bliss and I love the colors.  The print scale, for the most part, is perfect for small projects like doll dresses but also for larger ones.  This is a fat-quarter bundle but I may need to get yardage of a few prints, too.

Another hexagons project

I'm loving the book Sweetly Stitched Handmades by Amy Sinibaldi.  This is the second project I've made from it for a sew-along on Instagram and I'm having such a good time with it.  This particular project seemed to take me forever and I wasn't sure of my fabric choices until after I got them together and now I love them!  I'm not usually a fan of red, but I like this shade of red when combined with aqua.  I liked it so  much I made a special trip to the craft store yesterday to get ruby red #10 crochet cotton so I could do the lace on the edge.  Now I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it...either keep it and use it myself (it's technically a mug rug and a teabag will fit in that little pocket there that's labeled "Tea Time") or save it and gift it for Christmas to one of my family members?  I'm not sure any of them would like the colors, though...I'll have to think about it more!

This was a good project to do with little Olivia around because she could play while I did the handwork parts in the living room (the hexagons, appliqued leaves, quilting and edging were all hand done).   Olivia's getting old enough now that she can self-amuse for a while, which is great!  She'll play with my 1980s Care Bears for hours while I sew on my sewing machine in the craft room.  The Care Bears live up there just for that purpose and when I was about 20 I bought myself the Care Bears Care-a-lot Playset in mint condition and she's loving it.  It's not in mint condition any more, but oh well!  She's having such a good time with it!  Here she is with her bubble machine last week.

Olivia's quilt is all finished!

I finally finished it up completely.  It's made from patterns from Alicia Paulson's book Embroidery Companion and it was a lot of fun to make, but took me forever.  The majority of the fabric is 1930's reproduction prints.  I attempted to photograph it by clothespinning it to the lovely goat fence, but Anza tried to eat it so that didn't work too well!  All the photos are also on my flickr, so you can click to see them larger.

Full Quilt:

Closer views below of the embroidery:

My favorite color....

Today I whipped up a doll dress in my favorite color, aqua, because I was having doll-playing withdrawal!  I found this piece of fabric at Joann's the other day.  It would be sort of low quality for quilt making because it's thin, but it works really well for doll clothes!  It's a simple pattern but the dress just sets off Chloe's eyes so well. This doll is another Little Darling, painted by Joyce Mathews, and she's just gorgeous.  I adore her painting style so much.

Another project

I have been working on this quilt since before Olivia was born!  I was all set to get it done, and then she came three weeks early and I didn't finish it up till just recently.  It's from Alicia Paulson's Embroidery Companion book and I used 1930's reproduction fabrics to finish it.  I have to quilt it and then bind it but the majority of the work is done!  Click through for a bigger view.

Hand sewing lately...

I haven't been doll sewing lately.  I've been working on some quilts.  I also have been making myself a new tote bag.  I am using Pam Kitty fabrics that I have hoarded for a few years to make some hexagon flowers to put on the front of the tote.  This type of piecing is perfect for warm days on the deck.

My Birthday Presents

This is Chloe Grace, painted by Joyce Mathews.  She was kindly sold to me by a fellow member of Our Little Darlings.  She's gorgeous!  She kindly also shipped her fast so she arrived on my birthday and she included the lovely dress she's wearing, made by Trish.  I was a lucky birthday girl!

I also was a lucky birthday girl to receive this great serger!  I have practiced a little bit with it but still have lots of learning to do!

On a happier note...

I got a new lightbox.  I took some photos of Janie, a Little Darling (sculpted by Dianna Effner, mold #2, painted by Lana Dobbs).  She's wearing an "experimental" dress.  I used some plain white muslin because I didn't want to waste any white batiste, but in the end I think it came out alright and  maybe is better in muslin because it's not so sheer!  I used a Rosemary Ionker pattern from one of her books.  I wanted to try pintucking combined with hand-embroidery.

Hazel

Losing my feathered friends one by one...goodbye to Hazel.  I euthanized her today.

Baby Hazel in April 2009



Adult Hazel (front, red) with Prudy (back), her friend:

Long time, no posting!

Sorry about that!  I haven't had a lot of time lately to take photos or post.  I received a new doll, though, and would like to share her beautiful face.  Her name is Ruby and she's painted by Pat Green.  She's a 13-inch Effner Little Darling for those not familiar with them.  You can click through to my Flickr account to see more photos of her.




And I rewigged my Nelly Valentino doll, at least temporarily.  I'm still going to have a naming contest for her, either here or on the Our Little Darlings ning site.  I think the doll looks great in the darker wig, too.