We're Almost There!

Tomorrow is the official start of our Christmas celebrations.  Our intown gang will arrive in time for dinner (Papa Murphy's pizza) and we'll all settle in.  The presents are wrapped but are downstairs because while the tree is in, somehow it hasn't been decorated yet! I have a little more baking to do (the carolers came Saturday night and I passed out the Puddin' Head Gingerbread so we're down to just a few, which will never do).  

Ann and I are going to attempt to make a Buche de Noel or Yule Log tomorrow night for our Christmas Eve dinner.  Here's hoping! 

Here are a couple more pictures of Christmas decorations.  First up is the downstairs guest bath, just a little holiday fun in the corner of the counter.

The little "candle light" flickers and is so cute! A gift from a family back in my teaching days.

And here is a corner of my laundry room.  A lovely green chest of drawers purchased before Matt was born and painted and antiqued by me (anybody remember those antiquing days?).  

I made the gingerbread boy on the wall probably forty years ago and he's still so cute.  The little wooden doll in the corner was painted and dressed by me, but the doll itself was made by my friend Cyndie's husband, John.  The round box held Starbucks goodies, again from a family back in my teaching days.  The goodies are long gone, but the box was too cute to throw away.  It makes a perfect decoration.

And last, here's the dresser in the downstairs guest room, just waiting for its occupants' arrival tomorrow.

I love that old rocker in the corner.  It was a wedding present to Dan's grandparents back in 1911.  I think the original seat cover was leather, but we had it redone when it came to us in 1985. ♥ 

A Little Pajama Party

Some time ago, I thought it would be fun to have a dolly pajama party and dress all my dolls in pj's.  Of course, this meant that the dolls had to have pj's to wear.  One thing about a quarantine, or "shelter in place", or whatever you want to call it--plenty of time at home to ponder things that have been put off for various reasons.  So, one day last week I decided to see just what I had in the way of jammies for my girls.  I dug through boxes and drawers of doll clothes and discovered I had more than I thought.  

I think I've mentioned in the past that long about twenty years ago when an internet doll company called iDolls went out of business, I bought a number of dolls and doll clothing in anticipation of gifting future granddaughters. Instead, I have four grandsons and no granddaughters so most of the dolls and clothing just went into storage. I did turn one doll into my version of Amelia Peabody, intrepid archeologist/sleuth from the book series by Elizabeth Peters, and one into Evie Tozer, a character in a favorite Tom Selleck movie, High Road to China. 

As I rooted through the doll clothes, I found perfect outfits for Amelia and Evie, and also a nightgown for another doll.  It also turned out that I had jammies for several other dolls.  That left three to sew for, and now motivated, I began.  

So here are my play dolls, all set for a slumber party. Clemmie is sporting her new jammies and is ready to read Tootle to the assembly.  A few bears have joined the party and everyone is ready for fun.

See little tiny 8" Betsy McCall?  I discovered I had a pattern that included clothes in her size as well as for the bigger 14" Betsy behind her.  With a little trepidation, I decided to give the shorty pj's a try.  Well. Let me just say that I think I could have made several pairs for myself in the time it took to make them.  It has a separate yoke, self fabric ruffle, and puffed sleeves. Oh my goodness.  So much detail in such a tiny little garment.  But I prevailed!!  As long as one doesn't look too closely.  (And the reason there's a bear laying in front of her?  She's still wearing her shoes and socks. Those little shoes are over sixty years old and I could see that the rubber "buttons" were hanging on by a thread and any attempt to unbutton them would surely lead to disaster.  So, what to do?  Hide the shoes.  So I did.) 

And here are Amelia and Evie in their time appropriate sleepwear.  

Amelia Peabody circa 1890

Evie Tozer, circa 1920's

Sweet dreams!!  ♥

Catchin' Up

Well hello there, faithful readers!  We're back home and settling in as we weather this virus thing. I'm a homebody anyway, so staying home is no problem for me, but Dan likes to wander so this is a bit unsettling for him.  He's trying to find ways to keep busy, but even yard work is at a halt because we're unable to use the recycling center or transfer station for leaves, etc.  Right now he's studying up on how to use a camera he's had for years but balked at learning all it can do.  (I should be doing the same with my camera. . .)

We had the most wonderful time at the coast.  The weather could not have been more perfect! Blue skies, fifty plus degrees, and little wind.  We sat out on chairs (me), walked the beach, and some intrepid members of our group even donned swimsuits and braved the waves, if only briefly.  

View from our house

The house we rented was built with the living areas on the second floor, along with a luxurious master suite which Dan and I got to use.  Another master suite was on the first floor along with a nice queen room and a bunk room as well as a lovely big family room.  These, along with the four baths allowed us all to spread out all over the house and never feel cramped.  The kitchen was beautiful and pretty well equipped so we were able to have wonderful meals with not much adaptation.  The house is less than two years old and had windows everywhere giving us gorgeous views from dawn (Dan and Daniel) to sunset.  

It was definitely barefoot weather!

Now that we're home, I resolutely turned my hands to finishing a doll sweater that has challenged me for the last month.  I definitely learned some new skills with this one!  How could one tiny sweater take so much time?  At any rate, I finished it last night and here's Rose modeling it for you all.  She's quite happy with it.

A full view

And a close-up of the pattern

I don't think I'll ever make another one, but I am pleased that it turned out and fits her perfectly.  She thinks it'll make a lovely open cardigan with dresses when it warms up a little.  (Did I mention that it snowed here this week?)

I hope all my readers will take care and, as we are all under the "sheltering at home" order, find time to do things we've wanted to do but didn't have time for. Reading?  Knitting?  Quilting?  Hang in there, friends. As we say at our church, "God's got this!"  ♥

Sunshine and Sweaters

March has arrived and the sun is shining! Love it! I'm actually wearing a shirt rather than a fleece top today and I feel so free.  Spring is definitely on its way and the last lingering piles of snow have disappeared.  Of course, more may come, but still, spring is on its way!

I finished the little sweater I was working on and here's the finished product on its intended wearer:

It turned out just right and I was able to pick up the stitches around the front and neck with no problems. Ditto sewing the pieces together.  And if you don't recognize this little girl, she's Clementine, a Girl for All Time doll.  They are created in England and the various dolls are from different eras in British history.  Clemmie's era is WWII.  I fell in love with her face as I perused doll patterns on the internet.  Every time she was the model, I wanted her.  I finally consulted with Dan and he asked why I hadn't already ordered, so I did.  I call her my Valentine's present.  

Here's a closer look at her sweet face. (Don't you just love how I chopped off the top of her head?  A photographer I'm not.)

I purchased the sweater pattern from Pixie Faire and the designer is Genine Allan of Genniewren Designs.  She is British herself and the pattern includes a wonderful history of wartime clothing in England.  

I am currently knitting another doll sweater for, I think, my Magic Attic Rose.  It's quite an involved pattern and I'm learning tons (in addition to learning how to carefully unknit rows!)  I've decided it's a lesson in patience and skill building.  ♥

And It's Lincoln's Birthday!

Hello Bloggy Friends, how is it the middle of February already?  Of course, with leap year, February is a little longer this year, but still. . .  And Lincoln's birthday.  I remember in elementary school that this was a big day. We made black stovepipe hats, log cabins, and talked of splitting rails and so on.  Now poor Lincoln is combined with George Washington and it's just another Monday off for federal and possibly state employees.  Do they color cherry trees and make hatchets any more?  Oh well.  

And what's been happening at the Resort?  Well, after two trips by the Culligan man, we seem to have conquered the wet basement, much to Dan's relief.  I think he was dreaming of wet basements for days, poor man.  We have finished our sorting and he's built a platform for the bottom of the laundry room pantry so boxes no longer sit right on the floor.  Of course, we're hoping for no more floods, ever, but it pays to be preventative.  

And me?  I've been obsessed by knitting.  Our Ann always calls January knitting month, but we have both extended it this year.  She's knitting a lovely throw for her upstairs family room, and I'm still knitting small things for dolls.  I took the Mary Maxim hat pattern and by using different sized needles and yarns, made hats for two other dolls.

Magic Attic girl Rose. The mirror at the side gives full view

14" Betsy McCall in hers and AG Samantha in new teal one

In both cases, I followed the pattern exactly and they came out perfectly just with needle and yarn differences.  So glad, too, that I bought all the different sizes of pom pom makers.  

And now?  I'm working on a sweater I've made before, this time using an App that my longtime blog friend, Judy of Patchwork Place, recommends.  It's called Knit Companion and is available both iOS and Android through their App Stores.  You can download a free version that is quite helpful and usable, and of course you can upgrade to two more levels.  

I'm using a free 7-day trial of both upper levels right now and attempting to learn all I can so I can decide if I want to pay the amazing price of $19.99 per year for them.  At first I thought, $20 a year?  No way! (Sometimes it's hard to get my brain out of the last century when it comes to money!) But then I did a little calculating and it came to $.05 a day for the use of the program with all its bells and whistles.  I especially like being able to highlight the row I'm working on and even enlarge the page to make it easier to read.  

Here's a look at my iPad with the pattern I'm working on.

It also works for charted work such as cross stitch and crochet and those amazing Scandinavian sweaters.  

So I'll sign off for now, as I'm almost done with my little sweater and I'm longing to see which doll it looks best on.  It's a sunny yellow, just the right harbinger of spring on this cold, mostly cloudy day in mid February.  ♥

Algebra Rules!!

I grew up in the '50's and '60's--you know, back in the last century.  It was a new time for girls and for the first time in history (or so they told us), women could be any thing they wanted to be.  I was a pretty good student, and so it was assumed I would go forth and do Great Things.  I could become an engineer and design new things, I could learn to fly! Oh, the list was long and impressive.  No more careers in nursing or teaching for the new women.  So I took math classes.  Algebra I and II, geometry, and "advanced math", a would-be trigonometry class. And then . . . I became a teacher.  

All those math classes (and more in college), what need did an elementary teacher have of them?  Well, I do use geometry in my quilting.  And just this week, algebra came in very handy.  How you ask?  Well, I'll tell you.

I loved the doll hat pictured in my last post so much that I immediately set about to make another. (And I really wanted to try out a pom pom maker.)  I found some left over lilac yarn and churned one out in short order.  But now my doll needed a sweater to match!  I had downloaded a simple cardigan pattern from the Norwegian lady and liked the looks of it, but it called for finer yarn than I had.  What to do?  Then I remembered that a blogger I follow who knits had recently mentioned that any pattern could be knit in any yarn.  Hmmm... She also suggested that a knitter knit a test swatch with recommended yarn and needles to be sure it comes out true to size.  (Here is where I confess I have never done this. Apparently I like to live dangerously, at least in my knitting.) 

After a brief pondering, I choose a needle size and picked up my yarn and knit a swatch.  I knew from the pattern directions that 30 stitches was supposed to equal 4 inches.  My swatch came out five and a quarter. Algebra to the rescue:  5.25x=4, x=4/5.25, x=.76. Yes! All I had to do was multiply all the stitch numbers in the pattern by .76 and I was ready to go.  Did it work?

Why yes, it did!!  It fits little Amalia like a glove!  And that pom pom?  Perfection!

Who says we'll never use algebra in our regular lives? Not me!!  ♥

Snow, A Finish, and New Little Gadgets

It's four days later and winter has indeed arrived . . . and stayed.  We've had at least a foot and a half of snow, alog with wind, and cold temperatures.  As I type, the wind is howling and I'm thankful to be indoors, dressed in a cozy fleece top, jeans, and warm slippers. Ah, the life of a retiree!  

I finished the doll outfit and I'm so happy with how it turned out.  The directions were easy to follow and it was actually fun to do.  My American Girl doll, Samantha, is happily wearing it and is glad to be so cozy and warm in this weather.  

The kit came from Mary Maxim and I also ordered the black pants, top and boots because I really wanted those boots! They make the outfit.

I followed the directions in the pattern to make the pom poms at the ends of the scarf and for the top of the hat and they turned out okay, but not very full.  I'd like to make at least the hat again, and if I do, I want a better pom pom since it'll probably be a stand alone piece, so I googled pom pom makers and found one made by Clover with great ratings.  I ordered yesterday and the UPS man dropped it at my front door this morning.  

A set of four, making different sizes, wasn't that much more than ordering one singly, so I went with the set. There are lots of videos on YouTube showing how to use these, so I'm looking forward to trying them out soon.  ♥

End of June?!?

Hmmm, how did June fly by so quickly?  Here it is the last day, and so in a valiant effort to improve my blogging I'm going to see if I can come up with a few coherent things to share.  

I haven't made any new dresses for my dolls, but I did make an effort to take Ann Estelle's blue dress and make it suitable for Easter.  I was thinking I would add lace and ribbons, but when I searched among my findings, I found a wire-edged dusty blue organdy ribbon that just seemed to say use me.  So I did.  

I loved using it to tie around her head and then just cut a piece to tie around her waist.  It's not stitched on, so I can still make changes to the dress if I get inspired later on.  Meanwhile, AE felt quite stylish for Easter.  

Another thing I forgot to share was Ann's Mother's Day gift.  

A plethora of new cloth napkins, which she knows I love, and my new favorite mug filled with lemoncello almonds from Costco.  I had never tasted the almonds before and let me tell you, it was love at first bite!  Mmmm...

And that's it for now!!  ♥

It Snowed, I Sewed

And the snow came down!! And down!!  We got up to another four inches yesterday morning and it continued to snow throughout the morning adding another couple. This was the lacy view out our bedroom window:

So what's a girl to do when she's caught up on her housework (miracle!!) and has leftovers for dinner? Why she sews, of course.  My longtime pal, Kathy, and I have been in conversation about our dolls this past week and she tipped me off to a free pattern on the internet for my 10" Tonner Ann Estelle doll.  I made a test run of it on Tuesday and it turned out to be a good fit.  It's a sleeveless dress so here's Ann Estelle modeling it with her white sweater turned back into a cardigan:

I learned a few things as I made the blue dress, so yesterday I headed straight down to my sewing room (see paragraph above) and decided to make another.  I rooted around in my stash of doll fabrics and came up with a odd shaped scrap someone gave me years ago. Would it be enough?  Yes! By making the skirt a little less full and shorter, I decided I could squeeze out a dress that would be perfect for the 4th of July.  And here's AE modeling it for you all.  I think she'll need red sandals to really set it off.

This pattern has many possibilities and I'm looking forward to trying out some more ideas.  Meanwhile, I'm perusing adorable shoes in AE's size (which, unfortunately are not cheap!) because cute dresses need cute shoes.  

I have yet to get started cutting and stitching on the Snowy Day quilt, but maybe today?  ♥

February! And Knitting for Dolls!

Whoosh! The first days of February have whizzed by. Basketball games, an impending visit by a niece (which was cancelled just today because of weather), and the usual cooking, cleaning, laundry, and all those other fun necessities of life.  So here we are, on the fifth already.  

We have snow and cold.  And the cold, below freezing, is predicted to last for at least the next two weeks.  The insert in our basement fireplace is blazing!  The dolls are happy, too, because that's the room they live in.  Which is a nice segue into today's topic:  knitting for dolls.

I recently posted picture of a sweater I made for my American Girl doll.  She began as Samantha, circa 1910, but just lately I decided to change her era to that of my own childhood:  the 1950s.  She has my dark hair and eyes, and even her hairstyle is one I had in upper grade school. It's been fun to remember outfits I had during that time and try to figure out how to recreate them in miniature.  So I have begun.  I had a sweater similar in style to the one I knit; however (if I remember correctly) it was green.  I couldn't find any green yarn after I made my test sweater, so I settled on purple.

Here she is wearing it, grateful that it's wool and snugly on this cold, cold day.

As I dressed her I was reminded of sweaters I had knit years ago for Ann Estelle and Betsy McCall so I dug around and redressed them for the winter weather.  

Ann Estelle is wearing hers backwards so it looks like a pullover when actually it's a cardigan.  These little sweaters are so much fun to knit!  The one for Betsy is from a free pattern I got through a Tonner doll list I was on "back in the day", and Ann Estelle's was taken from an old Petite Doll Knitting Book written for Barbie dolls that my cousin Diane bought for me when she worked in Billings, Montana, in the early '60s.  I took the cardigan pattern in it, used larger needles, and voila! It worked! Now I just need to find a source of fingering weight yarn in colors other than baby pastels so I can knit more and expand their wardrobes.  

Oh!!!  And I almost forgot a very important find.  Poor Ann Estelle has had legs that wobbled almost since the day I got her.  As I dressed her this time I found that she had totally lost the ability to stand and I was forced to seat her.  This made me very unhappy because she's wearing some very cute red boots that needed to be seen!  

I made an internet search and found the answer.  It seemed so strange that I didn't believe it would work, but as you can see, work it did.  Here's the link to the blog that explains what to do.  I didn't have the small rubber bands she shows so I took a larger one and just looped into three rounds. I could see that it was working, so I took another and did the same thing. Perfection.  Each leg took two bands, equal to six of the size she shows. I'm one happy doll mama!!  ♥

The Crazy Knitter

As my faithful readers know, I have a few dolls that I have on display in our family room.  I don't actually do much with them, but I do love dressing them.  And I've enjoyed making doll clothes as long as I can remember.  I have amassed quite a collection of patterns over the years, even a few left over from my childhood.  The problem is time; sewing for dolls can be as time consuming as sewing for a person, sometimes more given the fiddly nature of sewing in miniature.  

I have several sources of patterns that show up in my Facebook feed and the other day a sweater for American Girl type dolls surfaced.  I decided to indulge myself and so bought and downloaded the pattern.  And decided to make one immediately, before the desire wore off.  I had several choices of leftover sock yarn and thought each would be enough.  After all, how much yarn could one small, actually tiny, sweater need?  Well, as it turned out, more than I had left of any one color.  

At first I thought it wouldn't matter, I'd use this as a test run.  But I hadn't reckoned with the intricacies of the design and as I knitted I wasn't certain I would want to make another one. I kept knitting however, and it almost seemed miraculous that the yarn continued. I got much further into the sweater than I ever thought when at last the yarn ran out.  I had another color in the same type of yarn, and the knitting had finally gotten easier, so I attached it and kept on going.  When I finished, I was amazed at the result.  I think it's cuter than it would have been in just one color!  Amazing!

I used my new yarn holder which was a Christmas gift from Ann and just love it!  It holds the yarn and makes pulling out new lengths so easy.  Not to mention that it's just the cutest!

I even think I'll try another version of the sweater.  I'm a glutton for punishment!!  ♥

Reliving My Childhood

It's a very lazy Sunday here at the Resort.  We skipped church due to my sleeping in (daylight savings time, I hate you!), and so enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of eggs Benedict. That was followed by a relaxing time on the sofa with a good book, followed by, amazingly, a nap!  I told you it's a very lazy Sunday.

Meanwhile, in my last post I said I'd be back in a day or so and here I am.  I'm trying to do better with this poor blog. And so, what do I have to share?  Dolls.  Dolls? Yes, dolls.  I love dolls. Always have. As a girl, I got a new doll every Christmas, with one notable year where I ended up with three. I loved them one and all.  My best friend, Kathy, and I spent many hours of our growing up years playing with dolls.  

Most of my childhood dolls are long gone, but about twenty years ago, I discovered that there were some amazing dolls being made.  The Tonner doll company was making a 14" Betsy McCall doll that was adorable. I still had my original 8" Betsy and some of her clothes, so I felt an immediate need for the new one.  Kind of a big sister, so to speak, for my little one.  And the American Girl dolls!  I needed one of those, too!  I put them on Christmas lists and my sweetheart bought both for me. Over the next few years, several more dolls found their way to our house.  I even bought a stash to share with future granddaughters, but as we have four grandsons, they were eventually shared with a friend.

Over my teaching years my doll collection was sadly ignored, but recently I've been inspired by my longtime dolly buddy Kathy, and I'm again playing.  

I think I'm done adding any dolls to my group (I don't want to have too many to love, like the matchbox car story), but I'm interested in doing some sewing for them.  Not too many outfits, just enough for seasons, special occasions, and fun times as the mood strikes.  

When we bought this house almost eighteen years ago, there were two sets of shelves in the basement family room, complete with glass doors.  My dolls live in one and Dan's collection of Nutcrackers live in the other.   

Here are my girls starting with the top shelf:

They are, left to right, back row,  American Girl Samantha, now being reinvented as me in the fifties, a porcelain doll I bought in Levenworth, Washington, Tonner's 14" Betsy McCall, and Rose, a Magic Attic doll. Front row:  Mary Englebreit's Ann Estelle and her friend Sophie, and my tiny Betsy McCall.

This shelf features dolls I have created to match characters from a book series and a movie.  On the left is a Just Pretend doll I remade into Amelia Peabody, famed egyptologist from the turn of the last century, from the book series by Elizabeth Peters.  On the right is Eve Tozer (another Just Pretend doll), from the Tom Selleck movie, High Road to China.  The wonderful accessories were obtained when the internet doll store, iDolls, went out of business.  

And last, here is the bottom shelf.  The little doll in the desk was purchased in Boise at a toy store. She has a sweet face and one eye that doesn't work quite right.  I just couldn't leave her behind, never to be loved.  The center doll is a Heidi Ott doll I've named Amalia after my Norwegian grandfather's mother.  I had fun making this outfit for her.  The doll on the right is another porcelain one my son and daughter-in-law brought back from Germany.  

So there you have it.  I still play dolls.  Actually, what I really do is dress dolls, with plans to make more clothes to dress them in.  It's fun and it keeps me out of trouble. (However, my love of shoes has carried over to the dolls, and there are many adorable ones just waiting to be purchased!!!)

Christmas 1955

I was in the first grade and six years old the Christmas of 1955. We lived in a small duplex downtown and my brother was three.

In our town, Christmas officially began the Saturday after Thanksgiving. As I remember, the decorations which were strung across Main Street were put up Friday by men in town (probably some service group such as the Lions Club). Santa came on Saturday and it seemed that everyone in the area was in town to watch and gather in the bags of candy which were distributed. A stand was erected on an empty corner lot, and there, every Saturday until Christmas drawings were held to win prizes donated by town merchants.

I've mentioned before that I got a new doll each Christmas. This year, 1955, the most popular dolls were Betsy Wetsy and Tiny Tears. Both came with bottles which, when filled with water, could actually be "fed" to the dolls. They could then cry (small holes at the corners of their eyes) and wet their diapers. Every little six-year-old girl's dream!

At this stage of my life, I can't remember which was which, but my parents got me one doll, and I won the other one!! Oh, the bliss!!

Here I am, my new riches spread before me on the table:


I'm wearing my new Christmas pj's from Grandma Hansen. I can still remember them--they were salmon pink and white gingham flannel and instead of long pants, they had bloomer bottoms. I loved them!