Tree climber

This is my belated Christmas post...




The tree climbing bear is the most recent doll made from a wee wonderfuls pattern. She turned out more Christmassy than anticipated and looks right at home amidst the ornaments. Here is a better view of her, taken outside, before the snowstorm and subsequent freezing temps.




Christmas decorating was pretty simple this year. Brought up only two boxes of ornaments from the basement to decorate the tree. Discovered the handmade tree skirt at the thrift store a couple of months previous.





The tree went up a week before Christmas and came down the week after. I dismantled it after everyone had gone to bed (I had gone to bed as well, but awoke from a bad dream, and unable to go back to sleep, decided to put Christmas to bed instead). The tree disappeared four days ago and no one has remarked about its absence.

Grandpa was given a plate of cookies that Chatterbelle helped make. We made a coffee cup sleeve for Chatterbelle's uncle. She drew the cat face and I embroidered it onto a piece of gray felted wool sweater. But I embroidered it upside down. So to fix it I cut it out and stitched it (right side up) onto a piece of green felted wool sweater. Fortunately, I have no shortage of felted wool sweaters.




And lastly we have a small forest of Christmas trees made from this Martha Stewart pattern.




Rather than download and print onto cardstock as pattern directed, I used their template (reduced in size a bit to fit our abundance of green scrapbooking paper) as a pattern. I traced the shapes and Chatterbelle cut them out. The trees still look good even if not cut exactly even. I showed her where to fold, and she made the creases. After this photo was taken, she proceeded to decorate them with lots of little sticker ornaments. I don't have a photo of the final result; these little trees, like most little things, were quickly scattered about the house.

Better connected...

Well Autumn has whizzed by since my last post and now Christmas is around the corner. Good news is that we finally have DSL. No more depending upon an unreliable phone line to access internet happenings. Perhaps now I will be a more frequent visitor to blogland. We are currently in the midst of some winter weather. Here is a photo of our dog in the snow.

Gingham summer apron

My apron for tie one on. Theme is gingham summer.




I have a stack of thrifted pillowcases waiting to be used in projects. I decided it was time to use one for an apron. I cut open the two long sides of the pillowcase and left the short end stitched together. That became the center of the apron skirt. I found a coordinating blue gingham in my stash to use for the bib. Waistband and sash ties were made from blue chambray. Apron is trimmed with jumbo size white ric rak.

I chose blue gingham for this project because to me summer means blue skies!

Tie-dye T-shirt... drawstring pouch!

For the purse project I made a drawstring pouch from a pink tie-dyed t-shirt I found at the thrift store.




I used a medium weight interfacing to give the bag some body, and lined it with a white t-shirt I found in the back of my closet. It's trimmed with pink bias tape and the drawstring is made from pink grosgrain ribbon.

Havana nights apron

My apron for tie one on:




For this theme I wanted to use bright colors, flowers, and ruffles. The large ruffle is made from aqua colored eyelet fabric. The waistband is aqua polka dots on cobalt blue ground. The center of apron is an iris floral print in aqua, cobalt and lime. I added the little corsage flower to the waistband because the apron said it needed something festive to wear to the night time dance party in Havana. Corsage is made from a silk flower backed with a long gathered piece of lime green lace and attached to a safety pin.




Oh look! It's reversible:

More catching up

Some blue bloomers:




Made from a vintage pattern to go with at little summer top I purchased on sale at Kohl's:




I made these in her current size thinking she could wear them through the first half of summer. But she has had a recent growth spurt and I will be lucky if she gets one wearing out of them. Anyway, I hope to make more of these bloomers (in a bigger size natch) to wear under her summer dresses.

Then we have orange bear:




Made from a wee wonderfuls pattern for a little friend that moved away whose favorite color is orange.

Catching up

Still have not figured out how to fit blogging into my schedule. It's usually the end of the day before I have time to get on the computer and then I'm too tired to write coherently, much less make proper links. Will make more of an effort to work it into my schedule

Here are a few things I've been making for Chatterbelle recently.

Zucchini bear:


She calls this bear, Zucchini, for no other reason I think than she likes to say the word. I made it from fleece she found in the remnant bin at Walmart (I was actually shopping for ric rak). She thought it would make a soft and cuddly bear. Then she declared that it should have red ears and paws. So this is what I came up with. She designed the face, but I added the eyelashes by fringing the yarn mouth where it met up with the eyes. She likes her dolls to have big smiles. Smiles are important to Chatterbelle.

Blue jeans:


I used Butterick 4176. The pants on this pattern have side-seam pockets. For fabric I recycled a pair of my mother's old capri length jeans headed for the donation box. After picking apart the side seams, and ironing the fabric pieces, I laid out the pattern pieces so as to incorporate the hem. The side-seam pockets on the capri's were a tad skimpy, so I cut the pattern piece down to fit. After they were finished, they seemed a little baggy, so I undid the waist, cut it down an inch and restitched the waist. Chatterbelle likes them and wants me to make more.

Birthday bunny:


And finally, A Wee Wonderfuls bunny to give to a little friend who was having a birthday.