Her Former Husband

This is her former husband, and she was the same kind of doll before her "makeover." I passed the pair three times before it occurred to me that I could use them. He looks a little sad now, seeing that she has become a sophisticated lady.

Another doll I'm making

This doll is half of the unfinished pair I bought two for a dollar at a quilt store's closing out sale. She was kneeling, and had a flat face. I added thighs and upper arms (one I forgot to stuff!), and a molded mask-under-knit face.

At first I thought she might be a he, but once I began painting her face, I could see that she was a she alright. Face isn't quite done--she needs eyelashes and shading on her ears. I haven't decided on hair yet. Since her feet are large, I think she will wear boots.

Sweet Grace

Lest you think I am a talented photographer, I will disclose that I take fifty pictures to get one like this.

Antique doll site

http://cwthistoricaldollinfo.blogspot.com/

You can see many pictures of many old dolls at this blog. I am a follower of it now.

Art Fabric Mills Doll, c 1900

This doll was sold as a piece of fabric that the buyer cut out at home and sewed together; my friend Karen generously gifted me with it the other day and I was so glad to have it! Most of these you see on the market are very dirty, holey, and faded from years of loving by children, but this one is very clean and almost new looking. It was sold from about 1900 until the 1920s, I believe. If you copy and print out the front and back of the head on a fabric sheet like Printed Treasures, you can make a doll that looks much like the original, in just about any size you want. The original is about 24" tall and I am making a "clone" the same size, but I will also make some little ones. I will post pictures here as I make this doll.

unsubscribing: part of Life Simplification

Today I am unsubscribing from some of the newsletters/yahoo groups I belong to, but never read. Trying to keep stuff I don't want, don't read out of my inbox, while keeping the ones I love. Part of my Life Simplification Process, saving me from having to delete so much from my inbox every day.
I also delete most of what is forwarded to me, except for a few special people who seldom forward things, and I don't forward anything unless I feel it is truly worth it, and that's not very often. I especially don't like it when a person forwards several things to me at once. I would so much rather that they sent me a short note about what they are doing or thinking that day. I treasure my friends and want to hear from them.
Have a great day, my friends, and a wonderful weekend. Later today I am going to post some pictures of an old doll a friend sent me; it will be possible for you to make one from the pictures, so stay tuned!

New Doll in Progress

This one is also dressed in reprised fabrics. She is different that most dolls I make, but the same in that her body is very simple. Her jacket will have gold buttons, and I"m going to do more with her fett, which I am not satisfied with.

Poki Rests

Nothing like dogs to teach us humans how to relax!

More dogs

If you know anything about dachshunds, you will know that they love to burrow in blankets. Ours like afghans, because they can still see out. Ours do this every evening, year in and year out, but in the winter, on cold days, they burrow in the day, too. Grace, the red one, is less a burrower than Wiener, the black one, or Poki, the dapple. They are also very fond of our natural gas fireplace and will leave a lap when they see the fire come on.

I am working on a doll for an auction (see Cici's auction on The Fisch Tank), so will have a pic of that soon.

I'm also making six cowboy boot quilt blocks that I'm mailing to TX today. Will show pics of those later, too. AND I got 12 JoAnn's 1999 quilt blocks (BOMs) for 25 cents each at a rummage sale last week, on the SECOND day, no less. I've basted about four of them together while watching The Olympics. Pics to come.

Helmet Liners for the Troops

Our knitting group each made a helmet liner for the troops overseas. Next week we are going to take a field trip to South Bend to deliver them to the knit shop there. The yarn was donated by a yarn company; we didn't like it. It was very bumpy yarn and very hard to see what you were doing (keeping ribbing in line, etc.); the new knitters had an especially hard time; I would like to make another one in "regular" yarn. They can only be made in black, charcoal, brown, tan, or olive drab. The pattern is by Bonnie Long.

Living room, Doll is Dressed, Olympics

Well, what can I say. I was doing OK on the living room, but have backslid, so am still dealing with it. No pics--it would be TOO embarrassing!!!

Instead, I will show my Hitty with her new dress. she waited a LONG time for this dress, sitting naked on a bookshelf. Her friend still is naked; will try to fix that soon. Somehow, this Hitty has sustained an injury to the tip of her nose; must have landed on it at least once. Will fix eventually--doesn't show much.

We abandoned our usual Friday night fare of PBS for the opening of the Vancouver Olympics last night. I thought the show was wonderful! I was amazed at the effects: the spouting whales were my VERY favorite, but the flying boy was very good, too. The sound left us about 11 times during the two plus hours, but was never out very long.

LIving Room is Coming Along

On Saturday, I went through most everything and got it into piles of like stuff. Today I will move the sewing stuff upstairs, and then put all the yarn and knitting stuff in one place until we get the shelves we bought two months ago put together. My yarn and knitting stuff will go partly on the new shelf and partly in the cupboard that the shelves are now blocking. Everything is complicated around here.
DDIL asked if I was going to show Before and After Pics; I said, "no," only After, when I'm done!

Amazing model car photos

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24796741@N05/sets/72157604247242388/show/

Another picture of Poki. She's been with us a week now, and we are experiencing what it's like to have a younger dog, again. She is into a lot of things: my yarn, my teddy bears who sit in a child's wicker rocker, etc. I bought her a little soft elephant at a rummage sale today, and am trying to convince her that the teddy bears are MINE and the elephant is HERS.

Despite her recent broken legs, she can jump into our bathtub all by herself.

Doll has New Home

I sold one of my big Alabama Baby dolls yesterday. When they were shown at the Gallery last spring, I wasn't ready to give one of them up yet. But when someone indicated interest in this one, I decided I was ready to say goodbye and send her on to someone who really loved her. Not that I DIDN'T love her, but I have others and will make more, so I didn't NEED to keep her. So today she lives with Carol, who had a hard time making up her mind between this one and the other two.

Poki is Settling In

This is Poki, our rescued doxie; she has settled in pretty well. Poor Grace is not used to all this roughhousing and seems to have hurt her back. You can tell when a doxie's back is hurting-they sort of hump their back up when they walk, much as a person would lean over while walking with a hurt back.

Hopefully, Grace will become more fit soon, and not hurt herself when playing.

Saturday--I WILL CLEAN, I WILL! and TV & knitting

Today I WILL clean my sewing and knitting stuff out of the living room!!! I WILL!! I PROMISE!!! This time I MEAN it. Really, I've GOT to do it--I've had it at the top of my TO DO list for two months!! At the end of every day, I'm disgusted with myself for not doing it, and I'm tired of that feeling. Tonight I will retire with the satisfaction of knowing I finally faced this task and completed it!!
I finished half a helmet liner (for the military) last night while listening to my Friday evening schedule of PBS shows: Washington Week, NOW, The Journal with Bill Moyers--I really like these shows and I can knit or sew and listen. I don't look at TV much, just listen. As a child of the radio era, it seems normal for me. Of course, I DO look when I need to--some things you have to see.

Poki in "the nitch."

My chair is a recliner made for someone my husband's size (6'4"), so there is room for me and a dog on the side. Today it's Poki's turn to inhabit what we call "the nitch." She likes it there, as this picture shows.

Poki has shown me that she is also able to jump into the bathtub all by herself! I was surprised, as our other dogs HATE the bathtub and would never do that! Poki could not, however, jump out by herself.

Teacup Alabama Baby Gets a Dress

This is one of my "teacup" Alabama baby dolls. She's a cloth doll made from Deanna Hogan's (Blue Heron Dolls) Viola Ruth pattern, decreased to 50%. She's about 8" tall and was made almost two years ago; all this time, she's been naked and waiting, patiently, for some clothes. I like to make dolls but don't like to make clothes for them!!

However, I sewed this dress for this little doll last night, all by hand even though I collect old sewing machines. Sewing doll clothes by hand takes me back to when I did that as a child; I find it relaxing, whereas sewing small clothes on a sewing machine is NOT relaxing for me.

Check your Bankcard Statements, Folks!!!

Check your bankcard statements EVERY month! We discovered a charge yesterday for $14.95 from a company called UMG MINE that neither of us recognized. On checking our records, I found that this charge had been on our bill every month starting with March of last year.

Both DH and I thought the other had bought something from UMG, but this was not the case. Seems that when we ordered a knife from Chef's Catalog last March, this company included a packet with a $20 gift certificate that automatically signed us up for a "discount buyers club." In order to opt out, you had to send the packet back. This type of marketing is illegal in our state of Washington, so we called the company--we had to talk to four different people before we got the whole story and could tell them that their practice is not legal in this state; they finally agreed to refund the 11 months of charges on our bill.

I hasten to add that we did not receive ANYTHING from this company in exchange for this money; I think it's a scam. It doesn't speak well of our attention to detail that this went unnoticed for such a long time, but you can bet we will scrutinize our bill every month from here on out, and you should, too.

I went on a public site concerned with this company and found others who had been victimized the same way. I also went on Chef's Facebook site and alerted them to what was going on. I can't believe they know what's going on with this company or agreed to be a part of these shady business practices; howver, if they don't fix it, everyone who orders from them is going to get "taken" by UMG.

Green Knitting Project is Finished

And I was only a couple days late mailing it off, too, which is VERY GOOD for me! I worked hard to get it done, too; I am trying to be better at FINISHING things; I am already good at STARTING things. I paid $2.15 for the sweater pictured above, and used most of the yarn to knit the bag at right. Because it was for another knitter, I lined the bag so the knitting needles wouldn't poke through so easily. I designed the bag myself--it actually started to be a scarf and then I decided it was WAY too wide and thick for that. So I changed in midstream and decided it was a bag. The swap was with The Green Knitting Club at SwapBot.com I haven't received my package yet, but I am very much looking forward to getting it. I hope Sara likes the bag and that the USPS delivers it safely to her!