The Dolls, yet again.

What can I tell you?  I'm obsessed with sewing.  It's not my fault.  Blame Miss P, who started me on the downward spiral of sewing.

This is all I want to do.  Forget meals. That's why eggs and yogurt were invented.  Laundry?  Hah!  Errands?  Only if they include a quilt shop or Joanne's.  Straightening up my mess?  Are you serious here?  Whatever is the point of it?  I'll only make more of a mess tomorrow.

So, here are the latest dolls and their clothing.  His Most Royal Hubboness, He who shops at rummage sales, found 2 AG dolls, both with "hair cuts".  One of them is Kit; I'm not sure who the other one is, but she's lovely.  2 dolls for a total of $15!

Kit, on the left, is wearing an outfit from the last post, but this time embellished with a teensy weensy yo yo.  And the unknown AG doll has a yo yo on the top of her little dress.

Here are the 3 "embellished" ladies.

So, now I spend my time looking at patterns for the gals.  And I'm also getting ready to actually attempt to sew a knitting project bag.  Given that it's a bunch of straight lines, it should be much easier than  little armholes and such.

And I'm seriously thinking of starting to do some patchwork.  My poor knitting and crocheting are languishing.  But looking at all the fabric colors makes me want to dye yarn.  I'm thinking of a summer collection in Bambi, merino and bamboo.  Maybe bright summery looks, with the bamboo, which doesn't take the dye, to soften the colors.  Hmmmmm.  I need an 8 day week and a 30 hour day.  The more I play, the more I want to play.

Wall-to-wall books - In your dreams!  Making the little outfits is more than enough.  I'm not particularly good at this.  Yeah, they look fine on the outside, but turn them over and we have a mess.

Dolly Friday

I'm having such a grand time sewing these AG doll clothes.  Not that I'm a great sewer, but these little items don't have to be perfect, and anyhow, I'm an expert on ripping out.  I'm so used to it with knitting design, that it doesn't even bother me any more.

So here are the girls in their new outfits.  Most of these have been made twice:  the first time I ripped, and then almost got it right the second time.  tee hee.

This skirt was a pain in the neck to do.  I used a pattern that called for charm squares (5" squares), and I bought a package at Joanne's.  Some of the squares were not square, and it drove me batty.  Plus there were cut with a pinking shears, which also did not make me happy.  So I had to attach them to each other, then do a bit of ruffling (which I kind of like), and sew all those seams.  I'm not fond of how it wants to stick out at the end of the first tier.  I'd like to do something like this again, but either do it with my own 5" blocks, or just use large strips of fabric.  I was smart enough to measure each finished strip, so I can do this again.  The top was kind of odd to do, but all in all, it seems to work, and The Principessa will like it, I hope.  And if she doesn't, I'll take it back and give it to Miss P.  Between the 2 kids, somebody will like something. 

I loved doing the little halter top and skirt. That's the one on the left. I used some batik also from Joannes, and the pieces were fun and easy to do.  I may not have actually ripped this one the first time.  This one will go to Miss P.  I want to do one in pinks for the Principessa, since she is at that stage of loving pink.  Miss P has moved past pink and onto maybe greens?  I don't know.  Again, if it doesn't please her, I'll take it back and give it to the Principessa.

Aren't these cute?  The tops are done with that little top from the first outfit I made, and the skirts are miniskirts from somebody's pattern.  The left on is for Miss P, and the right one for the Principessa.  I got both outfits out of 2 fat quarters.  I love fat quarters.  Inexpensive, and fun and enough yardage for lots of things.  I think the fabric came from a wonderful quilt shop on the Cape - Heartbeat Quilts.  An amazing shop with more fabric that you can begin to imagine.  A bit pricey, but wonderful stuff.

This last little outfit is a combo of 2 patterns.  The top is from Liberty Jane, and I do not like the fit.  It is awkward to get on and way too tight at the bottom.  So tight that I can't get it over the skirt.  Plus turning under the edge at the armhole (on the right) was a huge pain in the butt.  With these little 1/4" seams, there not much space for cutting, so I had to seriously fudge.  I think the pattern would work well in a knit, but I suspect that the bottom would still be very tight to put on.  I'm going to add a bit onto each side of the pattern to get it to fit better.  But I don't know what to do about that armhole.  I do love almost all the Liberty Jane patterns, so I think this was me trying to work a woven into a knitted pattern.  Oh well, I bought the fabric at Joanne's, and I know there is more out there.  I kinda like the way the top looks with the little ruffle on the skirt, but to really work, the top needs to be worn outside and it doesn't fit over the skirt.  Grumble grumble.  Whatever.  I can give the skirt to a kid, but they will scream with frustration with the top.

And that's the story, Morning Glory.

Whoops, I didn't tell you all about this year's trip to Cape Cod.  I'll post that another time.  It was beyond wonderful.  I could go back in an instant.  And I'll tell you all about The Platinum Pebble Inn.  I'm in love.

Scrabblequeen - We knitters are experts at ripping, aren't we.  After you do it over and over, it ceases to be a pain and just becomes part of the project.  Sounds good, doesn't it?

Wall-to-wall books   - I'm having such fun doing this.  Now I'm looking into a bit of quilting, maybe a log cabin.  Also going to find fabric for a sock project bag and a large tote.  I need my head examined.  Clearly I'm on the road to ruin here.


Wall-to-wall books - Me too.  Now to get the courage to actually make a block!  I'm such a scaredy cat.

Henya - Thank you.

The Yarnarian Chats.

I haven't been blogging much the last few weeks, but I have been busy.  Lots of dyeing for the Light & Dark Lace Club, pattern revision and such, working out some ideas for Roxanne's shipment way off in April, etc, etc.

I decided that I needed to somehow get my sweater mojo back, so I started playing with ideas by making outfits for the American Girl Doll.  These are not the nicest knits, far from it, but they have become a great place to noodle around with ideas.   So here's a mini-dress/tunic/skating dress that I did the other day.  When you look at it, you'll see immediately a major design flaw.  I wanted to decrease the skirt between lace patterns, so I did a bit of k1,p1 ribbing and then decreased within it.  Bad move.  I should have done either reverse stockinette or garter and decreased within it.  So now I know.  And the dopey thing is that I knew it was wrong as I was doing it, but I just wanted to keep going and see what happens and after blocking whether it would improve.  Nope.  Ah well, Miss P won't care, and I do love the shaping of the little tunic.  I particularly like the garter border on the skirt and the waviness of the edge.  Cute.  I also like the square neck.  It goes over the doll's head very easily.  I used Knit Picks Palette which knits and blocks so nicely, and it softens up considerable after washing.  I will do another one, only top down, and longer.

The tunic is totally without seams.  The shoulders use a 3 needle bind-off and the sleeves are picked up and knit downwards.  I used garter stitch to set off various design components.  I do this a lot because I really like it.  I used on ball, and have plenty left over.  How can you go wrong with a tunic that costs $1.99?

So now I've started a sweater for me.  Gasp!  Shock!  Amazement!  This is also out of Palette.  It will not be very warm because it's loosely knitted and Palette is a 2-ply fingering wt. yarn, but it's so easy on my hands and it just zooms along.  I can actually knit this much faster than a heavier wt yarn.  Lots of lace and I may change the lace pattern as i go up the sweater.  I'm going to do a square neckline and pick up the sleeves and work downward as usual.  Because the body of the sweater goes up, and the sleeves go down, I may use a different sleeve pattern.  I'm very used to this, and I like it.  By the time I get to the sleeves, I'll be so bored with the pattern that I will be happy to do something else.  Or maybe whatever I do further up the sweater body, I'll also do on the sleeves.  If it doesn't look dopey. 

A bit of note on the yarn:  This is how yarn used to feel before merino got into our hands:  woolly and not as soft as merino.  I love this kind of yarn; it's what I've knit with all my life.  It washes well, wears like iron, doesn't itch me, although I do wear a turtleneck or a blouse underneath sweaters.  Not to say anything at all against merino.  I love merino, but it's nice to work on something else for a change.  This yarn is not Shetland, which is probably my all-time favorite yarn, but it's very pleasant, unbelievably cheap, and good quality and yardage.  Now I want to dig through my stock of Shetland and see if I have enough of any one color for a sweater.  Wool!  The best fiber out there.

The Yarnarian Surfaces Again.

We had the most wonderful 4 days! Miss P, that effervescent and ebullient 7 year old grand, stayed with us while her folks stayed at a local motel. They had a bit of time alone together, and we had all the fun of a 7 year old kid. She is so grown up this Passover. You should have heard her reading her turn from the Haggadah. And we played games, and she commandeered my American Girl dolls, and we cooked and had a grand time. She is a master matzo ball maker! I bet she could have done the entire shaping all alone. And polite! Lots of "yes, please" and "no, thank you". I suspect she was on her best behavior, but who cares. We had such fun and I miss her already.

We went back to a very traditional seder this year. Elder DD ventured forth into West Side Judaica in the city, and bought a bunch of haggadot with English, Hebrew, and transliteration. We figured that the non-Jews at our seder were already comfortable with the service and were ready for the big time, and they were. We even got everyone to do the blessings over the wine in Hebrew, and even some of the songs. Such fun, and the next day I felt like a truck had run over me. giggle.



I have 3 American Girl dolls and a Target knock-off. Miss P brought one of hers with her and had the best time arranging dolls and furniture and changing outfits. She loves to arrange, and every day, we had a new configuration.



Knitting? What? Are you kidding? Hah! It was a nice break though and I'm now happily working on a few projects. Pics maybe tomorrow because as usual, I frogged one of the projects. I frog, therefore I am. rippit, rippit.

Dyeing? Snort, laugh, giggle, snort some more. Folks, I was up to my eyeballs in grandchild doting and seder preparation. And to tell the truth, it was a nice break and I'm starting to get my dyeing mojo back.

Kitten With a Whiplash - yep, it was pretty nice, and now the house is too quiet!

itsJUSTme-wendy - It's even better than having your own kids. tee hee.

baby face - All of our kids are intermarried and all to Catholic people. Miss P identifies herself as being both religions, and is in love with both traditions. So we spent a good time practicing singing Ehad me yodea, which she happily sang at the top of her lungs.

Grace - It was great having the family around, but I really missed my sister and her kids. Ah well, there's always next year. Now, if I could just get the mess cleaned up.....

The Yarnarian is Back.

I'm back after a wonderful MN vacation. It was a wonderful trip and I had a great time, and now it's good to be back home with the Hubbo.

So here's what I learned on my trip:

1. 6 year olds can out-energize me by 58 years. Miss P is loaded with energy. If we walk, she runs, hops, skips, jumps. If we sit, she squirms and wriggles. The neat thing is that she can sit still and concentrate when she needs to. What a kid!

2. I can survive -degrees in the frozen northland provided I have the right clothing.

3. I really, really like Minneapolis! Well, I have always known that, but since I'm always out in the frigid temps, except for the birthday visit, I still love it even in winter.

4. I like the Mall of America. I know it's non-uppity to admit that, but during the week early in the morning, it's a great mall.

5. I like the 50th and France area a lot. We never had a chance to get to the hotsy totsy consignment shop, but I looked into the window, and I could do some damage there.

6. I miss light rail. Hey you can't have everything.

7. It's good to be home! Yup, New Jersey wins.

No pics because I didn't take my camera with me.

Miss P loves her AG doll. I knitted 2 sweaters while there, but no pics. Sorry about that.

American Girl Doll info: the doll is a tad bigger than my cheapie knockoff that I got from Amazon. I can still use Sweater Wizard for proportions, but I will make future sweaters about 14.5 - 15 inches around instead of 14". Make the sleeves wider also, and decrease less. Someone on Ravelry mentioned that she bought one of the original dolls about 17 years ago, and just got a new one to knit for and the older dolls are definitely smaller than the new ones. Just for your info.

Also, the AG dolls are much better made, and the hair is awesome. You have to get something for that price! If the doll is out of your price range, the knock offs are still pretty darn good. You don't have to impoverish yourself to get a nice doll.

Dyeing News: While I was away with no dyeing to do (and to tell the truth, I didn't miss it at all), I started thinking about 2009, and what I want to accomplish during the year. I like a challenge, so I am going to have a different theme for each month. And I may just dye up 2 skeins simultaneously which is the max I can do, just so that folks who want considerably more yardage can have it.

January's theme is going to be Fairy Tales. I have the year pretty much blocked out, but if you have any neat ideas, let me know. Nothing is written in stone except for Jan and Feb. And I always like your feedback.

I'm still noodling around with the idea of a lace scarf club. It may or may not happen. It's mostly a matter of time; I have 2 of the scarves done, and I have to write them up. And the dyeing is always fun. Just when I start is the issue.

Business news: I'm fighting it tooth and nail, but I may have to go up a tiny bit on my yarn prices. My cost has gone up during the last year, and I've absorbed it, so it all depends on what new yarn purchases cost. Not a great increase; maybe a buck per skein, but don't worry, I'll keep it as reasonable as I can. I know that money is tight, so you know I won't knock my prices way up. And anyhow, I'm cheap which means that I assume you are also cheap, ahem frugal, know good value, whatever. If this happens, it won't come for a while because I have a good stock of yarn on hand. And it may not happen at all. And now I've frightened you for no good reason. Bad Yarnarian!

Also, there is a mail increase coming up (blech); that'll add about 20 cents to the shipping. I personally hate paying shipping charges, but that's the cost of shipping, so what can I do?

Oh, I hate ending a post on such a negative note. So, let me tell you that any wicked witches in fairy tales have their yarn already dyed for them. Before I left for vacation, I went into wicked witch mode, and have some lovely gloomy, witchy colors. Evil laugh here: Mwahahahaha!

KV - And a Happy Hanukkah to you and yours! Eat a lot of latkes and take a lot of Tums.