getting nippy, so good thing dolly and this cantaloupe are keeping warm

It's been strangely cool here this week, and though I am sad to say good-bye to summer, it's awfully nice to cozy up under a blanket at night. And fall has its own special magic: back-to-school and crunchy leaves and those first sharp nips in the air. The cool weather has been making me itch to crochet, so I pulled out this half-finished hat that I started sometime in the spring. It's the Snowbunny Hat pattern from Alicia. I ordered a few of her patterns because they are so gosh-durn cute, even though I don't have any little girls to whom I can give this stuff. So a handy cantaloupe is doing the modeling for me. My stuffed snowman also obliged me, though it didn't fit him as well as it did the cantaloupe.

And check out this sweater and hat my Mom knitted for Dolly. She actually took a pattern for an adult-size sweater and altered it down for the doll! I'm quite amazed by this, as I have never knitted anything but a scarf. I'm a bit better with crochet. Mom let me decorate the sweater and Dolly lay in her box for many evenings before I decided to give her the embroidered snowflake.

OK, please excuse me as Agassi is once again battling to stay in the USOpen and it really requires my undivided attention. He's playing that lovely Baghdatis guy who has such a nice face. As Twin says, "what a cute little Cypriote." He is cute, and we like to say "Cypriote."

getting mothered (part one)

The gremlin had hidden my camera cable on top of my dresser. The gremlins in my house have an uncanny knack for hiding things in plain view.

Mom and Dad's visit was wonderful, if something of a whirlwind and over too quickly. Mom babied us as only Mom can and my fridge and freezer have not been so full in months.

Mother-daughter sewing occupied a large part of the visit, and it was so much fun to shop for fabrics and trims, unravel the mysteries of the sewing machine, and work on projects together. I think my Grandma was here too, passing on all her sewing wisdom and experience through the stories and advice my Mom shared.

Mom taught me to clean and oil the Singer. This machine was my grandma's and is about 60 years old, but still runs like a dream. I learned how to use all the attachments--dangerous looking mechanical contraptions that always looked to me like instruments of torture best left carefully arranged inside the box. But now I know how to ruffle, gather, make shirring (shir?), pin tuck, attach binding in one easy step, use my walking foot, and make buttonholes. BUTTONHOLES, I tell you. I am awed by the ingenuity of the Singer sewing machine and the people who invented all those gizmos. Yeah, I know we have plasma tv's and pocket-sized computers, but that's all run by some crazy magic. My Singer works by gears and sprockets that I can SEE running around all oiled and shining. This is comforting and more than a little cool.



My Mom is a fabric snob (in the good sense of the word) and was so excited to be able to find really quality goods in the shops in the garment district. I learned a lot about fabric and trim. And we bought a lot. (err, Mom bought a lot. I was busy profusely expressing thanks for the incredible loot I got away with) My fabric and notions bins are overflowing. They require a re-organization, about which I am immensely excited. It will involve custom fabric boxes and stamped labels, I think. Wait for it.



Dolly is a little Scottish lass, and ready for back-to-school with the little kilt and blouse Mom made. My Dolly is on the left, and on the right is one of my Mom's dollies from her youth. Dolly, Sr. must be pushing about 50 years old, so I'd say she's looking pretty good. Her joints are a bit loose, and getting her to stand up on her own required some coaxing. I love how the plastic has gotten shiny from all the years of loving. Check out that lace collar. How cool is that? AND she has matching panties underneath!! She's a bit too modest to show you, but trust me they are darling.

Dad joined us for part of the week and as usual graced us with his infinite patience, and even feigned a moderate amount of interest in the sewing.



Here's Mom and Dad whooping me and Twin at bridge. I'll blame it on lousy luck. I mean, isn't that about the worst hand you've ever seen that I'm holding?

Thanks so much Mom and Pop. So, when are you coming back?

nurse dolly

Nurse Dolly wipes fevered brows and soothes the wounded. She is strong and brave and good and gentle. And she has a smashing little uniform. This was the first of the patterns I tried—largely because my Mom had a nurse uniform for her dollies and I can remember playing with it and thinking that the cape was the coolest thing ever. I realized after getting into it that the pattern is for a 9-10" doll, and Dolly is a diminutive 8". Several frustrated alterations later, it actually fits her. The cape is still a little large across the shoulders, but still pretty darn cool.

I had to show you my difficulties with the hat. The first one swallowed her whole in a hilarious Flying Nun kind of way. I overcompensated on the second, which is just as hilarious perched on top of her head. Three times a charm, and it fits just right.

I am slightly less happy with her sundress. It's the skirt that ate Texas. Poor petite Dolly. There is so much gathering that it's kind of bunching up around her waist. Twin ever so kindly informed me that it makes Dolly look like she's got some serious love handles. The neckline also gave me no small amount of trouble, but I will spare you the details.

Despite it all, Dolly is quite happy with her new duds, as am I.

dolly's smock is cuter than mine

This is my first contribution to Tie-One-On, Angry Chicken's monthly apron challenge. The theme for May was a "Smock to wear out" and I was really excited about this given Twin and I have long had a yen to make moo-moos. You know, loose-fitting, tent-like, completely unrestrictive but also somehow cute summer wear. In theory, at least, tent-like and cute are not mutually exclusive. So the smock challenge seemed like a good chance to make a moo-moo-like garment.

I should caveat this by saying I don't think my creation really counts as a smock. It's not open in the back and goes on over the head. I was going to try to alter the pattern to button in the back but feared that if I went off-pattern, I would end up with a great big mess. I almost ended up with a great big mess just trying to follow the pattern exactly, so this was probably a wise decision.



I used an old pattern from the 70s I got off eBay. I knew I wanted a yoke-style smock—I was inspired by the 70s Vogue Sewing book I borrowed (i.e. stole) from Mom. The book is not only the greatest resource for basic sewing info, it is also endlessly amusing. In the section on pleats, it reads, "The Perky Pleat: There's nothing like the snappy swing of pleats to put a lilt in your walk and a gleam in the eye of a passing gentleman..." So THAT'S the secret. Why did no one tell me sooner?

Alas, I'm not completely happy with my smock. I think it pushes my cute factor over the threshold into the realm of obnoxiously cute. All the pink didn't help. The general shapelessness of it didn't either, I think.

I used a pillowcase that I found at a thrift store for the front and back. It wasn't quite wide enough so I added a bit of white at the sides. I have since discovered that the pillowcase was vintage Vera—and I went and cut it up for a shapeless, slightly wonky smock. Oopsy. The gods of vintage linens may smite me down for such blatant sacrilege. I can only plead my complete cluelessness as humble defense.

Dolly saw the smock Amy made on Angry Chicken and liked her interpretation of the smock so much better than mine. So I made Dolly a smock a la Angry Chicken. I used the scraps from my quilt in progress and have to admit it turned out absolutely adorable. See, Dolly has no issues with cute overload. 8" plastic dolls apparently have no ceiling on cuteness. Twenty-something women, however, dressed in pink who still play with 8" dolls, well, that's when cute begins to turn into something else.

somebody get that baby some clothes!

This is my Madame Alexander doll. My mom had several very beloved Mme Alexander dolls as a girl and they all had the most incredible wardrobes. My grandmother would make dresses, nighties, coats, and hats for them. And these dolls were no collector's items, encased in glass for viewing purposes only. Mom loved them fiercely and played with them so much that by the time I came along, a few had become half-bald, a few had lost a limb or two, and at least one had eyes that no longer did that thing where they pop open when the doll is vertical, then close when the doll lies down. But they were still the most beautiful dolls.

While my Mom's dolls are all Velveteen rabbity, my doll is not feeling the love. I got her about five years ago, because she's beautiful and I'm nostalgic about these dolls. But she has sat on the shelf, in the outfit she came in and never even got a name. Or maybe I named her several times, and then forgot what I named her. She's been wearing the same froofy Easter dress for the last five years and she's tired of it.



I went on eBay and found some vintage patterns—at least one of them is the same pattern Grandma used to make clothes for Mom's dolls. They arrived in the mail a few days ago and I have already started a nightgown. Patterns from the fifties, however, seem a bit cryptic to me as they assume a higher level of sewing skill than I currently possess. But I plan to persevere because this baby needs some clothes.

And I've settled on a name for her. She is Dolly.