Tamsy Time

Ok, this is one of my favorite outfits simply because it’s so easy to change it up.

Four pieces – a skirt, shirt, scarf or belt, and a tam – can be mixed and matched in a variety of ways to create different looks.

I like the full tam, skirt, scarf, shirt look to create a sophisticated school look. And I’d add to that a couple of books and a backpack.

You can find a tutorial on how to make your own books for your doll here; and a great pattern (I’ll review in an upcoming blog)  for a backpack here.

The rose and black tamsy, the candy cane tamsy, and the green and black tamsy are available while they last on Etsy.

 

More Harry Potter For Our Littlest Wizard

Last week I showed you the crib sheets and car seat cover for our much anticipated Wizard-in-Waiting (due in February). I had some sizable scraps left over from these projects and looked around for some itty bitty ways to use them.

First stop, Menta Sewing Patterns for their Baby Menta Shoes, a pattern I’d purchased awhile back while on sale. I knew from watching the ideas roll out on their Facebook page that’d I’d find a lot of use for this pattern, so I purchased the Family Shoe Bundle with 19 sizes, from newborn to plus sized adult.

There are a lot of bells and whistles that can be added as part of this pattern:

• Toe reinforcement option with instructions
• Lace trim option with instructions
• How to sew appliques
• Bow Toe option
• Padded soles instructions
• For this pattern, soles are narrower than the booties as this pattern is designed to be done with light to medium weight fabrics.
• Hidden Seams (Reversible) and Exposed Seam (quick method) option.
• 3 Bonus appliqué templates!

For my first try of this pattern, I opted to do a basic slipper, no extra options. It was sew easy! The most difficult part was sewing such small slippers. I used a serger to finish all my seams and rounding those close corners was a bit of a challenge. I’m going to estimate this was a 15-minute sew.

This was a seriously useful scrap buster and when our Wizard-in-Waiting’s dad saw the finished result, he wanted a pair, too.

Sewing is a little like doing home renovations. You start off doing one thing and, before you know it, you’re doing all kinds of related things.

And so it was with this project. Next week I’ll show you some of my other Harry Potter scrap-busting ideas. Spoiler alert: the Wizard-in-Waiting ends up with a whole new outfit from several different designers.

BONUS TIP FOR DOLL LOVERS: These slippers in a newborn size were also a nice fit for 18″ dolls (American Girl Doll, Maplelea, Our Generation, Journey).

We’re just building inventory at the moment, but if you’d like to pop by our Etsy shop, you can find us here. 

Christmas – Week 2

And part 2 of the Christmas pajama marathon. You can read about my pajamas-for-people pick (I love me some alliteration) here. I’m not done yet, but I’m ahead of schedule.

This week I’m working on a footed pajama pattern for dolls from Matilda’s Closet. I love, love, love Matilda’s Closet and own so many of their patterns. Patterns are available in both pdf and paper form. I chose the pdf version of the Footie Pajamas for 18″ doll pattern available here.

At this point, all of our dolls are the 18″ size: American Girl, Maplea, and Our Generation. Between me, my sister, and my granddaughters we have eight. So. Lot’s of pajama models.

It’s an unwritten rule that all family PJs must match. Or sort of match. This year, I chose fleece buffalo plaid for our Christmas pjs. We live in Alberta, Canada where the winters can be pretty harsh. Even so, the footed pajamas were too warm for some. Note to Self: use flannel next time.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not my first pattern from Matilda’s Closet. So, as expected, these footed pjs sewed up quickly and without problem. Footed pjs might just be my go-to pattern from now on for pajamas. There’s not many pattern pieces (for this pattern, only the front, back, foot tops, foot bottoms, collar and cuffs) and so both cutting and sewing are super quick and simple.

There’s a zipper which sometimes intimidates new sewists. In all honesty, I found that, after doing a few zippers, they are actually quite simple.

TIP: The cheapest place I’ve found zippers here in Canada is from Cleaners Supply, which also has a presence in the U.S. Fast, cheap shipping as well!

I used anti-pill fleece from Fabricland for the body and feet of the pajamas and rib knit from L’oiseau for the collar and cuffs. The pattern asks for fabric with lots of 4-way stretch, but I found this fleece worked fine, and it occurs to me that only the collar and cuffs need 4-way stretch.  SMH.

Our First Craft Market

We did it. We took PBJ on the road.

We deliberately chose a small market for our first foray into craft fairs and we learned a lot.

Of course we did research before we chose a market. We knew we’d want a small market to start and, because our craft (doll clothes) is a fairly specific demographic, we knew we wanted a market where there were a lot of young families.

I would say the market was moderately successful for us. We didn’t sell as much as we’d hoped, but we learned from our mistakes.

Here’s where we went right:

• No one (except my granddaughter who’s used to the friends & family discount – free) balked at the prices. So we feel good about that.
• Thanks to advice from more seasoned market vendors, we feel pretty good about how our market space looked and operated. We were adequately prepared.

Here’s where we can improve:

• We weren’t aware of the opportunity to request location, so we were off and out of the way of the main traffic. The foot traffic was really poor.
• Although we thought we targeted our demographic (families with kids), very few children actually came through. The ones who did lit up when they saw our doll clothes, though. We had a request from a young boy – he wanted clothes for his G.I. Joe. We gave him a doll hanger for his G.I. Joe’s uniform to help ease his disappointment. 🙂
• Did I mention we deliberately chose a small market? Well. It was really slow. Contributing factors might include: bad weather (we had an overnight snow storm), and the market was the Saturday of a Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend.

I’ll be doing more posts on craft markets and refining our skills, but for now here are some links to sites we used as part of our research:

8×4 Small Booth Set Up Ideas

10 Mistakes to Avoid at a Craft Sale

6 Secrets for Selling More at Craft Fairs

Are You a Crafty DIY-er?

Me. I am.

Faithfully, every Friday, I head over to Pixie Faire’s Freebie Friday page and add yet another pattern to my growing pile. Pixie Faire is where I found Miche Design‘s clogs for 18″ dolls. Freebie Friday is an excellent way to be introduced to a designer’s style. Do you love their patterns? Are their instructions easy to follow and understand? A freebie introduction is the perfect way to decide if you and the designer are a good match.

So, what brings me to blog about them today? Tomorrow’s freebie.

It’s a Mary and Laura Ingalls’ (ala Little House on the Prairie) set of dress patterns depicting life in frontier North America. Love it! I already have a pattern or two from this designer, Thimbles and Acorns, and am delighted to be able to add this one to my collection.

Pixie Faire’s offererings aren’t limited to clothing or just to sewing. Knitters, crocheters, and crafters of all kinds can find projects here ranging from period piece costumes to modern bags for dolls.

There’s only one drawback to this shop. Stopping. Seriously. I can’t wander out to look around without wandering out with a new pattern.

Pillowcase Dresses for Dolls & Girls

So, spent a chunk of the weekend working on pillowcase dresses for my two granddaughters and one American Girl doll. Picture above, though I hope to replace it with one soon of all three recipients wearing their dresses.

I was going to make these outfits for the first week of school, but now I’m thinking the colors make them good gifts for a Disney vacation. I got the material from Fabricland, just enough left in the bolt to make two kid dresses and a doll dress.

The pattern for a pillowcase dress is fairly standard and can be found at lots of places online, some free, some paid. This particular pattern came from Pink Poodle Bows. Depending on your sewing skills you might be able to do one on your own (without a pattern). The headband pattern came from Punky n Munky – excellent, easy-to-follow instructions – and I got a great price and shipping rate from Hairbow Center for headband blanks, which delivered the goods within a week, a rare thing given that I’m located in Canada.

I love the pillowcase dress look for young girls. Lots of flexibility and room to move, adorable look, and very easy to work up.

Etsy at Glenbow: A Fabulous Opportunity for Alberta Artisans

For me, it’ll be a chance to unveil the Western outfits I’ve been working on for our little family of 18″ dolls. Pictures to come of coonskin* caps, jeans, chaps, cowboys hats, boots, and period piece dresses.

*No raccoons were harmed in the making of this craft project 🙂

In the meantime, here are the details from Etsy:

Etsy is teaming up with Glenbow Museum in Calgary to offer our Alberta sellers the unique opportunity to create new products inspired by their vast collection of art and artifacts.

Glenbow’s collection represents Western Canadian art and culture, both as a repository of important cultural history but also as a living record of contemporary life in this part of the world.

… If you think you would be inspired by Glenbow’s collection, and if you would love to see your product stocked in their shop. Please submit this short application form by September 2, 2016.

Interested? You can find the application form here.

More Shoes than Arnold Churgin

A girl doll can never have too many shoes.

So this week’s kick was shoes. I’d mentioned in an earlier post that I’d finally gotten around to using the Miche Design crocs pattern from Pixie Fairie and, omigosh, I’m obsessed. I love the look of the shoes, but getting the look just perfect is taking some time. The picture above highlights some of my mistakes, but each pair looks better than the last. No matter. It’s tons of fun.

And, an added bonus, this week’s Freebie Friday on Pixie Faire is a pair of Miche Design lace-up boots. They’re sewn so you’ll need some sewing skills, but maybe this is the time to learn! Check out other Miche Design offerings here.

I’ve put these boots on my to-do list and will keep you posted on how they turn out.

Crocs for an 18″ Doll

This weekend’s craft was such a blast. Crocs for dolls.

I bought this Crocs pattern off Pixie Faire (designer Miche Designs) a few weeks ago and finally settled in to make them. This is a no-sew pattern.

The instructions clearly say to read to the end before starting, but I have a hard time visualizing – I have to work the project. I did three shoes before I ended up with one I liked. Once I figured out the little fixes that worked for me, the shoes worked up quickly and easily. Each shoe looked better than the one before, so I expect to replace the above photo with a better one soon. 🙂

A few tips that I discovered the hard way:

1. Have good tools. I started with a simple hole punch and hand eyelet tool, but quickly became frustrated with their limitations. After the first shoe, I packed up and went to Michaels where I used a 40% off coupon to buy a Crop-a-Dile combined hole punch and eyelet tool. This worked much better!
2. The eyelets really bite into soft foam and separated quite easily. I solved this by applying a small dot of hot glue to each end of the heel piece and sticking it firmly to the shoe.

As I say, this was a fun project and I plan to make many pairs of shoes for the Littles in my life.

 

Because Who Doesn’t Love a Sock Monkey?

Ok, the last four weeks I’ve been on a sock monkey tear. My granddaughter’s birthday is coming up and I’ve decided to theme some doll clothes and accessories for her American Girl doll (Annabelle).

At first, it was just going to be a sock monkey stuffie for the doll. But, as with so many projects, the sock monkey idea soon went wildly out of control to include these sock monkey patterned items: jacket, blanket, hat, leggings, scarf, purse … really, the ideas were coming in faster than I could buy wool for the projects.

The beauty of sock monkey is that the color scheme is so uniquely linked to … well, work socks and sock monkeys. Just using the colors will imply sock monkey so it’s easy to use a basic pattern and just alter the colors to reflect the sock monkey idea.

Of course, nothing says sock monkey like an actual sock monkey. Below are pics of some of my creations, some available on Etsy as the finished product, or as patterns (or both). I hope you enjoy the pictures (and the spirit of sock monkey) as much as I enjoyed creating these outfits and accessories for Annabelle.