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Paige

Paige here is going to live in a pillow. I made a handful of quilted pillows when I had a burst of quilt energy, right around Covid I think. They didn’t really match any of our sofas so I’m not sure what I was thinking. Now they’re doll containers. I sewed two buttons on to give that sleeping bag feel when bundled up. Paige has a teddy bear buddy and so far 4 outfits including a handknit sweater and some very cute overalls.

I’m contemplating making name tags for all the outfits so whoever will know which doll they go with. It’s all very unnecessary and OCD but cute right? Like if Finley is borrowing Paige’s sweater. I like that they’d have their own stuff.

When I went to my grandma’s as a kid I played with my mom’s old Alexander-kins dolls and I had very strong opinions on whose outfits were who’s.

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Finley

This gal was in the discard pile, tough choices had to be made, but I had so many outfits that were peachy and were calling out for a redhead. I actually love the yarn used for this doll’s hair. It’s from Joanns (sob) and is so soft and doesn’t unravel at all. This color is gorgeous.

I have a stack of doll quilts from when I decorated my daughter’s nursery wall with them and I’m starting there when looking for cozy home for each girl. I wasn’t sure about this one because it’s so close to the dolls coloring but then decided I loved it for that reason.

Now the trick is to find clothing storage for each set. I’ve been trying to make the quilt and storage one stop so for this girl I stitched her drawstring bag of outfits right onto the backing. Bonus is it makes a sort of pillow for her when lounging.

I’m sewing on buttons and loops to keep it all together cozylike. Now Finley needs a little friend or a sweater. I’m during a first pass on everyone then going back around with additions, like everyone gets pajamas.

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bundling

Cleaning out the craft room and all the handmade dolls and projects from the past 20 years. My own version of Swedish death cleaning. I want every project that I leave behind to be thoughtful, complete, transferrable. I started by weeding the dolls down to a sort of manageable amount, 30 maybe? The crumpled doll clothes were dumped out of the bags and bins and assigned to a specific doll. Now the dolls live in a big basket waiting for their own sleeping bag/quilt that doubles as a container for their outfits. Fun project of mindlessly attaching snaps and sewing down quilt bindings.

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Knit hat for Make-along doll

Gnome? my husband asked. Wizard? my daughter asked. No, just a cute pointy hat. Knit with this gorgeous sock yarn and size 2 DPNs.

Knit on sock yarn with size 2 DPNs.
Cast on 84 sts
Knit 7 rows of K3,P3 rib
Knit 16 rows
Start decreases. PM, K2tog, K12. repeat 6 times.
Knit 2 rows. (or just one if you don’t want your hat so tall)
Repeat decrease and knit rows until 12 sts remain.
K2tog 6 times (6 sts), K2tog 3 times (3 sts)
Cut yarn and tie off remaining sts. Weave in your ends.

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I made a quilt!

It’s been years and years since I’ve tackled a full sized quilt. I can’t really remember what sent me down this recent quilting rabbithole, I think mostly a need to get away from the doomscrolling. I bought two bundles from laundry basket quilts, scrappy light and dark and started playing around, piecing together some stars for pillow. Then I decided to take the rest and see what I could make. I landed on a flying geese pattern (wandering nomad) that I found on the art gallery fabrics site and started making blocks sort of haphazard. I realized a little late in the game I wanted it to ombre but was able to basically pull it off. Phoebe claimed it about halfway through the process and then helped me with block assembly. She cut and pressed for me as I sewed. So much fun to work on it together! So it turned out really great. It’s on her bed now and I’m so encouraged I’m jumping into another big quilt, for Christmas.

I did an angled grid quilting and I really liked how it dissected the blocks to make interesting new shapes. And it was very easy to follow and keep (basically) in line. It’s a little wavy but I think it’s great for doing it on a home machine. I’m hoping to get much better with practice at using my new machine (babylock jazz2) for quilting.
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Patchwork Kit-Kat

I made a new Kit-Kat doll from my Make-Along Animals pattern and did a little tik-tok video while I did it. Which is a little harder to do now that Phoebe has abandoned me for school. Since I’m having all the quilty feels these days I decided to make a sort of patchwork version of Kit-Kat. Kitty is made up of 3 fabrics. Normally I do a solid for the body, a print for the head gusset and another solid for the ears. This time I did all prints, one for main body, another for gusset, tips of feet and tail and a third for ears and paws. I love how she turned out. I still need to make her a little dress or overalls but honestly she works as she is and I may just put her out on the sofa with my new patchwork pillows. I’ve always wanted to do the dolls as decor not just playthings because we don’t always have little ones to sew for and that shouldn’t stop us from sewing ourselves cute new friends.

To patchwork the arms and legs I cut the pattern pieces where I wanted the split and added 1/4″ at the ends and then cut out the fabric from the new pieces. For the legs the back and front both have the new print for the paw but for the arms I did the pink print just on the front and the back arm pieces are still all the body print.
sewing on her ear you can see the back of the ear fabric is same as body fabric.
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two tone blond make-along doll

Any yarn can be used to make hair for a handmade cloth doll like the Make-Along dolls… bulky, dk, sport… wool, acrylic, roving, mohair. Whatever you like to achieve the look you’re going for. It’s also fun to use a few different yarns together. Here I used two very similar shades of a golden yellow and it gives her a great full head of sunny blonde hair.

For this doll I pulled the yarn from both balls at the same time and strung them together. For this weight of yarn, dk, I would probably do two strands at the same time even if using just one yarn so that it would take less passes to get the fuller look. Complete instructions on how to do yarn hair are included in the Make-Along doll sewing pattern.