Batgirl Doll joins the house

We have a family of homemade/kid-made dolls at our house and the family added a member a few weeks ago.

This is Batgirl doll.

As you can imagine from our Batgirl Halloween costume, someone in our house is really into Batman/Batgirl/DC Comic superheroes right now.  Grace designed this doll, meaning she told me what features she wanted our basic doll pattern to have:  black clothes, bat symbol, mask, and red hair.  She did all of the drawing and fabric cutting on this project, had the foresight to make the back of the head from red felt 'so that it would look like more real hair under there', and supervised all my sewing from about two inches away from the needle.  

I'm not sure where I got this pattern from - its just drawn on white paper so its possible I drew it.
I can't really remember.    

We've used it for kid-gifts along the way and we add to our family whenever the Imaginary Play of the Month needs a doll.   Sometimes I make them, sometimes the kids do, they only take an hour or two from start to finish so they're great for a rainy Saturday project.  Sometimes we sew with cotton, turn, and stuff.  Other times (like Batgirl) we use felt and just stitch it together around the outside (skipping the turn-right-side-out step before stuffing).  Either way works.  

Other members of the family include:

Rapunzel...

... Elsa...

... the two original members of the family who are named
Nettie and Jewel-ee ( not to be confused with the more common 'Julie')...

... and their two princes.

I know... sooooo handsome, right?  :)

Here's the whole family so far.  Pretty eclectic, but what family isn't?!

I post this not because the design or sewing is stellar but because in a few years when the girls are into clothes and hair and makeup and boys (ack!), I can look back and remember when we used to whip up doll family members to fit their imaginary play.  Leah and Grace don't see funny shaped, somewhat lumpy dolls with odd hair and marker drawn clothes - they see dolls they made with Mom so they could be creative and play pretend. 

If I was placing bets, the next additions to the family might go by the names of Luke, Leia, Han and Chewy.  That could get interesting...

Knit Dress for Mom

I made myself another new dress last month and just got around to taking some pictures the other day.

One of my goals for the year was to make myself some properly-fitting modest church dresses and this is the second one.  (It helped that we had two family weddings this year - nothing like deadlines to make it happen, right?)  The two dresses ended up looking very similar in shape/silhouette, but the first dress was made with woven fabric and this one is a knit.  I love that I now have good blocks/patterns for myself for both types of fabric.  Drafting skills are handy, but starting from a well patterned block that I know will basically fit is awesome awesome awesome.  It is kind of like having a go-to recipe - you can change up an ingredient here or there but you know that the recipe is dependable and it just plain works.  I now have 'go-to recipes' for dresses for myself.

For this particular dress I started with my altered Sewaholic Renfrew shirt block from the summer.  I changed up the neckline, shortened it (to be a dress bodice rather than a long waisted shirt), made 3/4 sleeves (my current favorite), and drafted a simple A-line skirt.   The neckline is faced, the sleeves have a band cuff, and the skirt is hemmed with a twin needle.

It took a few tries to get the correct amount of ease but I purposely started big so that it was just a matter of taking it in a bit here and there.   I have a feeling every knit will need a different amount of ease anyway so I'm not too concerned about that adjustment.  The fabric came from my local Hancock and is a sturdy ponte knit.  Its silky smooth to wear and was pretty easy to cut and sew.  I've worn it three times now and have only found one little snag/run spot so I hope it lasts and wears well.  Its very comfortable to wear - I've heard people call knit dresses 'secret pajamas' and now I know why.  :)

When I was looking for the knit fabric this one jumped out at me as a pretty jewel tone color and I bought it specifically for this dress but without a specific plan for details/trims/embellishment/jazz.  I worked on the draft and sewing over the course of a week and when I finished I was quite happy with the overall look and fit, but thought it was a bit ..... blah.

Solid color, simple shaped dress, nothing really exciting.  I have been wearing it with a thin black belt and a black sparkly scarf and I think it works well that way.  I really need to get better at planning out entire looks before starting the sewing.  This dress could have used a different neckline/collar but I didn't decide that until it was done.  Anyhow, I do have a nice comfortable versatile new dress that was a relatively easy sew - no complaints there!

Drawstring Backpack

This is another birthday gift for an elementary school age friend...

I've made many drawstring backpacks.  They are so easy and yet so useful.

Leah designed this one for a friend.  Actually, her design was a little different but had to be amended due to atrocious sparkle dot fabric that was a major pain in the behind to sew.  In the end, the 'disco ball look' turned out okay.

Just by random chance we had two birthday parties in two weeks with two projects that were more stressful than they needed to be.  The first was stressful because a certain child kept changing her mind on what the project should be.  This one was stressful because I had a cool design idea from Leah that I just couldn't make work without pulling my hair out and breaking a crazy number of sewing machine needles.  So, I'm done with kiddy birthday gifts for a while.   I declared this a No Sewing Week (to cleanse the palette, so to speak) and we'll start fresh on some different projects in a little while.   :)

Sock Monkey wearing a back pack and carrying a mini felt doll

Yep, you read that right.

Sock Monkey.  Wearing a backpack.  That holds a miniature doll.

Because that's clearly the first thing that pops into your head when you need a birthday present for an elementary school age friend, right?

Well, if you're Grace it is.  Its a long story filled with strong opinions (Grace) and changed minds about those same strong opinions (Grace) and last minute designing (both of us) and sewing (mine).  But patience (mine!) prevailed and we got the gift done in time and the birthday girl was thrilled.  Which is what its all about, really - instilling in my girls that gifting homemade is special and different and worth the effort.  I've been lucky so far in that all our handmade birthday gifts for school friends have been amazingly well received such that my girls have no thoughts of trolling the plastic toy aisles of Target when birthday party invitations come around.  Their first question is always, "Oooh... what should we make her?!" and they start scribbling and sketching away ideas.

So, this is what a monkey and doll loving second grader received a week or two ago...

First, I was told-I-mean-asked to make a regular old sock monkey.  Grace's 'only' requirements were that she be made from a plain brown sock and that she be wearing a skirt.

I have made sock monkeys before and I use this tutorial.  Its easy in the sense that it only takes an hour or two to make a whole monkey, but its tricky in the sense that socks can be hard to sew on a machine due to their stretchiness so I usually do the sewing instead of the kids.

(I also learned that I like monkeys made from fun colored or striped socks rather than plain brown.  That tail just looks too much like a big terd for my liking...)

The skirt is stitched on to the monkey tummy - its not removable.

Then the sock monkey had to wear a backpack.  

(Its made of craft felt and ribbon.)

Then, the backpack must hold a doll. 

A tiny doll. 

That has to be small enough to fit in the birthday girl's hand or pocket.  

And it has to wear a dress with a flower on it.  

I drew, cut, and sewed this up by hand one evening following Grace's ''instructions''.  

 I set it by her breakfast spot for her to find in the morning.  

I knew it passed inspection when the first thing both girls said was "Awww... how cute!  Can you make me one?"  

There is a wee bit of stuffing in the head, otherwise its flat. 

Here is my hand for scale.  Yep - tiny.

Put it all together and what do you get?  

A sock monkey wearing a backpack and carrying a doll.  

Oh, to have the infinite imagination of a seven year old....