Babies for Lauren and Leah

Found these really neat cloth body dolls at Walmart this year and bought 4 of them! I picked up two first; for my granddaughters Lauren and Leah who are 3 1/2 and 1 1/2. Meanwhile another granddaughter, Kara, was born, so I thought it would be cute for the girls to have the same doll in a few years. I picked up two more dolls so I'd have one at home to make clothes for future birthdays and Christmas. The dolls are about 18" long, but have very fat and pudgy bodies. So, I used doll clothes patterns for 20 - 22" dolls and adapted them a bit. Here is the doll:

I planned to make tights for the dolls, but the feet are shaped so it made it very challenging. Finally I figured leggings would be a good choice for these dolls!

She can sit up all by herself. Here is the dress for Lauren's doll. I have a stash of fabric that rivals a quilt shop and just couldn't resist this pretty brown and pink floral. A FQ made the dress :-).

A corduroy jumper for Leah's doll:

Great Grandma Janie (my Mom) knit little slippers for the dolls. She had a bit of a challenge fitting the slippers over those toes too.


All the clothes (including a receiving blanket professionally serged by my friend Joan) for Lauren's doll:

Clothes for Leah's doll:

Of course the babies needed their own quilt. Leah got a pink one and Lauren a green one.

Lauren's doll all dressed in her new outfit:

Joan's Quilt

I made an I spy sewing themed quilt for my friend and local sewing buddy, Joan. She also happens to be the mother of my dear daughter in law, Heather! When I first met Joan, she had one or two sewing machines and a serger or two..fairly normal :-). Then she found out about all our sewing machines and acquired her Mom's old Necchi Supernova which stitched like a dream. Then we found her another Necchi and a toy Necchi and another Necchi. Pretty soon she had sewing machines all over the place and we consider her a full fledged sewing machine collector LOL! I have been collecting sewing themed fabrics for a long time (I do have a top finshed for my own sewing themed I spy quilt, but it's in my UFO pile! I need a deadline to finish it! I found the backing fabric and immediately knew this was the fabric for Joan's quilt. I matched up the brighter sewing fabrics I had and decided to make snowball blocks with red and black. I also used some knitting themed fabrics as Joan also spins wool and knits. I had tons of triangles cut off from the corners and sewed them altogether and decided to use them in the border! That was more work than putting the whole quilt together! My husband suggested the red and black binding.

I used variegated thread in the black border.


The backing fabric:

I had a block left which didn't work in the quilt...too white, so I used it for the label with some of the leftover triangle squares.

A bit of progress....

I have been sewing up a storm lately, but I can't post photos yet because some members of my family read my blog :-). Can't reveal their Christmas gifts! Tonight I finished another Psalms block. This is called Winged four patch and is based on Psalm 57, "I will take refuge in the shadow of Your wings until the disaster has passed."
I also finished another Dear Jane block, H 13 Farm fields. It was the block of the week on the Dear Jane list and since it was a very simple one, I figured I could do that between working on Christmas gifts.

Jane's Tears

I finished another little block on my Dear Jane quilt yesterday. I had the block back basted already, but did all the applique while waiting for an appointment! I'd better prep a few more blocks as this is the last one I had! I need to trim the background away from the white applique yet.

...and another block...

Finished D 3 Jason's Jacks for the Dear Jane quilt on Saturday evening while visiting my Mom and Dad for coffee. Sure is great to have a few blocks prepped so you can grab one while visiting. I thought I'd try a printed background fabric this time. Makes for a totally different look.