This is going to be a non-visual crafting post because I am writing about the gifts I gave for Christmas presents and didn’t get photos of them because I didn’t have a digital camera before they had to get in the mail. So, you’ll have to use your imagination a bit. I’ve been hesitant to write about my projects not only because I didn’t have any way to show what I was doing (and because I didn’t want to spoil any surprises), but also because I feel sort of like a fraud doing so. I do not create my own designs (if you’re reading these posts hoping to find them, you’re going to be disappointed). Just as with my cooking, I am capable of following a recipe/pattern, but I have yet to even attempt working without an existing design. So here goes…What I Made for Christmas Presents
Two lucky little girls, Lyra and Juliet Rose received Olive and Archie Dolls. I purchased the pattern from here and began digging through my fabrics to find the perfect outfits for them. Or what would become their outfits. I then set off to the fabric store to buy the materials that would make their bodies and hair. As I strolled the aisle looking for flannel that would make decent skin tones I decided to make the dolls as caricatures of the girls’ parents. So, I purchased brown flannel and black felt for Lyra’s Olive doll and a drab olive for the other dolls. Juliet’s parents both have brown hair (brown felt for them) and Lyra’s daddy I thought had red hair (it’s actually brown – I don’t know where I came up with red) so I picked out an orange/brown felt.
The pattern gives two choices for Olive: you can make her dress as one piece or as a skirt and blouse. I opted for the single dress. The designer is also a much better seamstress than I am, and wrote her patterns with 1/4 inch seams. I HATE 1/4 inch seems – my machine isn’t marked for it (though I have measured and made my own designation), and, particularly on small pieces, my machine has a tendency to chew up the material (a sign that it is long past time for a maintenance). So, I adjusted the pattern for a 5/8th seam allowance, and trimmed them down. This was a little tricky with the hair, which are pieces that fit over the head – parts of those pieces had to be adjusted while others needed to be as written. In the end, that worked pretty well.
I wanted to have something in their outfits that showed they were part of a set. I toyed around with a couple ideas (make Archie’s shirt and Olive’s bow the same material? Make the tops the same?), but they were all too limiting and generated dolls that looked like they were dressing exactly the same. In the end, I struck upon the shoes. So within each set, the shoe material is the same. I also wanted to include something that would tie to each of the girls’ parents. Lyra’s mommy has always been very good with combining colors and patterns (both in outfits and in the home), so I wanted to make her dolls vibrant and colorful. Her daddy is a World of Warcraft player (among other things) and in real life tends to wear dark colors. I know nothing about this game, but I thought perhaps a kind of medieval design might work (which would also tie back to their wedding). So, Archie’s shirt is this a beautiful sort of Arabic block motif in browns, yellows, and oranges that reminds me of lit castle windows or medieval lamps. His pants are a gradiated fabric of oranges and reds. Olive’s dress is white with a rainbow of Japanese koi swimming all over it (and I got the collar to line up perfectly with the design – Yay!). For her bow, I decided to slip into the mind of a child and selected a blue fabric that had swirls that matched to the swirls on Olive’s dress (and that’s about the only thing it matches in the dress!). The bows, by the way, were the hardest thing to make and attach. Both dolls have red shoes.
Juliet Rose’s mommy is studying very hard to get her BFA in interior design (and was a bit of a hippy in her youth), so I also wanted a colorful fabric. Both of her parents are musicians; her daddy’s even sung in Carnegie Hall. Her family has recently acquired a pair of black cats, which daddy is not totally thrilled with. So, Archie has a shirt that is white with black cats frolicking all over it with a faded blue fabric for his pants (jeans). Olive’s dress is is a beautiful green with golden and green swirls all over it (sort a green version of the sky in Van Gogh’s Starry Night). Her bow is a blue and green check. Both dolls have black shoes with golden musical symbols printed all over them.
I modified the faces a bit. Because these were being given to babies (Lyra is not quite six months and Juliet is a little over a year and a half), I abandoned the felt circle eyes and, instead, embroidered the eyes, thus removing any choking hazard. The rest of the faces were stitched as directed.
So, there you are. In the Make-A-Long story that Olive and Archie come from, they are supposed to be heading off to their first day of school. The dolls I made aren’t quite there yet (there was no way I was going to get to the backpacks), but that means that there can be a To Be Continued….
Update: If you would like to see pics of Lyra’s dolls (and read the most touching thank you note someone could ever hope to recieve), click here.
