Babooshka Soft Doll

I've seen a few of these Babooshka style soft dolls around the net of late. I drew up a simple pattern for one this afternoon. I started out by folding an A4 sheet of paper into thirds length wise to mark the proportions of the head and body of the doll. Then I folded it in half width wise. I drew a half pattern onto the folded paper, putting the head in the top third and body in the bottom third. Then cut the pattern out. I cut the pattern into two sections. One the body and the other the head and shoulders. I then took the head portion and folded it back in half and cut a half oval out to use as the pattern for the dolls face. Using the pattern for the face I drew the hair pattern on a separate piece of paper.




I cut the 2 of the body from some fabric I'd found in an op-shop a while back and 2 of the head from some gingham I had in the stash. I added a 1 cm seam allowance all around. The face was cut from some calico which already had some iron-on web attached to it from a previous project. The hair is a scrap of felt.

I sewed the face and hair to one of the face pieces. Then I sewed the head sections to the body sections then placed the back and front pieces right sides together and sewed around the figure 8 shape, leaving a 5 cm section to use to turn the doll though and stuff. Once stuffed I closed the opening with a ladder stitch and I embroidered her face on, with Lilly asking "is she finished yet?" every few minutes! I added a piece of trim which has been lying in my sewing bits and pieces for ages, it was the perfect size too.




Lilly is totally in love with her new doll.

A Post a Day in May

I've joined Jenny in her quest to post every day in the month of May. I only joined today so have missed for the 3rd!

I've joined TKGA - The Knitting Guild Association. I got my first copy of the Association's magazine on Friday. Some really great articles in there, including one on short rows. And 21 patterns! I think my favourite is the Dancing Starfish Pullover by Kate Santoro or maybe the Bobbles and Lace Little Summer Dress by Melissa Leapman. I'm enrolled in the Masters program.

Also in Friday's mail was 650gms of Bio-Natur Organic wool 8ply to add to the wool stash. I'm planning on dyeing it and making some soakers.

I've not done much crafting this weekend. Michael has been very reluctant to have daytime sleeps. I'm thinking it's time to get him into a routine, we've demand fed up till now. I've demand fed all of my children. He's feeding every two hours in the day and every 3 to 4 hours at night. I'm going to try and extend the time between feeds and get him to nap twice a day. Demand isn't working for us as a family. Lilly is missing out on cuddle times with mum and she's still needs them. I've no idea how I managed when there were 3 under 3! Maybe I just had more energy back then? It's hard finding a balance to ensure all the children are getting positive attention from me. Negative attention is easier to give and easier to demand.

I have heard the pros and cons on lots of parenting ways. I'm capable of choosing the path I prefer to follow. Parenting isn't easy and I think we all find our own way through it, in the end. I prefer not to give others advice, I respect others have the intelligence to work it out for themselves and really just need a friendly ear to listen. There is too much advice out there! Advice is fine if you ask for it but condescending when you haven't. I know the advice giver thinks they are helping and is genuine in their belief they know the "best" way to parent and really need to educate me to this way too for the sake of my poor child. Can you tell I've been on the end of some unwanted advice of late! See, even when you've had 6 children there is always someone out there who will offer advice.

Swaps are so much fun :)

Carolyn made this beautiful smock top for Lilly. She looks so sweet in it, no one would guess she's really a little thug!

And the rumpster nappy came from Donna. Donna won it in the Great Down Under Nappy Hunt! Donna is also a hyena supreme.

There were also a couple of pocket nappies from Suzanne in todays mail and 650g of Bio- Natur Organic wool. I'm planning on soakers for the store with the wool.

Bibs, Bobs and pricing.

Bibs for the store and Michael. I can get 4 bibs out of a fat quarter. I Backed these with some cotton knit. So all up they each cost me around $3 to make and 2 hours of my time to make all 8.
What price would you put on them? Any advice on pricing out there in Blog land? If I price too low I make it hard for others to sell their creations at a reasonable price. If I price too high they may not sell. On one of the forums I belong too someone recommended doubling your material costs. I'm not really out to make a huge profit but it would be nice to cover the costs of my store. I craft because I love to create. It's an outlet for me. It gives me that feeling of completion which I don't get with cleaning the house. The house is never even close to being completely clean.

Here are Cyril's children. Sybil and Simon. These two are destined for the store too, if I can hide them from the children. Cyril will be sad to see his babies go off into the big world.

Miss Prissy

Miss Prissy wanted to be a ballet dancer when she was little. But was told she'd never be good enough so became a teacher. But she still has dreams :)

Can you tell Michael is now napping for longer in the day? It's wonderful he's having two hour naps now. It means I can finally get into the shed and sew.