Tag Archives: summer

“Red, White, & Blue-tiful”

Hello and happy new week to you. I hope you’ve had a nice weekend and Monday. We have finally cooled off a little and got lots of much needed rain on Sunday. I think we are in a little drought in northern Illinois. The dreary days are not uplifting, but the plants need the rain.

As spring is drawing to a close I am starting to gravitate towards summery prints for my doll ensembles. Bella, my Ruby Red Fashion Friend, is the first recipient of a summer ensemble this year. She wears a simple floral cotton dress with cotton crocheted ballet slippers (on her bare feet) and a cotton crocheted sunhat. Summery blue and red are a part of her new look. When I was very young I remember loving to wear these colors in the summertime. There is a tiny bit of pink in this print, too–can’t ignore pink!

Bella’s sunhat is crocheted with three strands of crochet cotton and has a pretty scalloped navy border. A self fabric band, crochet flowers and a leaf, are all hand made and hand sewn onto the hat with beads.

Bella’s pink bouquet of flowers is tied together with embroidery thread carefully wrapped and secured around the stems. A navy silk ribbon is tied into a bow and also secured so it will not slip off or untie.

Once I figured out the pattern for Bella’s ballet slippers they crocheted up pretty quickly. The pattern took me a day and a half though. I kept trying things and ripping back and trying some more. I wanted to get the sole to fit the bottom of her foot perfectly. And then the upper part of the slipper to be low on her foot for a dainty look. Bella has such cute little feet!

Bella has some super cute jewelry with this set. Her bracelet is made of three strands: cobalt seed, mint green seed, and iridescent warm red bugle beads strung on stretchy jewelry cord. A silver toned ring wraps around all three strands with a red flower dangling from it. The necklace is silver toned with a tiny green/red garden gnome and flower dangle. The heart shows that this ensemble was made with great love and care.

Bella is as cool as a cucumber and ready for lots of fun summer picnics.

Are you ready for summer (or winter) to begin? I’m not sure I am ready to say goodbye to spring, but it is leaving us regardless of my being ready or not.

My tiny girls all say hello and thank you for visiting with us today. Sending you late spring hugs from my sewing studio.🤗

First Week in August

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Happy Sunday to you from sunny, hot, and very humid northern Illinois.

I’ve kept busy this week, but not sure where it all went to, which is probably the norm for me–the weeks rush by. I had to look at my planner to see what it is that I happened to accomplish, or not accomplish this week. (I guess I did enough.) 🙂

I finished my blue ensemble for the Little Darlings. I am calling it “Summery Blue in the Garden”. Here are some photos I took of Gina modeling it. Thanks to all who helped me with my fabric choice. I think you all picked a winner!

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Another finished project this week–the second sock to complete a pair. I also started another second sock that will complete another pair. At one point I had four single socks completely knit (not much use to us). I have two complete pairs and two singles left to work on. My ‘four pairs of socks’ project is getting there. This yarn is so bright; there’s going to be some colorful feet walking around here soon.

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I also knit a shrug and beret for my next Little Darlings ensemble. The beret is knit from my beret pattern. The shrug (sorry, no pattern) is knit in a simple lace stitch pattern with a crocheted shell edging added once the underarm seams have been sewn up. I’ve made lots of these in the past for the Little Darlings and the MSD sized Kaye Wiggs girls. They seem to love them!

If you’d like to see more ensembles that feature shrugs here is the link that connects you to all my blog posts that were saved with the ‘shrug’ tag. FYI, there is a group of words in the right sidebar (scroll down past my pattern covers and social media icons) where you can click on a word and see all of the blog posts that were saved with that tag such as shrugs. The larger the word the more posts there are saved with that tag.

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We had a wedding in the family yesterday. My nephew married his college sweetheart. She is a sweet and beautiful girl whom we welcome into our family with open arms. We are so happy for them both!

I hope you’ve had a fantastic week and wishing you a great week ahead. Thank you so much for visiting with me today! How was your week? Any plans for the one coming up? ❤ ❤ ❤

Hello again!

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Firstly, thank you all for your encouraging thoughts, prayers, and words. I am truly touched by your thoughtfulness! It means so much to me, really it does. With every comment I’d read I could feel more and more love and hope filling my heart. ❤ Thank you!

So hello to you all! Summer break is coming to a close and I am trying to hang onto these last days, but they refuse to slow down for me. Time just seems to speed by faster and faster the more I am aware of its passing. Do you find this to be true, also?

I haven’t been doing much sewing this summer, but my sewing room has been very busy. My daughter got the sewing bug shortly after summer break started and has been in there morning, noon, and night! Did you know there’s a whole new world of indie pattern makers out there who teach how to sew with their patterns? There are also numerous tutorials on You Tube. It’s now cool to make your own clothes. I love it!

All I’ve been working on are these dozen dresses for my 2018 Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes. I am doing these batch style—all the pockets, back seams, binding all the armholes at once, etc. I have only to hem the bottoms, sew the top casings and insert the ties, then these dozen are complete.

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So far, this is my completed “store” of dresses. I think I need more closet room and more hangers…

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My daughter started a weaving project the other day which enabled me to get into my sewing room and work more on the dresses! 🙂

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Although I haven’t been sewing, I’ve been knitting quite a bit. In addition to socks and cowls for us, I’ve knit a couple of toys for the shoeboxes. Bonbon by Susan Claudino turned out super cute. I knit her out of Knitpicks Stroll Tweed Sock Yarn in Oyster Heather. The little rag doll was made from Knitted Babes by Claire Garland. The Knitted Babes are supposed to be much larger, but I used a finer weight yarn (Knit Picks Palette).

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Both of these little toys took too many hours to make (IMO) and were quite fiddly, lots of little bits—don’t think I’ll be knitting anymore toys for awhile. I’ve been looking for some easy toy patterns to charity sew though. I like “easy” and “quick”—any ideas?

Other news—our northern Illinois summer started out with lots and lots of rain. Past years of planting reseeded and produced some tiny flowers for me to find. Violas in the grass and the tiniest forget-me-nots.

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For Mother’s Day my husband and daughter bought and planted hanging baskets and planters. They did a great job picking out flowers in all shades from warm red to pink to violet. I never tire of pinks which smell like carnations from the florist.

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The summer started out wet, but then we went without rain for weeks. The grass got crispy and crunchy and very thirsty. The other morning, however, the weather changed. After a super loud thunderstorming kind of night, we woke to a rainy day .

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Today it is sunny once again, thank goodness. I don’t know about you but after a couple of cloudy days I’ve had enough of them. So now, for me, it is time for a walk and to enjoy this beautiful morning out-of-doors. I snapped this photo of bee hives weeks ago on one of my walks. Aren’t the colors fun?