WIP Wednesday... catching up on December

Except for some evening work on Chloe's embroidery, I was not able to get much done on gifts until about a week before Christmas. So it was pretty tragic when my sewing machine broke two days before winter solstice! Although really, not too tragic, since we do happen to have another sewing machine. Jason actually had his own sewing machine when we first met, he did sew a bit on it, he probably would have used it more often, but then he ended up marrying a seamstress :) and I guess he never had the need to do much sewing. So really I was pretty lucky, all I had to do was go down into the crawl space and find the sewing machine. It was kind of weird to just start sewing on a different machine, but oh my goodness, it was like sewing on a brand new machine, quiet and smooth, it was super nice!

And one really good thing came out of the whole broken sewing machine situation. I decided to take a sewing break and started on a needle felted doll instead.

I knew the first doll would be for Chloe. I tried to choose colors that were more wintry, and I always make Chloe's dolls darker than Chessa's. Chloe is so dark, and Chessa is so fair.

So here is fair Chessa's doll. I noticed she was looking a bit fuzzy today. I am hoping she will stand up to gentle play, and at least I can just do a little extra needle felting to neaten her up if I need to. I made them with bendable arms, my first time trying this style. (and still only the second and third needle felted dolls that I have done.) Of course I had such a wonderful time making them. You can just ask Jason how I go on and on to him expressing my happiness and excitement as I am needle felting. Actually I get that way about embroidery too, and sewing, and...

At first I thought I would make these to be mama dolls, and I was going to make little babies bundled up for them to hold in their arms. But then I decided I would not, so that the girls could choose for them to be whatever kind of doll they wanted, not necessarily mama dolls. Well, within two hours of receiving them on Christmas morning the girls were asking me to make babies for them. I am so glad I made these dolls for them! They are so, so loved. All throughout Christmas day their lives were created for them, families, stories... such happiness they have brought!

Hopefully next week I will have pictures to share of a few other things I made. There were the simple white dresses for the dolls, and doll quilts too. And then the embroidery project. I guess I will leave it as a surprise what I made with the embroidery. For those who wanted to know, the pattern is available at PatternBee, the most wonderful vintage embroidery shop. Some patterns are available as free downloads, including the beautiful stitching girl. And some of you asked how long I have been embroidering... more than 17 years! It has always been one of my favorite handwork activities. I used to put embroideries on every dress I made. I have not done as much in recent years, but it is something I really want to start focusing more on again. Maybe I should make a list of crafting resolutions for the year, that would be fun, but then again, I'm always dreaming of creating, so it's not really just a new year thing.

Well, that was a lot more crafting talk than crafting pictures.
Happy creating!