Raggedy Ann for Christmas

We visited my daughter, and delightful granddaughter Bridget, this past July. and were very pleased to find out that her love affair with Elmo was cooling. She has now transferred her affections to Raggedy Ann - now this is something I can relate to. So of course Granny promised to make her not just a Raggedy Ann, but brother Andy for Christmas as well. I sewed on the felt nose, mouth, eyes and heart, and embroidered the rest while riding to work.

Here is Anne partially stuffed. I couldn't find fabric with solid stripes, so used red and white ticking instead. I like it, it looks homey.

Here she is, all dressed up! I'll package this tonight and get it into the mail tomorrow. Sadly, Andy isn't anywhere near finished, so that will have to be a New Year's gift. As usual, I'm way too far behind on all the Christmas preparations, and have yet to start baking.

If you haven't discovered Pattern Review, by all means please take a look at it. It is invaluable when making a sewn piece from a commercially available pattern as someone will have probably posted a review about the pattern. The pattern instructions for the hair are a bit squirrely so it was very helpful to read what others have done. I used a method in which you cut hundreds of six to eight in pieces of yarn and zig zag them onto the wig (a piece of fabric which is then attached to the head). After Christmas, I'll write my review of this pattern and post it. I may even update this post to reference it.

Some of you may remember that I made a doll from an Inspirations project, A Little Rag Doll, over two years ago. I love the curly hair, which was knitted first, washed, dried, then cut apart into strands and then sewn on the head. I'll have to figure out how to do this a bit easier next time.

Only two more days of work until Christmas break, then maybe after the big day I'll have some time for some serious sewing and organizing of the sewing room.

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends, and I'll be back to post more regularly afterwards.

Colorful Smocking

Isn't this smocking bright and gorgeous? I don't want to show the entire project, as this is for a Christmas gift. Suffice it to say that smocking on black silk dupioni isn't easy, I need to keep it under very bright light to see what I'm doing. And smocking on a small piece of dupioni is very fiddly, as it is easy to catch the floss on the ends of the fabric, disturbing the rhythm of stitching and causing the ends of the fabric to unravel.

The floss is Threadworx 1154, a cotton overdyed floss that I've mentioned before. If you remember, Threadworx took over the floss dying from Needle Necessities when the latter went out of business.

Back to smocking, only a few more rows to go, then I can start on construction. Most people I know love to smock and build up an inventory of smocked pieces waiting to be sewn together, as they generally dislike the construction. Personally, I prefer the construction over the smocking. It took me three tries to get that first row right.

Have a great week, and I hope you can get some stitching time in!