The Nanny, a birthday and a doll.

My daughter had an idea for a special birthday gift. She has a darling girl in her care several days a week as she works with and for a young family in Georgia. As the first birthday approached for this little one, Rachael wanted to give a gift that would be fun, meaningful and maybe last for years to come. Her idea was to give the book series of “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. This series was and is a favorite set of stories for all of my children. We have read them aloud as a family and everyone has also enjoyed reading them alone. Age 1 is a little young for these complicated adventures, but it is certainly a series to grow into.

The second part of her idea and gift was for me to make a doll of one of the characters from the stories. We talked it over and settled on ‘Lucy’. I worked on this doll over the course of several weeks sewing a bit in the evenings. I haven’t made a doll from scratch in several years, I felt very out of practice. But this was a fun project. I appreciated the inspiration and lessons from Pinterest.

lucy-by-the-lamp-post-in-narnia  http://sewliberated.typepad.com/sew_liberated/dollhair.html

When ‘Lucy’ was finished, she was packed up and shipped to Georgia arriving just in time for the big day. This little one seemed very happy with her gifts. I hope she enjoys her stories for years to come. Lucy2  Lucy doll

birthday doll

sewing for fun

crazy2

My mother made this crazy quilt for me several years ago. She made crazy quilts all the time. It was her favorite way of sewing. She loved to mix and match the colors and prints. She didn’t have to worry about cutting anything accurately or measure anything. She just sewed pieces together until she had a patch large enough to trim into a square. She made squares until she had enough to make a blanket. Most of her blankets were crib to lap size blankets. Mine was a good nap size blanket – about 1/2 a twin bed size.

She made this blanket with polyester batting, a cotton knit backing and tied it together. Over the years the sashing started to wear thin, the backing stretched out and the batting shrunk. This left the quilt lumpy, crooked and coming apart in places. So I decided it was time to fix it.

I took the quilt completely apart. I saved all the crazy quilt squares and threw away the rest. new sashing

I decided I was not going to buy any new fabric for this project. I have a stash and I inherited a stash. So I pulled out some simple cream prints to make new sashing.

quilt top

 

The backing will also be flower prints from the cupboard with flannel for the middle layer. I will post more pictures when I finish. I need to figure out how I want to band the edges.

Now back to sewing draperies.

Curtains By Design