Extra: Raggedy Christmas Eve

Ready for sugarplums to dance in their heads.

My sister (Borg #6 of 8) posted this adorable picture of her Raggedies and their dolls.  I just had to share!  

Merry Xmas Eve!

Day 21, 79 to go: Dachshund pajama pants

I made this myself!

Last Christmas, I taught my then 9-year-old niece Anastasia to sew.  We made a nightgown together. I cut it out and attached the sleeves due to time constraints, but she did all of the other sewing.  I picked this fabric because she has a couple of dachshunds, Petey and Doodlebug.  

Peteys and Doodlebugs

So  here are the pajama pants she is getting for St. Nicholas Day this year.  It’s just covered in Peteys and Doodlebugs.   I am sending her extra fabric so she can make a pillowcase to match.  She took a sewing class at Jo-ann’s and made a pillowcase there.  I am so glad she is excited about sewing.  I love feeling like my grandmothers are living on in yet another generation.

Day 21.  I have been at this for 3 weeks.  Time flies whether or not you are having fun.  I thought I would count up my output to see what I have accomplished so far.

Crocheted hat: 1

Etsy Shop: 1

Embroidered tea towels: 3

Medieval Tunic: 1

Pajama bottoms: 9

Polymer clay earrings: 1 ½

Raggedy Dolls: 2

Raggedy doll nightgowns: 2

Red flannel nightgowns: 1 1/2

Xmas Tree Skirt: 1 started, 1 gnome (20 to go)

It’s a start. Once Xmas is over, I hope to move on to curtains, slipcovers, pillow covers, tea cozies and some jumpers, dresses and blouses… oh, and a resume…

Day 19, 81 to go: Raggedy Nightgowns

2 down, 2 to go

I started cutting out matching red flannel nightgowns for Lily and Maggie.  I thought they would be cute to wear Christmas morning when they open their presents from Santa. 

Of course, if Maggie and Lily have red nightgowns, Raggedy Maggie and Raggedy Lily should too.  So I put them together with blue trim for Mags and pink trim for Lily. They are like Flora and Meriweather in Disney's Sleeping Beauty.  "Pink!"  "Blue!" Good thing they don't have wands!

I guess tomorrow will be red nightgowns--somewhat larger than these.  Time is running out on St Nicholas Day.  I wonder if I will be able to get any other jammies done in time to mail out Saturday.  Caffeine is not an option. Unless it comes in chocolate.  Hmmm. Maybe I need to make something chocolate…

Day 13, 87 to go: Finished Bunny at Cookie Jar dish towel

Chocolate Chips, obviously.

So I finished embroidering the dish towel I had started almost a week ago on my bus ride to NYC.  As I was working on it near her sliding door, my mother mentioned that I reminded her of her mother who was always doing handwork at a window.  (You met her mother if you read the Day 1 blog.  She is kind of my guiding light on this project.)

I eventually did manage to buy the flannel I picked out yesterday from Joann.com for a mere $2/yard.  However, tomorrow morning they are selling it for $1.47/yard at the store.  So I will join the other pajama-sewing nutcases bright and early to see if they have anything good at the store that was not available on line. (Thought it’s hard to imagine beating the lovely Brainiac fabric I posted yesterday.)  I am still glad I bought on line because I won’t have to haul that fabric back on the bus.

I also hope to score a portable full-spectrum light for $2o.  It should help with the handwork and even ward off SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) I would think.

We had a nice Thanksgiving with all of my sisters and their families—25 people in total, including a couple of great kids who are dating my niece and nephew.  We missed my brother and his wife and daughter.  My sister (Borg Designation: #7 0f 8) and I set up 3 parallel tables—like in the Great Hall at Hogwarts—without room for Slytherin. The arrangement worked very well.  The table full of college and high school kids was THE place to be. They really enjoy each others’ company.

It just occurred to me that I made Maria Rodale’s raw cranberry sauce the other day and didn’t even think to mention it here on my “making” blog.  It is delicious and easy.  You process cranberries, a whole orange and the juice from another one along with some sugar and let it macerate for a couple of days in the fridge. It is spectacularly gorgeous as well as yummy.  Not overly sweet, which is how I like it, but you could double the sugar if you like…

Hat for the beast.

Zoe snatched up that hat I made on the bus and was delighted to find it was big enough for her giant mane of hair—she and her friends refer to her gorgeous abundant curls as “the beast.”

The little boys like their new robot pjs.  Their mother was happy the fabric had a blue background—it looked white on her computer when she saw it on this blog.

Clinging to Mom and Raggedies

I was stunned and delighted that Raggedy Maggie and Raggedy Lily accompanied Maggie and Lily to Thanksgiving dinner.  My sister (#6 of 8) told me that since the dolls arrived, Lily and Raggedy Lily have been inseparable.  Lily even takes her Raggedy in her backpack to kindergarten with her.  Both girls were too shy to even talk to me—they only see me once or twice a year.  But they adore the dolls.  You never know what kids will latch onto.   

Another holiday survived.  No known casualties.  In the words of the great philosopher (and my former co-worker in Youth Ministry) Chuck Babiera, “No one died, so that was good.”

100 Days of Making

Anna Fuhs: Seamstress, Gibson Girl

This is my maternal grandmother, Anna Fuhs Ehrhardt’s 1912 engagement portrait.  She was a dressmaker in Newark NJ at the turn of the last century. I love this dress and need to figure out those sleeves so I can make a copy for myself.  

She often lived with us as I was growing up to help with all the kids. (I got a new baby sister just about every year until I was 9--including the year I got a baby brother too) 

Every night after the littlest ones were bathed and in bed, Grandma would settle into her rocker in front of the tv with us to crochet.  She was always making afghans for her grandkids to take to college or for the new baby great grandchildren as they came along.

She let me help her wind balls of yarn from the groovily colored skeins in her knitting bag.  She taught me to finger-crochet yards and yards of chain stitch which she would sew together into little doll rugs.  Once I developed the coordination, I graduated to using a crochet hook and learned to make granny squares, which were quite fashionable during the initial runs of That Girl and The Partridge Family. (Though Grandma preferred Lawrence Welk.)

As a true Edwardian, Grandma passed on to me the needlework skills that any proper lady should know.  I can embroider, needlepoint, cross-stitch, crochet, knit and sew. Thanks to Grandma, I am fully prepared for the life of an upper class spinster living at Downton Abbey. Sadly, it’s been 100 years and those skills aren’t much called for these days.  I have to make a living and haven’t had time for leisurely daily drawing room embroidery and gossip sessions. 

Downton Abbey's spinsters and the Dowager Countess. 

As I near my own half-century mark, I find myself at a crossroads trying to figure out, (yet again) what I want to be when I grow up.  

I realized toward the end of my most recent job, that I wasn’t using any of my talents, gifts or skills there.  I was basically pimping out my neurosis--Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I do take some odd comfort in knowing that I can only get by on OCD for a few years.  

Considering my undergraduate majors in Theology and Theater, I am rather proud that I made it almost 4 years in a Personal Property Tax Department.

I stand here today bloody, but unbowed. (And the OCD only finds an outlet when I am in Marshall’s or HomeGoods feeling compelled to straighten the shelves and put the matching dishes all together.) 

Princess Leia Cupcakes for former co-worker, Nate

 After nearly 4 years of stupid Excel tricks, battling the property tax database and endless filing, I desperately need to use my actual talents and skills. I have been trying to remember what I am good at and what I love to do.  People tell me I am creative (and I even believe this about myself.) But I don’t feel like I have been in touch with that part of me in a while. The closest I came in my last job was making birthday cakes for co-workers.

  

One thing I know for sure is that no matter how depressed I feel, I can always get a rush from fabric shopping. I look at my stash now and see things I bought with specific projects in mind. I just didn’t have time or motivation to put them together. I feel like there is creative energy stored in each piece of fabric and project I planned.  If I can just motivate myself to do them, I will be able to unlock that energy and find my way to the next job, or better yet,  what I want to be when I grow up.

There are piles and even bolts of fabric meant to be curtains, slipcovers, dresses, pajamas, stuffed animals…They are begging to be released from their stacks and storage cubbies. So I decided today is the first of 100 days in a row that I will make something. With a challenge like this, I should  be able to make a nice dent in that collection.  Hopefully I will gain momentum and retrieve the lost bits of my self.  By the end of the hundred days, I should be back to my regularly scheduled fabulosity. Even if it will be the bleak midwinter by then.

I predict there will be lots of sewing, but “making” is broad enough to include all sorts of things.  It could be a “mix cd” or a Christmas ornament or even traditional German springerle cookies. I have lots of things in mind, but if you have any suggestions or requests, please let me know.  I feel I should warn you that there are a lot of pajama bottoms waiting to be made.  Hopefully I will get it together and plow through them in a few days, mail them out to their intended recipients and then move on to some more varied projects. 

 

Raggedy Lily and Raggedy Maggie

At the very least, I will post photos of my accomplishments.  Hopefully I will even have a story to tell to go along with the pictures.  I am considering putting together tutorials if I cook up something that would be fun to document step-by-step. So that’s the plan.  

Here is today’s creation. 

Day ONE. 99 days to go. 

I have been working on these on and off for the last couple of weeks.  I have a raggedy Raggedy Ann doll that was given to my parents for me before I was even born. So I made Raggedy Lily (the blonde in pink) for my niece Lily and Raggedy Maggie for my brown-haired niece Maggie who loves BLUE.

Tomorrow I intend to experiment with something new for me—polymer clay….See ya back here then! 

Here are all the dollies together.