Doll Clothes, Disappointment and An Opportunity

If you read my blog with any degree of regularity you know that I have been sewing and knitting for American Girl sized dolls for a couple of years.



The table from our first craft fair.

 

Last year I ventured into craft fairs to sell my hand made items with mixed success.  I partnered on a few of them with another lady who was learning to sew doll items.  That also met with mixed success -- in that the partnership met with mixed success.  Agreeing to a plan does not necessarily mean sticking to the plan.  That's all I'm going to say about THAT.

At one of the craft fairs I was approached by a woman who has a store dedicated to dolls.  She asked me to sew things that she would carry in her store.  I agreed, and we settled on a 'wholesale' price.  She told me my work was excellent and my prices were more than reasonable.

Good deal, right?  She wanted everything I had after the last sale. 

Wow!  I delivered my bin of things and she displayed them in her store.  The first month, things went fine.  I was liking this, making back some of the investment I made in materials and notions.

NOT that I was doing it for the money to begin with.  But it would definitely make my possible transition into retirement easier. 

Snowman dress just in time for Christmas

Love making the hats!

Fast forward several months to an open house that did not occur, through store hours that were virtually non-existent to an injury to the owner that took the whole operation down for six months and many unanswered emails and a lot, I'm telling you a LOT of frustration on my part for missed opportunities to last week when I finally got a phone call from said store owner.

Me:  I'd like to know when you're going to be open.  I think I'd like to come and pick up my things.  It doesn't seem to be working out very well.

Her:  OK, yes I guess that's the case.  When do you want to come?

Me:  You tell me when you're there and I'll arrange to be there.

Her:  OK, well come Saturday morning.  Sorry it didn't work out.

Yeah, me too.  She's had some health issues and for that I'm sorry and I've kept good thoughts for her continued recovery.

What girl doesn't love patterned jeans?

Meanwhile back at the ranch, I now have a box of beautiful doll items and no outlet to speak of.  I may try to get into a local craft fair if it's not too late and not too expensive.  Meanwhile, if anyone out there in the ozone is looking to pick up some items for one of their favorite little girls, reach me at the email address in my profile.

Maybe I'll put up a doll clothes tab.  I don't really want to do the full blown Etsy or Craftsy or Craig's List or any of those options.  I much prefer to deal in person so people can see and touch what they're getting and be sure it's quality.

These items are in the box, along with many more... and I promise the prices are still reasonable! 

I might just have to sponsor a give-away... This lovely green and white sweater and a denim skirt to one lucky winner.  All you have to do is leave a comment on this post, make sure your email address is included, and your name will go into the hat.   Miss A will draw the winner on November 5.

Sew on...

Lily or Lilly? A Quilt for a Lily...

Several weeks ago one of my coworkers called to say he's a grandfather.  He was pretty excited!  I know the feeling... my mom used to say if she knew how much fun grandchildren were she'd have had them first!  Although I'm not sure how she would have arranged that... The baby's name is Lily.  Or maybe Lilly, like Lillian?  I'm not sure.  I determined to make a quilt appropriate for her name and send it up to Gramps in Stevens Point. So I searched for a pattern or fabric with lily either in the title or in the shape.    I'm not much for applique so that was out.  It wouldn't necessarily have been if I'd had more time, but I wanted to get it done fast. I considered Carolina Lily.  Not crazy about those diamonds. Gorgeous but so not me!! This is what about.com says about the floral version of lily.  My favorite kind of lily, and the flower of my birth month is: Lily of the Valley Flowers

Common names: Lily of the Valley, May Lily, Convallaria, Our Lady's Tears, Convall-lily, Lily Constancy, Ladder-to-Heaven, Jacob's Ladder, Male Lily Description: The Lily of the Valley has broad, spear-like foliage and fragrant little white bell-shaped flowers. While it’s a popular garden perennial, the Lily of the Valley has seen increasing popularity as a cut flower, especially in wedding bouquets. Then there's Easter Lily... I always ask my kids NOT to buy me these at Easter because the scent reminds me of funerals.  But they're pretty... Common names: lily, Easter lily Description: Long, narrow leaves cover a single stem. At the top, they divide into three to seven stems, each with a single bud. Open flowers are six-pointed, white and trumpet-shaped. The fragrant blooms can last seven days to three weeks. There are no current fabric lines with lilies in them that I liked.  I found some tiger lilies and some other colored versions, but nothing thrilled or inspired. On to Etsy!  I found two lily fabrics.  One was pink and had kind of red-orange flowers.   I bought it just in case it was the only one I ever found.  The second was green with pots of lily of the valley in white.  The pots were pink, blue and yellow.  It was OK but again, not great.  I actually came up with a color scheme that I thought would work.  The third find was gorgeous, but when it came it felt a little heavy, like maybe it's home dec fabric.  It went on the 'pile' for future projects.     Not ready to give up, I tried eBay.  I have shopped eBay in the past and had great success with my favorite or maybe second favorite collection, Depression Glass.  I found a winner, but the seller was in Indonesia!  I had first screened for US sellers only but what came up was what I had already seen.  I didn't see a freight quote, but since the fabric was like twelve dollars, I said DO NOT SHIP if freight is more than $10.  I got a very nice email saying it was much less.  Sold! My international package arrived on Saturday.  The pattern I used is Five Easy Pieces from Quilty magazine.   The magazine's out of print but you can still buy the patterns and back issues on line.  It was a cool magazine, but that's a whole 'nother post... It makes a very small baby quilt - 33x42 -- and I wanted something a bit larger.  You start with a center square of 6.5 inches, so I just upsized to 8.5 inches, and made all the other pieces the same width as the pattern (but obviously longer).  My finished quilt is 39x50.  Granted, the picture does not look very 'baby-ish'  But the green is kind of soft, a Quilter's Candy color from that catalog, is it Connecting Threads?  anyway, with the addition of a pink Bella Solid and a white dot, and since the background is black a B&W ticking stripe, I think it's quite feminine.

 

 

 

All that is required now is quilting and binding.  And shipping off to Lily.

 

Sew on...

The Princess and the Goodwill Shopping Trips

The Grandmother's oldest Princess loves to shop.  She will go to any store, any time, for any thing.

To Walgreens for rubbing alcohol for dad.  To Menard's with the Grandfather for bug spray or furnace filters.  But her favorite shopping trips are with the Grandmother to the Amazing Goodwill store.

The Princess was looking for items for a Halloween costume.  She loves October, and looks forward to all the scary happenings that come her way.  Since she's gotten older, her costumes have become more elaborate.  This year, because she's in Middle School, it's a group costume and she is responsible for her assigned part.

The Princess bought a pair of pants that might work, but they turned out to be too small.  She asked the Grandmother to make them larger, but sadly it wasn't possible.  This brightened her day because it followed that they would need to be replaced by, yes, a shopping trip to her favorite place.


After a quick dinner, the Grandmother and the Princess drove over to the nearest Amazing Goodwill.  The Princess headed off with instructions as to how to check for size, and the Grandmother began to browse.

 

You can always find SOMETHING at the amazing Goodwill. Within moments, the Princess was back with the perfect pair of khaki pants that fit perfectly (of course!)

The Princess asked if they were done.  From her face, the Grandmother knew the answer should be "No".  The Princess continued shopping, in search of flannel shirts.  Before long she had one.  The Grandmother found another. 

 

"We should really pick up at least one thing for the smaller Princess", said the Grandmother.  They quickly found a red velvet dress with sparkly accents.

Very soon the shopping trip was over and it was time to return to reality, homework, and bedtime.  The Grandmother didn't realize until they were on the road that she had not had a chance to visit her favorite section of the Amazing Goodwill:

 

 Shop on...

Fall Cleaning

One of the great things about living in Wisconsin is the fall colors.  I read somewhere that in Europe all the leaves turn yellow in the fall, but in the US the leaves turn yellow, orange and red.

I drive through an area with a couple of red maples along the road quite regularly.  If I am lucky enough to get out of the office while it's still light, the sun sets those trees on fire.  It's gorgeous.

This week is probably the peak of fall color in Southeast Wisconsin, according to the authority on such things.  This map is from the website travelwisconsin.com

 

Fall seems to spark a feeling of renewed energy for me.  I'm happy to put away the summer clothes and start hauling out the sweater.  (Although with the temperature in my office being so low, this year I've been wearing cardigans all year!)

 

Picking apples, one of the best ways I know to spend a fall day... or stopping at a local farm stand to buy some.

It's cranberry time in Wisconsin too.  Love the colors!

Last Saturday our church quilt group met as regularly scheduled.  We had such a nice trunk show in September that we didn't get any actual WORK done, so there was a lot to do.

 

Our bucket of finished quilts contains a dozen small lap quilts.  Our bucket of tops to work on had at least 18, maybe 19.  We were lucky enough to receive a donation of large pieces last month, which we had organized, folded and stored.  Plus people are always leaving surprises for us, such as blankest and sheets.  Sometimes we use these for charity purposes, but sometimes we just can't use them for much. 

 

A few sheets were designated for foundation piecing.  We save odd strips, and our bag is pretty full at present, so we need to get working on those.

 

Between the three of us present on Saturday, we managed to find backing for all our flimsies.  We also layered and pinned seven quilts, which all went home with our expert, Suzi. 

 

We cleaned up our area, reordered our shelves, and went home satisfied that we'd done a good job.

Except for the one flimsy we could not locate anywhere -- we all remember seeing it, but not one of us could remember what we did with it!  We called it our mutual senior moment.

 

Oh dear, I think we're going to have to clean up our OWN sewing areas... not the most fun way to spend a day but highly necessary.

It's a good thing we have the fall energy going, right??

 

Sew on...

Almost the Weekend

I think our Fiscal Year-End close is nearly done... at least I hope so.  Two weeks into the new year is a long time to wait for reports.  Bad mistakes could have been made, and the problem is that even if you correct the error, the line and its correction will remain on the reports until the NEXT fiscal year.  That means that John Smith will have a line with zero hours on it, in my department XYZ report, for 50 more weeks, or every week I will have to delete two rows of data.

Bad news, eh? 

I know... I hate that.

A couple of weeks ago DH and I skipped over celebrating our 44th anniversary.  It was on a Friday and I went to Sewing Night at the aunties.  He said "we'll go out for dinner during the week, when the restaurants aren't so busy". 

Yeah, right.

These days his idea of eating out is breakfast at Mickie D's. 

One evening we were going to actually go to a restaurant and we couldn't decide where to go.  So we made dinner at home and ate in front of the TV.

How romantic.

Well after 44 years, that's about what happens.

Anyway, here are a few anniversary thoughts, and those of you who know Mr. Crabby Pants, no judgments, OK?  LOL!

And especially for my brother David, in case he happens to read this post:

 

 

Party on!

Hello Again

Where does the time go?  I was so sure I was writing at least three times a week but it has been a long time, hasn't it?

Miss E and I finished up her quilt project with the new Babylock.  She had asked my friend Suzi to quilt it, and she did a marvelous job as always.  Miss E was so very nervous about sewing on the binding, so I took pity on her, and in my quest to do the UFO clean up, I stitched it on, with her sewing machine, while she watched.

We did a light beige binding as a contrast to all the dark borders.  It would not have been my first choice but she likes it!  You cannot see her smiling behind the quilt as she holds it up.

Then I took the famous trip to Chicago on the train.  I think I've recovered from that now.  Hopefully.

 

This weekend Miss A got a new dress from her other grandma, and it required hemming.  We had just had a long discussion about how she likes dresses, what kind what color, etc.  So I was already making her a dress when she came over with the hemming project.

 

Having done the hem, the sewing machine was all set up and just begging to be used.  So I put together this little number.  It's a basic tee shirt with a pleat down the front, and three buttons for trim.  The first two photos were taken in my basement studio.  The dress looks blue, which would have been lovely.

 

 

However, the actual color is more purple...This is upstairs, horribly backlit from the patio doors.

 

But at least the color is a bit more accurate.

It was fun to sew but hard to iron.  It seems I sprained my right thumb while getting myself organized in the basement on Friday night.  I spent the weekend putting ice on it and rubbing it with Aspircreme and  saying "ouch" every ten seconds.  Do you know how many times you use your thumbs for things?  Picking up scissors, opening the fridge, writing, typing... in fact this blog post is causing a few ouches right now.

Time to go.  Sew on...

Happy New Year!

People in accounting know that while a Calendar Year is always January 1 to December 31, a Fiscal Year can be any day of any month through 365 days later.

Our company Fiscal Year is October through September.  Sort of.

Dividing a year into quarters has challenges.  For Finance purposes, the quarters have to be equal.  You can divide 52 weeks by four to get 13 weeks to a quarter, but that does not equal 365 days.  If months all had the same number of days it would be easier too.

If your head hurts from the math, my apologies. 

Our week starts on Saturday and ends on Friday.  That's for simplification of payroll.  Plus it means you start the week with a weekend!  (Bonus!)

We have three months in each quarter, the first two last four weeks, the third lasts five weeks.  Whatever Friday the fifth week ends on is the end of the fiscal month.  I know, who cares, right?  LOL!

This year ended on October 2.  So for the week before the 2nd I normally would have been doing final reports and getting invoices entered to make the fiscal year end at a good financial position.  BUT of course a monkey wrench was tossed into the works to keep that from happening.

 

The Shedd Aquarium.  Yes, folks, the world famous Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.  I went there on Sunday Sept. 27 for a big client event during the Wastewater Convention  that was held at the McCormick Convention Center.

While I love client outings and Chicago and museums etc., not necessarily in that order, year end is a bear!  There are so many things that have to be done, both before and after, that it rarely leaves room for breathing.  Lunch hour?  Doesn't exist anymore.  Breaks?  Ha ha!!! 

I worked the week of the 25th, then I spent time on work tasks on Saturday.  Sunday was the travel day, I went down on the Amtrak Hiawatha.  Checking into the hotel took a little while, then we grabbed a cab down to the Shedd.  I got a brief tour before settling down to run the registration table.  That went ALL NIGHT.

I did get a chance to go into the aquarium for about 10 minutes.  I did actually see several fish up close and personal in the big tank.

 

But honestly, THIS is as close as I got to a fish for the rest of the week:

 

 Close the year and carry on...