Pillow Doll

Hello!👋

Hope you have been keeping well!

School is out and I am super excited to be able to spend more time with my kids and my partner over the next couple of weeks! ♥️

I have been pulling out all the red clothes I have in my wardrobe to wear something red everyday, because… why not, we are in a festive season!🤭

Two and three years ago, I made two dresses with a classic red plaid print, but honestly, I only wear them during the Christmas season. And possibly only one wear each.

One of them, which is the Juliet from Vintage Little Lady, is just too large for me, I feel lost inside and the other, which is the Freya dress by Tilly and The Buttons, is just too tight around my belly now. 😬

Here is a photo of me in the Juliet dress:

I went back on my Instagram to see what I wrote about making the dress at the time and I saw I went a size up based on the recommendations in the pattern. From memory, I don’t think I shortened for my height and the sleeves are just too long for my frame.

I have been meaning to upcycle this one for a while now, but just haven’t gotten around to it. There is about 3 meters of fabric in the dress, so plenty to work with, but it won’t be this year either. 😂

I might just end up shortening the skirt and sleeves and using the excess for something else.

One of the things I did this week was wrap some Christmas presents! 🎁

For the past year or more, we've been trying to make more conscious purchases, especially for the kids, focusing on items we think will be useful rather than just buying everything that looks nice.

It helps now that they are slightly older and can voice what their interests are, of course we can also see and take note of what they gravitate towards when playing around the house.

One of the things I have bought them is a pack of white printing paper because they are always stealing mine for their crafts! 😂

I also finished making their Barbie bed collection, and for some reason I thought it was going to take me the whole week to make, but I finished them on Wednesday! 💪

Here are Ken and Barbie showing off how they look lying down inside:

The first version I made, which is the one with Barbie in, didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped.

I used heavyweight interfacing, the one that feels like paper, for the border and I thought it would hold well, but it didn’t.

It was flopping open so I decided to fold the corners in a little and tack them in place to bring in the sides a bit more. It sort of works, but I don’t like the way it looks but I also don’t feel like redoing it all. 😂

If I did, it would mean unpicking the binding at the base, the border, the topstitching and the top seam that is holding the straps to use an alternative stabiliser. 😵

Not something I feel drawn to doing! 😂

The second version came out much better. I used fusible foam and it holds up a lot better and definitely looks better too!

To complement the set, I made a blanket and four pillows each in various shapes - heart, oval, circle and square - with 2 of them having a ruffle border.

I ended up ditching the mattress to fit to the base of the bed simply because I wasn’t in the mood to draft an extra pattern piece.

Overall, my personal preference is the second version I made, I just hope that the different fabrics don’t cause fights between my girls. 😬

Apart from this, I sewed a little something, a very little something, that I can’t tell you this week, but I will tell you about next week. 🤫

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I have made good progress on the Breton Sweater I am knitting with the Yarnsmiths Merino DK yarn. So much so, that I got carried away and knit an extra 13 rows before realizing I never shaped the armhole! 🤦🏼‍♀️

So I still need to remove all the rows before I can continue.

I have the front bodice more than half way done though and I am finding adding the beads very therapeutic now. They are just a bit fiddly because of their size.

Some of the holes on the beads are smaller than others, so I am having to sift those out because the DK weight yarn is too thick to pass through. Not sure how much you can tell by the photo.

These beads will be good for jewellery making, so I am keeping them in a separate jar for my daughters to use.

At the time of writing this, Wool Warehouse has this yarn on a 40% off sale, amongst other good offers on their Yarnsmiths range, so do check it out if you are in need of some yarn.

I managed to finish the Alice Vest test knit from Rita Made This.

I didn’t like how the double stranded DK yarn daisies were looking after trying many times, so I just cut them all out. They looked okay in photos, but in real life they weren’t looking too good.

I found some of the leftover yarn from the sleeves of my Evie Cardigan from KnitStitchRepeat that I knit earlier this year. 

It is an aran weight yarn, so a thicker strand, and I held it single this time.

I much prefer how they look now, even though the colour has a slight brown touch to it.

It needs to be blocked still because the edges at the front are rolling in and if I make this again I would probably make a size up for some extra bit of room.

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I would like to end my week wishing you all a merry festive season! 💖