Confined Crafting

In this post I made some crafting resolutions for 2021, and in this post I followed up on them - as the year is now very rapidly drawing to a close I thought it would be good to check in on those resolutions!  1. A new project: making myself clothes Back in January I was determined to start making myself clothes, and I think it is safe to say I have nailed that one! My current work-in-progress: another York Pinafore dress in this gorgeous swimmers fabric I have now made myself two pinafores, two dresses, a skirt and one top, as well as adapting ill-fitting shop-bought garments. I've also made several garments for my kids and an apron for a friend. Working on my first top, the Ashton , and very pleased that I got sleeves to fit! 2. Finishing something: cross-stitch Partial success here. I did finish the embroidery for my friend's son, a little later than his 7th birthday but only by a month or so. But my original plan to finish my wedding sampler will not get done, as between...

 I've decided to try a new thing on the blog! I'm finding that I'm not posting much as I feel like I need to do a summary post when I finish something - and that can take a while! So these will be little diaries showing what I have got up to and discussing any thoughts I've had along the way, without anything needing to be finished! Embroidery The week started with a bit of disappointment as I failed to meet one of my New Year's Resolutions (as made in this post ). As you can see from the image above, I've not managed to finish the birth sampler for my friend's son in time for his birthday. But it's much closer than it was and I might be able to get it done by the end of May! New deadline! Also in embroidery, I made one of my Jacobin Day Quilt Blocks  as an applique. I really enjoyed this method, which is completely new to me. The way I did it was like making a little collage of scraps of fabric and felt with embroidery highlights. Though I did cheat a l...

 My daughter loves the Amelia Fang book series by Laura Ellen Anderson, and she's often asked for dolls or toys of the characters. However there aren't any commercially available. Anderson recently released the final book in the series which we bought for H as a birthday present - and I decided to make her an Amelia doll to go alongside the gift! I found this pattern from PetrasWonderland on Etsy which I used as the base. To make my life a little easier, I used black fabric for the body and arms, and striped black and white fabric for the legs (rather than make them in skin tones and then 'dress' the doll separately). That way the only clothing I needed to sew was a circle skirt, which I then sewed to the body. I added some netting in between the circle skirt fabric to get the sense of fullness found in the illustrations. Finally I added some little wings from stiff black felt. Amelia wouldn't be complete without her little pumpkin Squashy, so I used some scrap or...