Kipling is all set for the day

Taking advantage of a spare hour this morning, here's Kipling trying on some clothes:

She's wearing a hat I knit her some time ago from Wovenflame's Pukifee patterns.

The top is a "Lori" top.

It appears her wardrobe is sadly lacking in skirts, so since I was not feeling ambitious enough to sew her one, I altered a Pukifee skirt to fit.  The difference in waist-size is significant enough that an unaltered elastic waist won't fit.  I tried on a littlefee skirt too, but it was just too much fabric!

The stockings are a pair of Blythe stockings left over from when I had my Blythe doll years ago.  I had to cut off the feet, but otherwise they fit okay!

The shoes are also from that long ago Blythe doll, and they just barely fit Kipling (without the laces)

I think she has her own very unique sense of style... LOL

Hope Has Opinions

Poor Hope.  I have been working so slowly on finishing off her shawl, that she requested a couple Blythe outfits to wear while I worked on it.

The first one came this week from FoxyBrowny:

I like this outfit on her quite a bit. The pretty white dress combined with the little coat in just the perfect shades of muted blue!  On a Blythe doll, this is tunic length;  as you can see, it is closer to ankle-length on Hope.  But other than that, it does fit her quite well!

I have today off, so she kindly posed for me a for a couple pictures.  She agreed to wear her wig for them, but I'm not sure she doesn't prefer to be bald!

She is proving to be excellent company when I am working on other projects.  She has firm opinions about which colours I should use!

She seems to be a bit of a trouble-maker, though.... the moment I turned my back, she was adding things to my "to do" list for the day!   ;)

A little Hope

When the box from Fairyland arrived Christmas Eve, it also contained my Realfee Mari.   Most of the names I'd thought of went out the window once I had her in my hand. I thought about Holly, or something else Christmas themed, but after a bit I came to the conclusion that what we could most use around here (and anywhere else too, I'd imagine!) is a little bit of Hope.

And Hope suited her very, very well:

None of her clothing is ready.  Over the Christmas break I got her dress mostly made (it needs straps and a snap, but I'm sewing by hand, so it has taken a bit) and started on her shawl.  I got just enough done that she can appear here to make her debut!

I love her crazy ears, and her little pointy chin.  She poses very well, which is always a prime consideration for me.

I think the planned colours and style are going to work just perfectly for her. :)  It is always nice when that happens!

She tried on all the wigs here yesterday, whether they fit her or not.  I'd been thinking of trying a lighter colour for her hair, but she would have none of it!  I'd also thought of black, but again, it was right out.

These two, however, have promise:

This is too big (it was Nora's wig!) but I love both the colour and the style! The crazy windbown curls are perfect for a little free spirited sprite! But I did want to stay away from Mohair this time, because it gets just wrecked by hats.

This one wouldn't be harmed by hats at all, or by repeated changes of hairstyle:

The wig is a little less red in real-life, but is unexpectedly appealing on her.  I really wasn't thinking about bangs for her...but for now, I think this is the one she will go for.

I might get her some new eyes, but these will do very well for now.  The main focus, other than working on her wardrobe, is on her faceup.  I am hoping to get it done by Sparrow Faceups, as her style is just perfect for the innocent, natural look I want for Hope.  And she seems to be very good at freckles too, and don't you think Hope needs a little sprinkling of freckles?  Her thread on DoA says closed/Full right now, but I am keeping an eye on it.

I've never sent faceplates away for faceups, so this is both very exciting, and nerve-wracking!  LOL

Two Things, from a Christmas Eve package....

But only one of them has pictures yet, as I was, like everyone else, very busy with Christmas today. :)

Yup, that is Kipling! Her head, which always looked a bit over-sized compared to the other two, looks great on this taller body!

So here's what she looks like next to Emily:

And here she is with Samara:

I am really pleased with the Realfee body in general*.  Losing those exasperating neck pieces the pukifee had (always wound up showing in pictures, like a bizarre double-chin LOL) is a blessing, and she poses really well!  The outfits I'd prepared seem to fit quite well too.


But the really big hit of the package that arrived last night?

Mari!

I will have to take some pictures of her tomorrow, but she is completely and utterly charming.  She poses wonderfully, and that little face!  I'm smitten!

Oh, I can't wait for Sparrow Faceups to re-open.  I have never done the whole faceup thing before, so I am terribly nervous, but I love how natural her faceups look, and that is definitely what I want for Mari.  :D

~~~

* Honest corollary: 
1) The seam lines are a lot more prominent on the RLF bodies I received than on the other Fairyland dolls I have.  I think I can smooth them down a little, but there is a noticeable difference.
2) I struggled getting the Pukifee connector onto the Realfee body;  it was very difficult.
3)  I'd been warned, so I wasn't surprised, but my Pukifee faceplates (first generation pukifee) do not fit the connector without help from magnets or eye putty.   Newer faceplates are supposed to fit just perfectly though!

These things don't hinder my enjoyment of the dolls, but they might someone else's, so I thought I'd better make it known.

Christmas Eve Day

Christmas Eve Day is one of Claire's favourite, and most dreaded, days of the year.  Everyone is so excited, and having so much fun!

But keeping them busy all day is no small feat!  Kipling is leaving a trail of toys behind her as she moves from one activity to the next....

Cairo is happy with the usually forbidden treat of Cheesies, some paper, scissors, and glue. But oh, what a mess! LOL

Edith is...perhaps not the best role model.... ;)

 

Samara is perfectly happy and cooperative today though, and not making a mess at all.  No, all she wants is for Clarie to read her a story.

And then another story....

And also this other story....

Emily has the dollhouse out, and she can play for hours with that!  It is just that she is a bit excited about going skating this afternoon, and not very good at telling time just yet.  So she has to, occasionally, ask Claire how much longer....

Flake has "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" on the record player.  To be honest, I think she just likes the wahoo-dooray song, since she has been playing it all morning!

But let's be honest, who is going to look at that happy little face and complain? LOL

I hope you are all having an equally joyfully chaotic (or peaceful, if that's your preference) Christmas Eve Day.  :)  Just one more sleep!

ETA, 2:38:  The tracking on the Fairyland package says "Out for Delivery."  The temptation to sit down in the lobby of my apartment building and watch for the mail truck.....  LOL

Sugarplum Fairies and a Parcel

My sister and I are taking Nieceling to see The Nutcracker tonight.  We've none of us ever seen a ballet, let alone this one, but we all know the story.

We like to make a tremendously big deal out of Special Events in our family.  We don't do a lot of "big" things in a year, so we like to make the most of them.  In this case, we got Nieceling a fancy outfit to wear, and her mother has managed to keep exactly what it is a secret.

She has seen the shoes, as we needed to make sure they fit, but the dress itself?  That is a surprise....;) We've got a little dollar-store nutcracker for her to have at the end, which nicely avoids the expensive souvenirs available.

It could be we won't like the ballet, but we are going in pre-disposed to enjoy it to the hilt.  Nieceling knows the story by heart now.

We'll probably only go once in her life, but she'll remember the planning, and her storybook, and the fancy dress, taking a taxi, the ballet itself, and getting her own tiny nutcracker doll.... and it will blend in with the years of memories of baking and decorating cookies, dancing to Christmas music, trees, tobogganing, and lights and just generally Christmas.  We'be been switching gradually to more "experience" type of gifts, and all of the kids love it.  And so do we. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And on a more materialistic note, guess whose Fairyland order just shipped?   

...

:D

Yeah.  They might not be here for Christmas, with the high volumes of mail, but they will be here soon!

Fairyland was quite fast this time around!   It was such a lovely surprise to see the shipping notice this morning. :)

Nursery In Progress

Kipling and Cairo, just so you know, really object to their room being called "the nursery" anymore.  LOL  Claire has cleared out their room, and they have all moved into Emily's room while she works on theirs.

Sebastian was able to get a friend of his to make some bunk beds, and Claire is painting up an old crib for Samara.  But the part they were most excited about was the news that they were getting a wardrobe!

The second it arrived and they got the okay to check it out, all three ran into the room:



But Kipling had some bad news to break to the others:



There is no doorway to Narnia in there.



Cairo had to double-check, just in case Kipling missed it.

No Narnia.

Just a closet.

Claire is going to have some serious explaining to do!  (And suddenly their previous excitement about the new closet will make SO much more sense to her.... LOL)

Wishing and hoping...

So I'm very excited about Kipling and Cairo getting new, taller bodies  (if you can't tell), but I'm also really excited about my RealFee Mari.

I won't be starting on her wardrobe at all until she gets here.   I'm trying not to get too specific in my plans for her (that never works for me with a new character), but I'm thinking she'll be a little sprite or pixie of some sort.  I don't actually want to mix her in with the other dolls, I'd like to keep her separate.

For photographing her, I'd like her to actually be the tiny size she is in real life, but wandering amongst regular human-sized backgrounds.  If you, like  me, are very old, think Fraggle Rock, whenever the Fraggles ventured into the human world.  ;)  As much fun as it is to try to photograph the others with everything reasonably to scale, I think it would be fun to have one who is just completely out of place, wandering around bringing a bit of magic to the everyday world.

I was pinning ideas for clothing for her - she seems to have a very mori, vagabond-ish-type look. We'll see how it plays out when she arrives.  Sometimes all your plans go right out the window when a doll arrives.

I've mostly given up naming them before they get here, though I love to come up with possible names while I wait.  I can never decide on one, though, till they have "their" look in place.

Right now though, I'm leaning strangely to "Marie".......Or maybe Cairn?  I've always liked the name Sylvie, and that would be a good one for a little nature spirit.    Mims is cute, but then Akili is such a pretty name.  Meep?  Mouse?  Oh!!!  Minerva!  That would be awfully cute...and yet a good big name to grow into.  ;)

Ah, but she will be whomever she is in the end.  I can't wait to find out!

Plans About Plans!

I've been carefully selecting a few new things for Kipling and Cairo, now that they are going to be on taller bodies:

So we have here:
1)  Two Lori outfits, which are reputed to fit and were on sale (other than the shoes)
2) A shirt, leggings, and pair of boots from Megdesignsonetsy
3) A pair of dress shoes each.  These are the Marley Wentworth (child) doll shoes, which are supposed to fit Realfee well.  They seem a good match size-wise for the boots, so I'm optimistic!  They are from Dollchris on eBay.

I've started sewing a dress from a Blythe pattern, and I've got a second cut out from the "Little Dress" pattern from MyOwnLittleWorld.   I took yesterday off from Work, though I will have to spend most of today trying to catch up on the things I can't get through in the work week.  I hope to take a couple breaks though! ...I've been eyeing those Lori boots, and wondering if they wouldn't fit little Samara....

I've also got plans about re-doing the Pukifee nursery.  I hardly ever set it up for pictures in the past, but now they are going to get new beds, and I've got some fabric scraps to make some new bedding...  I think it will be very cute and fun to photograph when it is done!

Coming up for air....

Anybody still out there?  It's been about four months since my last post.  I had hoped the project at work would ease up, but it actually got quite a bit worse for a while there.  The good news is they are now paying us for 20 hours of the overtime we work per month, so at least we are getting extra money out of it!  Money that goes mostly into my RSP, hopefully moving my retirement date forward!

So I've declared today a Holiday in the name of mental health.  Since it is a Saturday, and I technically only work Monday to Friday, I feel that is pretty fair.  ;)  I'm very grateful to have a job, but I must confess I'm getting pretty burned out.

I had the money saved up to replace Sebastian in September, but was dismayed to find that the Ruth sculpt was still unavailable from Fairyland.  Today, seeing that he is still not available, I used the money to get a blank Realfee Mari instead! She is just so incredibly CUTE.  She was a bit of an impulse purchase, which I ordinarily avoid, but looking forward to her arrival is already brightening my days considerably.  She is a whole new size, so I am looking forward to making her a whole new wardrobe next Spring!

The face-ups Fairyland has been doing recently are not really my personal taste, but I have my eye on trying to commission a real live face-up artist through Den of Angels with some of this overtime money!  The blank sculpt has such a sweet look to it, that honestly I could probably live with her blank too... LOL

(Have you seen Wovenflame's pictures of a blank RealFee Mari?  If not, you should really go look!)

I also managed to get two Realfee bodies, which are hopefully for Kipling and Cairo.  I've always wanted them to be taller than Samara, you see, and looking at owner pictures last week, I think they should work spectacularly.  I hope so, anyway!  I'd love if the RealFee bodies arrived in December, so that they could "grow" before the annual Christmas story(ies) but it is much more likely to be January I think.

I have been enjoying catching up on blog posts, Flickr, and Den of Angels.  It feels like a long time since I've had enough time to do so, and it is lovely to feel enthusiastic about the dolls again.

I don't expect to have time to do anything with the dolls this month, but I have high hopes that at least in December I may have my weekends back.  I quite miss them, and I'd be disappointed not to get at least one Christmas story put together!  It wouldn't feel quite like Christmas anymore without it... :)

Christmas 2012
Christmas 2013
Christmas 2014

Is that...?  Yes, I rather think it is the belated rousing of my normal Christmas Cheer....

The Trilliums are arriving....

It is finally here!  The Trilliums are starting to bloom:

This is the first one I saw today.  But it is a sure thing that when you see one, you will soon see a whole carpet of them!

The most amusing thing about Trilliums is that we are all convinced it is illegal to pick them, when it turns out it isn't!  Still, the first thing we teach a child encountering their first Trillium is that they must never, never pick one.  This particular flower is best enjoyed outdoors anyway. :)

Since it wasn't raining (or snowing) I had to take Emily out to explore, of course!

Her jacket is the one I was working on a while ago (I just sewed on the snaps and buttons yesterday... LOL).  It is the Queen Street Jacket pattern by Kristen Maw.  It was actually very quick to knit. :)

I have missed being able to take outdoor pictures of the dolls terribly! They are always the most fun. :)

BJD Marketing - Dude, they are really GOOD at it.

Fairyland is having a Halloween Event....and they're offering the Minifee and Littlefee in TAN.  I have long coveted a Minifee Moe line Celine, and I've wanted a tan Littlefee Luna since before they existed.  The two of those together?  Would get me the wings out of the Event Gifts.

I love those wings.  I looked at them and instantly realized my imaginary tan Littlefee Luna is a little Gargoyle!

See what happened there?   Three things:

1)  Scarcity:   They only offer dolls in tan occasionally, so if you don't order during that period, there is no guarantee you'll find the doll you want on the secondary market.

2) Special Event:  If you order now, you get something free!  (I love free stuff.  Seriously, even free stuff I have no use for can make a day exciting.  I think this might be a character flaw.)

3)  Limited Time:  They don't give a lot of notice of upcoming events, and they are generally not of a long duration.   In this case, they put a note up on the site about it on October 16th, and the event goes from October 24 till November 16.   So, no time to plan for making a purchase, and not a long amount of time to dither over it.  It's "Act now, or lose!"

These things totally work on me.  I'm so careful with my budget normally, but the events almost always send me into a flurry of putting things in the shopping cart, and peering at the budget, and gleefully making up the start of characters and stories and planning wardrobes....

In this case, I won't be buying the two dolls I want.  As much as I'd like them, they are not in the budget, and I like the budget!

So I'll just be over here, admiring Fairyland's marketing strategy....   ;)

It's All About Edith!

Edith had the main room to herself, and was entertaining herself with one of her toys....

 

But then some better entertainment came into the room!

 

Honestly, we're not sure if Samara is now pulling the duck on purpose to play with Edith or not...she always seems surprised!  And Edith has surely realized by now that Samara's duck is not alive!  LOL

Samara moves on to another toy.   There are advantages to being the early bird, as Kipling and Cairo are not up and running about!



And Edith finds a comfy spot to nap. :)

 

It's nice to be back to these smaller dolls! They've certainly been very patient in waiting for their turn, while I knit for the play dolls all summer.

Playing School...

While I was out today, I found this perfectly adorable little chalkboard/whiteboard combination at Michaels (Craft store), that was just perfect for Emily!

In other news, I have typed up the "final" version of my Laceweight Top Down sweater for Littlefee pattern, so the next task is getting all the pictures taken to illustrate the steps.  I hope to get that done by the end of the month.  I'm really not a fast knitter, and there's lots going on this time of year.  LOL

Aft Gang Agley

It's a beautiful day out there, so I thought I'd take my chance to get a picture I've wanted to take for ages.  I dressed Claire up , picked up the empty picture frame I've been saving for just this occasion, and headed outside.

This is the picture:



It came out okay, I think, but not that exciting, in the end.  It didn't help that the grass was too deep to get the bottom of the picture frame.  I might try again another day, in a different location. :)

The picture I like best from today? The one that I thought of just before I headed out the door:

 

LOL  Isn't that just the way!  But come on, who doesn't want to discover a random garden gnome with a suitcase at the park? I don't remember where the gnome came from, but he normally sits on one of the bookcases in my living room.

Emily went along too:



She seems pretty enthusiastic about the sun, after the long winter we had! :D

All Your Chairs Are Belong To Us

Not dead.  One of my beloved nephews passed on some sort of virus, and it's been circulating through the family.  Oy vey.  We really have to reconsider teaching kids to share, you know?  LOL  Three weeks later and a course of antibiotics, and I'm still coughing!

I got my order from Brennil (Her Delicate Strength) last night, and I'm so thrilled with the items.  It took me a long time to pare down my wish list for Claire to match my budget, but now she has a blouse, dress pants, a Spring/Fall Coat, and a winter coat!

You can see her modeling her new Business Casual look here (very useful for meeting with Donors, you know!):



But what's going on in the background there?

Coming to the end of the overtime funds...

Clare received the second last package that I ordered with half my overtime pay.  She now has high heeled feet to switch to on occasion, and plain black heels to wear with them.

The feet are a bit of a pain to change, but not too bad!  It's nice to have more options for footwear for her;  with the heeled feet, she can wear the shoes for the 22" American Model dolls. :)

The shoes themselves I'm not that thrilled with.  They will work for indoor pictures!  But they will only stay on her feet while she is standing on them;  they fall off the second you move her.  LOL

Not a practical outfit for chasing around small children, but very pretty!  I got the dress years ago for Ellowyne (it's part of a fancier set), but I love it on Claire.  Pretty, without being either childish or overdone.

She has a simple pencil skirt coming, still, and that will be the end of the purchases.  I'm on the fourth of the t-shirts I'm sewing for her, so not much left on that project either.  Once I'm finished with the Top Down Laceweight sweater pattern for LTF, I've got a couple Dollswest Design patterns I get to start on for Claire. I'm looking forward to working on those!

The Mysteries Of Scale

Edith is very curious about anything Claire is working on.  Today it is the ruler that caught her attention!

I find it fascinating the range of scales that can work with the Minifee.  Minifee are 1:4 scale, which can be hard to find, so a lot of the things I use in the doll world are meant for other sizes of dolls.

The ruler looks perfectly proportioned for Claire, yet it is in 1:6 scale the same as the pencil, which is really too small.

The box of cupcakes is actually 1:12 scale, which shouldn't work at all, but somehow does!  The spools of thread and the scissors are from an Our Generation (18 inch play doll like American Girl dolls), and the are perfect for her!  But nearly everything else from that set is too big...

It's a mystery! LOL

Some people (me!) just don't know when to quit...

So I had that incredibly adorable yarn that reminded me of Elsa's dress in the movie Frozen, and I used it to make a dress for Kipling.  (And then a matching hat, because why not?)



Then she really needed a coat to go with it, you know? And none of her existing ones worked!



And then I thought, you know, that hat pattern I have would look adorable with that coat!



And it did indeed look adorable! But she had no scarf, and that just seemed like a mistake!



And then I thought she really needed an earflap hat with curlicues on the back.

I think she's got winter covered.

Really.

I am stopping now and not making matching boot-toppers or arm warmers.

What DOES The Fox Say?

That song gets STUCK in my head, terribly!  However, it also prompted my nephews and niece to look up the sounds actual foxes make, so hey, learning! ;)

I finally got the yarn to make the fox from the Wee Woodland Wuzzies pattern, and it knit up pretty quickly.  I do like these patterns.






This little fox has been claimed by Cairo.  :)