One of my very favorite book series of all time is the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher. After years of claiming I would make characters from the books, I finally did it. And here they are, in their very own photo shoot: Harry Dresden, Bob the skull, Mister the cat, and Mouse the temple dog.
My daughter moved out a few months ago, and she set up a new office in her apartment. I have to say, I was very impressed with how she set it up. I had office envy! I also was touched but how she displayed all the crochet items I’ve made for her over the years. It brought back memories as some of them went back years. Some were made so long ago, I had completely forgotten about them. I didn’t photograph everything, but here are some of what she displayed.
I went traipsing through my drafts here on WordPress and one of my drafts was from 2019! I wanted to write about a blue mermaid doll I made as a stash buster at work. I had a lot of blue yarn and decided a mermaid would be perfect.
Well, as I stared at that old draft, which was just a title and a description, I pondered whether it was worth the effort to dig up the old pictures, try to retrieve the old memories, and actually try to write it up now that the doll is long gone (a student picked her from the prize box for his little sister).
The answers is yes, she deserves her moment in the sun, or in this case, blog. I guess there isn’t much to tell. I had a lot of blue yarn I had received when my mom passed away. I had unraveled some unfinished pieces that were destined for the trash. A doll was a perfect way to save all that yarn and honor my mom at the same time.
I don’t have many pictures of her but here she is in all her glory.
When I first imagined what she could be.
I took her to the Renaissance Fair!
Umm, that’s all I have! I guess I didn’t think much about taking her picture at the time, but you get the idea. 🙂
I’ve been working on a challenging project for a little over a week now, and I finally finished. My son is into video games, and he liked the Sora doll I made for him as a Christmas gift. His birthday was only a few days away and he asked if it was possible for me to make another game character.
Could I! Of course I could! I love when my family challenges me with something they want out of crochet. What he wanted was a character named Rosalina. As usual, I didn’t know anything about that character, but he showed me illustrations as well as video from the game. I got a good sense of her.
At first, I thought…easy peasy. And for the most part, she was. But that hair! And the eyes! I normally like to use buttons for the eyes. I asked my son if he wanted me to try embroidering them as we could always fall back on buttons if I couldn’t do it. I watched some videos for inspiration, and I did my own thing anyway.
What to do when I have a half-finished doll the kids are salivating to get their hands on? I let them play with it of course! Not sure if this was prudent, but it sure was fun. I’ve allowed the kids to play with her because I wasn’t sure I could finish her before the end of the school year. I’m glad I did because they’ve been having so much fun with her. Especially the hair, they can’t stop messing with the hair! They even put this cute flower in it that came from a cupcake we had for snack.
The flower made all the difference!
One little girl shared her headband 🙂
I’ve created all kinds of dolls over the years. I’ve even attempted a life-size doll (which is still missing legs). I’ve made small dolls too, but never a tiny doll. Well, I pulled out a ball of cotton thread that was lurking in a yarn drawer and thought it was about time to try it. I’ve been seeing these really cute miniature dolls created by other crocheters that have inspired me. I pulled out a C hook and went for it. Continue reading
Picture it, three small children, smitten with half of a life size doll. I finally attached arms to my doll and three of my Kindergarten students couldn’t stop hugging her and dare I mention, one of them couldn’t stop kissing her. The doll is a bit heavy because I stuffed her body with rags but that didn’t stop them from picking her up and squeezing her (and kissing her). Continue reading
Progress on the creepy life-sized doll is slow going. The body is done but I haven’t really had a chance to work on anything else but I did get started on the hands and am hopeful I can get the arms done by the end of the month.
That’s a kindergartner hand. Pretty close.
Once the arms get done, I can give her a shirt and finally give her some hair. Once she gets hair, she won’t be quite so creepy. I threw a small work shirt on her so the kids could stop worrying about her state of nakedness. Although, I might let her keep the shirt. 🙂
The kids are super excited now. One of my second graders was in her last week with us before a move to another state and she used the ‘moving’ card on me. I wasn’t letting any of them play with the doll. It was weird to me she wanted to play with something that looked like a bowling pin but how could I say no to my student when she looked at me all sad and telling me she won’t get to see it finished. I handed it to her and the kids all squealed with delight. Honestly, I didn’t understand how they could have so much excitement over a half finished doll that looked creepy to boot. Must be a kid thing.
I mentioned in a previous post that I was crocheting a life size doll of myself at work. Alas, I had to place it on the back burner in lieu of other, more pressing projects. Well, it’s day has come! I will not pick up any other projects until that doll is done. So I in that spirit…
I resumed work on the head. My little minions (Kindergarteners) couldn’t help themselves from helping me work on the doll. I had completed the head and had embroidered the face, using their suggestions of course. It was ready for stuffing.
Before I stuffed, I had to get up for something and left my work on the table. I can see all of you shaking your heads thinking to yourselves that I was asking for it. I see no pity in your eyes. I did indeed ask for it. I came back to a student running around with his hand in the opening of the doll head, using it like a puppet. A long string of yarn was tailing him around the room as it unwound from the ball of yarn. I quickly had him bring it back. Luckily, I had my stitch marker in so it didn’t unravel.
Can someone help me run around the room? I’m bored.
Now that she was rescued, it was time for stuffing. They love helping me stuff so I let them Continue reading
Leading up to the annual craft fair at the elementary school where I work is always insane, mainly because I usually decide to participate at the last minute (shame on me). This year I did the same thing. I wasn’t sure I had enough pieces to fill up a table and I certainly didn’t have enough time to make a bunch of new pieces. But a week before, I agreed to do it and then it was a frenzy of trying to create items the students would enjoy. In that week, I managed to make four Pokeballs, two poop emojis, eight doll purses, and two smiley emojis. That was it. Luckily, I still had some dolls and hats lying around that could fill up my half of the table. My lovely, artistic, amazing and super talented daughter had the other half filled with her artwork (bad mommy that I am, I didn’t take any pictures).
My booth at the craft fair at Promenade Elementary School
I noticed that there was another booth that was selling crocheted toys and they had a really nice setup with some really nice things. I felt too inadequate to actually go over there. I had a tiny table with a mish-mash of items. My daughter went over and checked out the competition and being the good daughter that she is, told me my stuff was more unique. Well, it was definitely that. None-the-less, I did better than I had in previous years. I only had a few pieces but I focused on things I thought the kids would like and I knew my students would come check out my booth no matter how small it was. Almost all the items I specifically made for the fair sold. I wish I had had more time to make more Pokeballs and emojis. Those sold out fast with the kids wanting more. The poop emojis didn’t last long either. But most exciting of all was that I sold the Elsa doll from Frozen and that red-headed doll in the top right of the picture (above).
Great picture of Elsa taken by a PTO mom.
I always get a little thrill when I sell one of my dolls AND no one tried to talk me down on the prices. One of the hardest parts for me is pricing my items. In previous years, people loved the work but thought they were too expensive. This year, the items just sold! I was so happy.
The making of some of the items on the table were chronicled on previous blog posts. The tooth with the toothbrush (sold), the Pokeballs (sold), the purpliciousdoll in the top row, the Christmas doll with the purple hat, the face emojis, the Elsa (sold) and Anna dolls, and the superman doll.
An added bonus of doing the fair is that I get to see my students, past and present. Lots of hugs were dispensed that day. My favorite part is when they tell me they still have and value something I made that they either got from our prize box or that they purchased from a previous craft fair. How wonderful is that!
yochet 