It’s a shirred dress with some modifications.

You probably can’t tell from this picture though.

I made it so the back can open so it’s easier to pull on and off.

I used buttons as closures.

Isabelle chose the buttons.

It has three buttons.

One red.

One yellow.

And one green.

But not orange.

Because?

Because Isabelle did not choose orange.

I made matching button loops for each button.

I’ve never made button loops before.

It was easy.

I googled and found this great embroidery floss button loop tutorial by Ysolda.

So, that’s one red button loop.

It was a little wonky being my first.

One yellow button loop.

It was improved being my second.

And one green button loop.

The best since it was my third.

But no orange button loop.

Why?

Because Isabelle didn’t choose an orange button.

And I’m totally stalling.

Can you tell?

And why am I stalling?

Because if I show this next picture you’ll see right away the dress was not for me.

It was for Isabelle.

Isabelle’s Isabelle doll that is.

And of course we had to make dolly Isabelle a necklace to go with her new dress.

A jingle bell necklace.

Yay! No more naked Isabelle doll. So, that totally took me over two years to make her a dress.

And Isabelle wanted to cut her doll’s hair since Isabelle’s hair is no longer long. But it doesn’t grow back, I told her. Should I?

The plan was to make a robot for my nephew, Ebow. I don’t even know if he wants a robot doll. But I’ve been itching to crochet. So, when I found a Bender crochet pattern out there, I just used what I had, which was white. Because seriously, I was that impatient to crochet.

And I guess it doesn’t really matter what color he is, Ebow doesn’t know what Futurama is. He won’t notice what’s wrong with him, like his wonky little mouth. I’m obviously not good with embroidering on crochet. I had issues with the thread. That’s why the door on his body, is done in yarn.

Maybe Bender won’t even ever get to see Ebow because Isabelle has taken possesion of him. She’s been dragging him everywhere, throwing him around and doing flips with him, just like with the kitty. Maybe he’ll get so dirty he’ll become gray. Eeeewww!

And I tried to have Isabelle sit still and take a picture of him so you can see his actual size. But this is all I could get that day.

I had better luck, the night I finished him, with my cell phone camera.

And onto a different subject, our sleeping arrangements or bite my shiny metal ass, sleeping alone. Because that’s basically how it went.

We moved Isabelle’s bed right next to ours and tried again last night but it didn’t happen. No sleeping on her own. She was laying there and started sniffling. Her and Alan were talking quietly and I don’t know what they were saying. Then Isabelle climbed over Alan towards me and I don’t know what she was saying but she was crying and basically didn’t want to sleep in her own bed. I guess we’ll try again tonight but I doubt she’ll go for it. In fact, she walked over and saw my drawing and said, I don’t want to sleep in my own bed because I love you and want milk.

So yeah, we’ll see how it goes.

Bad kitty. Lazing about. Doing nothing.

And then teaching Isabelle to do flips on the bed.

Yes. FLIPS. ON. THE. BED. Isabelle was flipping her new kitty about telling me how he likes to flip and jump. Then she proceeded to show me by tossing him in the air and doing flips on the bed at the same time. In her glasses! Tempting fate to have them break again. Ok, she wasn’t doing back flips like in the drawing. Forward flips, but still.

Bad, bad kitty!

Hee, heee. Seriously though, how cute is the amigurumi kitty?! I have the Japanese Craft book ISBN-10: 4391130122, ISBN-13: 9784391130126. But I didn’t think I would ever make him because I couldn’t figure out how to crochet. And, plus, trying to figure out how to follow the Japanese directions?! Get outta here.

Well luckily for me, the author made an English translation so I didn’t have to try to figure out the Japanese directions. One day, though, I’d like to figure it out.

You know, at one point, I didn’t know if he was going to get finished. Remember how Isabelle was running off with alien parts? Well, she did that with the kitty too. So, I couldn’t find one of his arms for quite a while. Also, Isabelle ran off with him when I connected his head to his body. She started playing with him and didn’t want to give him up.

But everything worked out fine in the end. I found his arm and Isabelle gave him up for little bits of time so I could add his limbs little by little. He’s not perfect but he is done! Yay! Yay! Yay!

But onto some sewing talk. Or I should say lack of sewing. I’ve had unfinished sewing sitting around untouched. It’s been that way for a week. I just can’t seem to get going on it. It’s a dress for Isabelle. I was going steadily along and then ran into a slight hiccup. I screwed up copying one piece of the pattern. Then I cut it and sewed it that way. It wouldn’t fit no matter how much finagling and that’s when I realized I did something wrong. Well I didn’t pick it up after that.

And the idea was to make the dress for Isabelle and then try to duplicate it in a smaller size for Isabelle. Isabelle the doll that is. She’s just a little rag doll, like the Maggie doll.

And you know, I really have to get going on that. Isabelle, the doll, is naked. And Isabelle is saying right now as I’m typing this, “make a dress!”. Or she says, “Isabelle is cold” and then covers her with a blanket.

So yeah, maybe I’ll just stop typing right now and get on that.

I was so eager to make him, while Isabelle was still interested, that I didn’t even bother with seam allowances. That would probably explain why he didn’t match up properly, his bottom was a little too big and he ended up bunchy.

And that also explains why his flippers seem tiny and pointy.

But ain’t he cute? And big too. Bigger than I expected. From the picture in the book I thought for some reason he would sit in the palm of my hand. But I was wrong.

I asked Isabelle to hold him so I could get a picture of his size.

She thought throwing him up and down was a better idea.

Project Notes
Pattern: 23 from isbn-10: 452904114x (isbn-13: 978-4529041140)
Fabric: linen

And before that I was distracted hand sewing this little sea turtle as a surprise for Olinda’s birthday.

I was working on him Friday night in the closet. Isabelle was sleeping and not sleeping very well. So I sat in there, close by, in the closet where there was light. Sewing away while Isabelle woke up too many times looking for me. I’d get up, get her back to sleep, and then sew some more. I had to finish him that night because on Saturday we went out to see Olinda. We met her at the Aloha festival in San Francisco where Isabelle got a little bird.

It’s not a real bird. It’s fake and it sings and moves and I’m such a sucker. I just wanted to show it to Isabelle but she liked it so much I got it for her. She has more than enough toys and I knew she wouldn’t play with it for long but I still bought it because…I AM a sucker.

And of course she’s not playing with it anymore. She played with it that whole first day, constantly asking where it was but by the next day she was done. It sings REALLY loud and Isabelle says, “no noise! Quiet bird!!” and wants me to turn it off.

Oh wait. What was I talking about? Oh yes, the sea turtle. At the festival they had a whole bunch of sea turtle toys. They made my sea turtle look all misshapen and mutated. I should have made his front arms bigger and his shell rounder and his head not so big and and and…oh well. I should have made a test one before Friday night. Then I would have had time to work all that out.

Even though he’s a little mutant, Olinda seems to like him and Isabelle does too. She’s been asking me, “where’s turtle? Make turtle? Winda giva me my turtle? Winda giva me birthday?” So I guess my little miss will be getting a turtle…because I’m a sucker. But I think I’ll machine sew a turtle for Isabelle. Probably a lot faster than hand stitching the entire thing again. How long do you think she’ll play with it?

And I said, “Ok” and hurriedly made one.

Then Alan said, “why does it look like he’s squatting to take a poop?”

“I don’t know! But did you know I didn’t stuff his neck completely? How the hell did I manage that?!”

That’s what happens with hurried sewing.

Everyone enjoy your weekend. We’re waking up early to watch a parade! Eeerr…or I should say attempting to wake up early.

Project Notes
Pattern: Brontosaurus from Toys to Sew
Fabric: Calls for felt but I used fleece

I remember when I was little, I loved playing with dolls with removable clothing. So with that in mind, I made this dolly with removable clothes, using velcro.

I also did removable shoes. That might not have been the best idea. Isabelle keeps taking the shoes off saying, “oh no!! HELP! Shoooooes!” and wanting me to put them back on.

Isabelle likes her Maggie doll. But she doesn’t see it as Maggie. She just says, “dolly”.

Back to the drawing board? Ahh…forget it. Isabelle likes her fine enough to dance with her even though she doesn’t call her Maggie.

And busy making her a doll.

But draw I did. I rushed this out. I think I’ll experiment with my drawings when I have more time and not at 11:30pm at night.

So I ended up cutting a pair of socks up, not the ones I took a picture of, but one of the pairs I drew. I cut them up and turned them into a sock elephant. I had a hard time taking a picture of him though, because Isabelle was running off with him. I’m going to say it again but wow it’s hard to take pictures of soft toys with a toddler around!

I did manage to finally get this picture of him by himself but it’s not quite accurate. He’s falling over so you can’t tell he’s all wonky.

His head is too small for his body. It’s not noticeable in this picture. I probably didn’t cut in the right place. And I should have stuffed his head more before I sewed it up. I didn’t notice though until after I made up his body. Then the size difference was waaaay obvious. And his ears are funny. I took such care with his arms and legs and ran out of steam with his ears. They’re not tucked in and just funky.

But Isabelle likes him and that’s all that counts.