Finally spring is here… I think,

I mean I would like to think so. It’s still cold in the mornings but we had beautiful afternoons, sunny days for the last few days…

But one thing I learned about Michigan winters is that you never know what’s gonna happen, it may snow in April, May even in June! Well, I have never seen snow in June but I have friends who say, it happened! So you never know *sigh*

Anyway

I would like to talk about a friend today whom I met thru Etsy Chats, her name is Ferda aka Filo Fashion and she knits the most beautiful shrugs, scarves and neck warmers.

The reason I feature her in my blog not only because I love her work but because she has something from me in her shop You see, I offered my design skills to her and was glad to hear that she would be happy if I designed a banner for her shop

I just love the way it turned out!

Check out the lovely banner and her wonderful hand knitted items in her shop… Who knows you might even find something you like

Happy Tuesday!!

Oh! BTW, it was a nice weekend and I was able to assemble the 12inch doll and started another 15 inch, this one will have blue eyes and brown curly hair. I just need to sew some outfits than they both will be listed on Etsy

Thank God it is Friday

I hope to finish a 12 inch doll this weekend. I already made the head and stuffed the body; all I have to do is assemble the doll and sew the outfits for her. She will have wavy brown/red hair and hazel eyes.

I took some pictures of the process of head making, I think other than dressing the dolls head is the most fun part of making a Waldorf doll.

That’s all for blogging today, it has been a long week and I can not wait for the weekend!

Hope you have a nice one too!

Oh! Btw, Caitlin is waiting for a nice person to adopt her at Etsy!

Cheers!

Do you snack all day long?

If you do, than you are like me. I bring lots of snacks to work, wasa crackers, cookies, fruits, cheese… I have wanted to sew some snack bags for myself and Lara but never got around it, I mean how hard could it be to sew a square piece of fabric? Especially for a seamstress like me! But nevertheless I never got the chance to do it until this morning. When I got up this morning and started to prepare my lunch and snacks I thought that was enough and I should make snack bags for myself today. So I went in to my sewing room found my unbleached cotton cut some squares and got some images of fruit, traced them in to papers to make them templates, sewed the bags, put the templates in traced the fruits on to fabric with a non toxic fabric marker and VOILA! Some nice snack bags for myself took me half an hour to do it. Tomorrow I’ll make some for Lara’s snacks

happy tuesday!

She is done Wo hoo! I am so happy the way she turned out. She has jointed arms; I like dolls with jointed arms more than sewn in ones because that makes the doll more interactive She will be up on Etsy as soon as I have good pictures of her.

It was a nice weekend. Rained a lot so we didn’t leave the house, that gave me the opportunity to clean my house from top to bottom, everything is organized now even my sewing room LOL. As soon as I finished Caitlín I started another doll, this time I would like to use my painting skills on the clothes may be a flower or two or just paint my logo on a shirt or something, I have not figured that out yet…

 I am almost done with my red haired doll. She just needs some clothing which I  already started to make. I hope to finish her this weekend and list her to my shop.

I am going to name her “Caitlín”. Caitlín is a popular Irish name and since she looks like an irish girl with red hair and green eyes, I think the name will suit her well  :)

I got up earlier than usual this morning and got a lot done I cut and sew a white shirt for Caitlín and layed out the fabrics that I am going to use for her. I’ll go for green and brown colors to match her eyes. I am going to make a reversable dress with shoulder closer and  a pair of pants or capri -I have not decided on that part yet. I also cut the fabric for bloomers. (I love bloomers I even made some for Lara, with cute ribbons to wear under her dresses. I think they are cuter than panties.) I also cut and sew 2 body parts for the upcoming dolls both will have wavy hair to have some variety in my shop. 

I hope to get all done this weekend. Also I am still thinking about my second shop, I know I really do not have alot of time to spare but I think it will be a nice to have something where I can paint

I had a dream about my home town in Turkey last night; it was a happy dream but I woke up feeling sad and broken. I am homesick! I miss my family but more so my mom, even though we talk on the phone at least half an hour every week, it is not the same… I miss having a morning coffee with her and gossip, going out to bazaar with her, preparing meals, sewing, knitting… oh! I guess I should stop now; I am getting more homesick…

If you have your mom living close by than you are lucky, please give her a hug from me but if you are living far away and see your mom once or twice every year, than you know how I feel and give her a call, if your mom is sick right now, than may God help her, be with her to get better or sadly if she passed away may GOD have her in the heaven by his side.

And if you are a mom yourself hug your children more tightly, that’s what I am going to do when I go home today

Elmo loves you, hi, hi kiss, kiss (laugh)

This is the sound stuck in my head for the last 2 days…

Lara loves Elmo.

We have Elmo books DVDs plush toys and now we have Elmo live!, Even though I am tried of hearing “Elmo loves you” over and over again I can not tell you enough how happy Lara is. She takes him everywhere, hugs him, dances with him if you haven’t seen Elmo live yet, he is very interactive, he can sit and tell you a story, when he fells down asks you to get him up and when you do, he thanks you, he dances and asks you to dance with him, he plays little game like stop and go while he dance… well what can I tell ya, who ever designed this toy, did a very good job

If you would like to see Elmo live here is a video on YouTube

On the doll front; it was finally sunny 2 days last weekend and I was able to get some pictures of Magie, she is up on Etsy.

I got a lot done this weekend; a custom doll has been shipped to Chicago and started another one to list on my Etsy shop. Remember the orange yarn in my previous post? Well, one of my friends suggested that a doll with green eyes would look beautiful with a hair like that so I took her suggestions. I also started a cardigan too. This time I am knitting stripes, I just love the colors on this cardigan and am sure it will look gorgeous on my upcoming red haired doll…

…*behind* out from the bed this morning. When I finally made to my sewing room, it was 5.30 am. I was late to start but still manage to get some work done for a custom order and finished up some knitting for hair that I have started Monday, lunch time, at work!, yeah, you read it right, I knit at work I am so lucky to have co-workers who like crafting, so whenever we can, we gather at the conference room and craft away, I usually knit cardigans but this time I knitted for hair.

It was about 7 am when I left my house to go grocery shopping and to work. I love shopping early in the morning; there are no lines in the check outs, actually there are hardly any people in the markets, mostly workers, cleaning, fixing and stuffing the shelves and the counters with fresh produce and meat. I can be in and out from the market in 30 minutes specially if I have a list on my hand

Just before I left my house I snapped 2 pictures, one shows Magie still waiting for me to take good pictures, and I just couldn’t find the opportunity. Even though we had some sunny days here in Michigan, I just am not available… it is still dark when I leave my house and again almost dark when I arrive… I am seriously hoping that we will have sun shine this weekend or I’ll just go out and get proper light bulbs, LOL

I also would like to mention my other neglected shop. I have been thinking about it for a while now. I would like to redesign and have it for my other crafty things. I don’t know if it should have only one line, like I do with my dolls or should it have multiple categories, have to decide on that first, I guess…

LOL, now that I actually wrote about it, it HIT me! OMG!! How will I find a time to manage second shop???

Heh!

If you remember on my previous post, I mentioned how Kristina of Maddie & Me had inspired me to go forward with my doll business and I would tell all about it when it came to conclusion?

Well, it came to conclusion!

You can now find my dolls at a very sweet local toy shop called Lexi’s Toybox!

Lexi’s Toy Box can be found in a little old house on Ashley Street, one block west of Main Street in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Please check that wonderful shop out for beautiful natural toys as well as Lara & Me dolls.

And please allow me to introduce Magie, She will be up on Etsy as soon as I can take more pictures of her in a good light

Totally unrelated to dolls but I watched the Oscars last night. Overall it was a good show, but I was kind a surprised to see how Jennifer Aniston was soo nervous, is it because Brat and Angelina were sitting across from her or is it because she was presenting? I wonder….

I may have mentioned before I sometimes use kool-aid to dye my yarn. Two nights ago, I wanted to dye my yarn again for a custom order. I prepared the yarn, soaked in the water for at least an hour and I pulled my kool-aid box out, found the orange flavor dumped in to the water stirred and reached for my grape flavor to mix, BUT where are my grape kool-aids? What? But, I know, I had some? OMG!! I don’t have any!! Oh Man, what should I do? Should I waste the kool-aids or should I go ahead and have an orange yarn?

Well, I decided to go for it, put the yarn in to the pot and simmered for 45 minutes. You see, I never dyed yarn straight orange, I always added a different flavor to play with the colors, so even though I had a pretty good idea about how bright orange my yarn would be I never thought of this bright and cheerful color. I just LOVE it!

Now what should I do with it? Should I use it as hair? I put the yarn on a head this morning (see the picture) hmm maybe if I add some darker color yarn, maybe blue eyes? Or maybe green? This yarn might just work as hair we’ll see

And the name dilemma comes in with my smaller doll. She is done as of this morning, it took me more than it should, because I had to fix my shoe and dress patterns (keep in mind that I make my own patterns) a couple of times and I knitted a cardigan for her in bright green. She is so petite and cute I just can’t think of any cute names for her, any suggestions?

I’ll take her pictures to list to the shop when is sunny and bright outside, unfortunately it may take a couple of days till we see sunshine here in Michigan..