Doll Work and Other Sewing

     I don't exactly have a fabric problem, but I sort of do. I probably currently have something like 40 different colors/patterns of glitter cotton fabric. If I like something, and it's in scale, I will usually buy it. I don't need to have a plan for it. Sometimes I have a plan, but often I don't.

     When Maire turned me on to a company, Spoonflower, that does custom printed fabric. I had some plans and then some fun ideas with no plans attached. These fabrics are all thin knits (stretchy) and are going to become awesome fun breeches! The unicorn print might be a tiny bit large, but real people sized prints come in a variety of sizes. So I'm gonna go with it. 

     While searching through the fabric collections on the website I found SO many fun prints! Most of them are never going to do me much good, since I make dolls for riding and not dresses for baby dolls. But I do make western saddle pads and they can have fun prints. I have done some fun fabrics on dolls in the past. I might need to do that again. 

    I didn't need, or want, huge pieces of any particular fabric so I was going to just buy sample pieces, which are 8x8 (like the knit fabric above). Then I discovered that Spoonflower makes a thing called a lazy quilt where you can put on and arrange your fabric choices any way you want. And they squares are 9x9 and when you do the math out it is a savings of $160 over buying individual 8x8 samples I think. Something like that. You DO end up having to buy 2 yards of fabric, which is 45 9x9 squares if I remember right. But it's fabric... so I was OK with that. 

     Some of the pieces I got are not going to work super well for dolls or saddle pads or anything model horse related. But they are still super cute pieces. And 9x9 is actually a perfect size for a bowl cozy, so maybe the ones that are to large for dolls can become cozies. 

      There are for sure some really cool patterns in this batch and maybe my laundromat project tomorrow should be to start cutting out the squares so I have separate pieces of fabric. We'll see. I didn't have time to get into that today. I did start on cutting out the clothes for several dolls that were ordered. It is a very interesting variety and one of them has an element that so far I am not having any luck working out. I know HOW to do it. I know the things I need to do it exist. I can't remember where to find them. Other than at a miniatures fair. Which is not until September, so of no help at all. Anyway, I got 4 doll outfits cut out today. So I did do a bit of something anyway. Other than admire my new fabric

      Last year, or maybe the year before, I made myself a lunch bag out of this cool Doctor Who fabric. It was leftover from a dress I made Elecktra. I super love this design and I have it on a T-shirt, had it on a thermos until it washed off and have several times considered buying the throw blanket and coffee mug with this pattern. The Van Gogh exploding TARDIS print is a favorite. 

    The lunch bag is very large, has a long shoulder strap and Velcro across the top to keep it closed. The Velcro lately is a bit tired. I lined the bag with aqua vinyl. One of my customers wanted to order aqua/turquoise splint boots and at the time the only piece of vinyl I could find in that color I had to buy by the yard. So I bought a yard. I will probably never run out of aqua vinyl. 

     So when I decided I needed a new, smaller lunch bag I had more than enough to line that one as well. This bag has a completely different design and Velcro in more places to make sure the bag stays closed. It's a paper bag design and about the same size as a paper lunch bag. 

     This was another bit of fabric from my stash. It works nicely in doll scale, though I think when I bought this the plan was to make cozies with it. Which I am pretty sure I did. There is Velcro on the sides to hold them together, a small piece on the inside at the top to hold that closed and a long strip under the flap to hold the whole thing folded down. I considered making the bag out of pink glitter fabric because, pink, and because it's me. But then I decided this would be nice. Plus I actually use the glitter pink on dolls quite often. And since I forgot to cut a piece for the bottom of the bag, and could not find the black and gray stuff I used for the rest of it, the bottom actually IS glitter pink. And I have a nice, new, smaller lunch bag. 

     This morning I delivered cake to a bunch of friends at school. They were all very happy about that! I said that as soon as the weight loss competition is over I will be starting to make baked treats again more often. And I am not going to want to have a ton of stuff hanging around because I am still working on losing some more weight. So maybe once a week I might bake something. Travis and I can have a treat but then I will most likely want the rest to go. The fresh baked stuff does not last forever and I will either eat it or it will go to waste. And I hate wasting food. So my selfless volunteers have promised to be on future treat lists. 
     Track starts on Wednesday and I am sort of not ready. I was ready when it was supposed to start last Monday but now that there is a delay I feel like there are not enough hours in the day. I have 4 dolls in the works right now and I have no clue how long it will take to finish them with the very limited time I have to work on them now. I have a show in two weeks and have not even started building the props I need for that. Time is getting away from me again! Hopefully I can manage to get all the things done that I need to get done.