2025 in Review

Winter Solstice has arrived. It marks the official beginning of winter and symbolizes renewal and hope for the lengthening days ahead.  For myself, the winter solstice tells me that the 'bers have ended, the final celebration of the year is four days away, and it's time to look forward to a new year.  As the seeds sleep beneath the wet and sometimes frozen soil, as certain animals hibernate, some carrying new life that will give birth just as spring begins the thaw, it's time for me to tuck in and quietly plan and dream of what I wish to do in the new year.

Part of what helps me plan is to reflect on what has been, what I learned from it, and what brings me the most joy.  Just last night I made a silly "jolly holly reindeer headband" for Ellowyne just so she could channel a little holiday spirit while she tucked in at home and watched the Hallmark movie, Single on the 25th.  For Ellowyne, who will timelessly endure, even revel in her ennui and singlehood, the movie was the perfect choice.  But do you know what my favorite part of planning this vignette was?  

The chunky gray socks.  Comfy wear for watching TV on a damp winter's night.  This is what I wear, sans the party dress.  But that's Ellowyne.  Vintagely, fashionably chic through her dismissal of anything appealing or exciting.

Some people write a Christmas letter.  I did this for a few years.  I even tried writing a Christmas letter to all my friends on Facebook last year.  But it didn't have photos, and I like photos.  My life is primarily one of quiet walks with my dog, cooking good meals for my husband, and working on projects that will continue to grow and inspire me.  And collecting dolls! So, this year, I'm writing this blog as the official Christmas letter and year in review.  And it might be fun to see how I jumped from one thing to the next.

January was time to celebrate Chinese New Year.  Now that Anne is the doll to display with Grace, and not Dolly Dingle, I made Anne a special Chinese New Year dress to compliment Grace's from the VDC.  The pets got their own masks and paper lanterns were made.

Do remember that you can click on each photo to see them enlarged.

Still in January, I'd discovered Jan Brett's Alice in a Winter Wonderland book.  Oh my.  Me and Alice.  So, I had to make Alice Illustrated the outfit and needle felt her card penguin.  She is still dressed in this a year later, so I really loved this one.  Mini bear fur is not easy to sew into clothing, and the boots came out wonderful.

My breath catches when I come to Little Stella.  She was a gift and one that has sustained my joy throughout the year.  And still does.  I didn't know what to do with her, so I bought the Connie Lowe book and printed out the paper doll page from a UFDC article.  Since making paper doll clothes is something I like to do, I dressed her in the paper doll outfit.  

In the book, there's a section called Stella Gets a Puppy.  When Connie was in Prague at a doll show, she traded a doll for a box of old animal toys.  Then set up a story on the streets of Prague where Stella finds and puppy and begs to bring him home.  The dog was named Prague after the city.  This touched my heart so deeply that I needle felted Maisie one.

My friend's birthday was on April 2nd, so I made her doll a birthday dress and party hat.

Then I found the Barbie's New Dream House I'd been looking for.  One that was newly assembled with many pages still not punched out and ready to put together.  I love this doll house and will keep it as minty as it arrived.

May arrives, and I'm sewing another outfit for Eloise, my friend's Little Stella.  The Alice was a request, and I continued to try and get the feel of how true costume designers of Connie Lowe's dolls operate.  Basically, its trash bin clothes that turn out so adorable! It's hard not to be the A type designer I am, and I often wonder if I really need to push myself outside the box like they do.  Yet, this one was a winner, and I needle felted the pig baby to go with it.

Now, Piggy and Prague and part of Eloise's adventures.

May was also the month that our Beach Basic Gwendolyn dolls came out.  I love the vintage 60's look, especially of Poppy Parker dolls, so Gwendolyn was a shoo-in for me.

She needed a beach hat to go with her two-piece swimsuit and when I spotted this vintage advertisement for kooky beach hats, I had to give this one a try.  I had a lot of fun making it.

In June, my friend, Betsy, sent me three little Gail Wilson folk dolls to do something with.  She wanted one of them dressed for herself, so I started looking at folk toys since Gail's dolls always came with their own folk toys.  I happened upon this artist that made litte wooden toys and that would be the inspiration for a folk Alice and White Rabbit.

Unfortunately, she wanted long sleeves on the dress, and I may at some point ask for the doll back to redo the sleeves.  Alice always had short, puffed sleeves to me.   

Around the same time, Rachel Hoffman announced that Robert Tonner was making a Sybil reboot.  And Rachel put out a challenge for us to create our version of new Sybil and send it in.  We'd get a lovely credit voucher for future purchases, so I was on board.

Sybil is supposed to be a grumpy cat, so I needle felted one.  This project fell flat, too.  Other people were making crafty cat representations and people went wild for them, and my poor little kitty got lost in the shuffle.

Come July when the UFDC convention was happening and I was sitting this one out, a request came for an Abigail Vampire Ballerina costume for Eloise.  I worked like crazy to make a beautiful costume for a vampire child, and I think this one fell flat, too.  I should have just made it like a dress with a pair of tights. 

This little doll is not easy to dress and for me, even more of a challenge.

With the heat of August and missing the warm sands of beaches, I decided to try making something for Lacie.  She was wearing all the Journey Through Time costumes made for the Grace subscription boxes.

I'd just bought the book Sporting Fashion, that a few of the Journey outfits had been designed from.  I decided to try the 1930's Beach Pyjamas.  I enjoyed making this but had a seriously difficult time finding a fabric that matched well to the illustration.  Still, it came out light, airy, and summery.

Right after that, I made one for Kitty Hudson, and added a sailboat beach umbrella.

The espadrilles took most of the time, and came out delightful.

September is birthday month, and I always like to make something special for myself.  I chose the 1950's Touring outfit from the Sporting Fashions book, to make for Lacie.  

The peasant blouse was a real challenge as its not made like a normal peasant blouse with elastic at the neck and sleeves.  This was an embellished and embroidered work of art for a fashionable tourist.

The skirt.  Oh my. Well, there's an entire blog on this for September.  It was a journey.  The skirt is heavily embellished with tiny sequins as was the original.

I'd also commissioned the "saddle bag".  A latigo tooled leather delight.  Let's not forget the espadrilles.

And straight into October from there for Lacie's Sporting Fashion, Hunting 1840's outfit.  It was all about the game bag.  With the darling little fox on it, embellished with the tiniest Italian glass beads imaginable.  Beads the size of non-pariels requiring a very special needle.

November began the time of making Christmas gifts, and a Nightmare Before Christmas, Sally outfit was due for Eloise.  This one came together so quickly that I didn't even draft a pattern.  Fun!

And Noelle, an 8" Maggie Iacono redressed as one of Santa's Elves with wooden pull toys from the artist that made the folk rabbit for the folk Alice.

Next, a true little folk doll, Anja.  Another one of Gail Wilson's early porcelain, stuffed body.  She was inspired by the book A Christmas Wish about a Swedish child named Anja and the animal friends she made.

Last, but done before Noelle and Anja, was the Grinch costume for Eloise.  I learned a new way of embroidering on clothing when you cannot transfer a pattern or draw on the cloth.  With Sally and Grinch, I finally felt myself stepping a toe outside the box.

You might have a favorite, or perhaps none at all.  But this year I felt like I was bouncing around from doll shape and size, and from strict boundaries to playful sewing.  All of it was serious.  I am never not serious when I sit down to create something, but the freedom I felt with Sally was delightful.

However, when considering all I accomplished over the last year, Lacie's Hunting 1840's stands out as a favorite.  I'd purchased a second Lacie to be a model and ended up with an art doll.  One that won't be undressed and played with.  She is who she is.  And the game bag, not to mention the hat, will always be a reminder of what I can do when I put my mind to it.

What's in store for the New Year?  At least three more Sporting Fashion ensembles.  And I'd really love to finish the doll representing the child from the book Sister Bear.  It's good to plan.  Having a goal is important to sustain purpose in our lives. And I'm open to any new challenges coming my way.  This is how I grow and learn as a costume designer for dolls.

As I close on this year in review, I close some doors and open new ones. January first is always a fresh start for me.  I'm already sad that the ornaments will soon be put away and the tree retired for another year. But the day is still young, Christmas is just counting hours away now, and there's always hope for snow.  Thank you for taking this journey with me.  Wishing you a Merry Christmas and an especially fine new year!
 

Merry Christmas 2025

Happy Holidays!  December is in full swing with the Christmas season upon us.  It feels like ages since I journaled a blog and October 13th seems like a lifetime ago.  The day after I journaled on Lacie's Sporting Fashion Hunting ensemble, I began working on my Christmas gifts. Since then, I've stayed busy each day creating one little gift after the next.  This is not to say that I didn't enjoy Halloween or let November go by without notice.  The 'bers always get their due.  My favorite time of year.

November has always been a quiet time for me.  A time to tuck in and work on projects.  Once I get started, its best to just keep going, and so I did.  The crazy thing was that I had five completely different projects planned and moving from one to the next almost required some rebooting in the creative process since each was so unique.

I enjoyed making each one.

First, Kitty Hudson needed a Christmas dress.  At least this is what I was told.  So, I began hunting on Pinterest for ideas and stumbled upon this illustration of a pattern set called, "For the dancing hours of Holiday".  There it was.  The perfect Christmas dress for Kitty.  The one with little beaded Christmas trees on it.

The unusual thing about this illustration is that the dress is shown with two different sleeves which stumped me.  A flutter sleeve and a wee puff.  I asked Rosemarie Ionker if she'd ever seen such a thing, and she had not, nor had any explanation.  My guess is that they were trying to show a variation of sleeves without completely drawing another model.  In other words, pick one.  That was my take, and it worked for me.  I chose the puffs.

Kitty's silk dress is in a pale pink blush with fully lined cream puff sleeves.

The hem is made with a scalloped edge.

The neckline boasts ruched edge detailing.

And best of all, the three little Christmas trees of amethyst and ombre seed beads nestled in tiny silver sequin cups.  Sage satin bows decorate the base of each tree to match the bow ribbon sash at the drop waist.

The ribbon is a French satin, silky light and pretty.

Kitty's shoes, to match the illustration, were purchased in the 1470 section of Ed's shop, Happily Ever After.

Kitty can now attend Christmas parties and dance the night away on New Year's Eve.  My Emily models.

Eloise, Heather's Little Stella, was in need of something to match her spunky personality, so I took a risk and tried my hand at a Nightmare Before Christmas Sally dress for her.

I did a lot of looking to see what others had done inspired by the theme but gave a go at making my best rendition of Sally's dress as drawn.

It was kind of fun because I never even made a pattern for this.  I just started sewing pieces together and cutting out shapes, stitching them together, repeat and repeat.  I was trying to make the garment the way Sally might have sewn herself a Franken dress.

Each seam was then overstitched with black embroidery thread creating a haphazard Franken stitch.

Light blue stockings were cut up to make her arm socks and stockings.  More black Franken stitches.

A pair of black and white striped socks were made to be worn over the stockings, and I only hoped they'd fit inside the shoes I purchased from an Etsy seller.  It was a bit of a risk and a squeeze, but it all worked out.

I could not find any illustrations with the back of Sally's dress, so I did what any Franken girl would do, and that was my best to have some continuity.  

This was entirely fun to do, not to be repeated, but what an experience!  So different from anything I've tried before.

Eloise got to open one gift early as I truly believe that a girl should be able to wear her Christmas dress all season long.

Prague is happily chewing on a voodoo doll I made for him to go with the voodoo doll dress Eloise got for Halloween from her mum.

I knew I wanted make Eloise a Grinch dress.  Or costume.  I thought long and hard about what to do and decided to once again design outside my very A-type box and try a dress.  I made a little sketch, just one, and that did the trick.  The rest was just making it happen.

Eloise's Grinch jumper is made from a fine pinwale corduroy.  I needed a sturdy fabric to embroider the Grinch face on, and this featherweight corduroy was perfect.

The green mock turtleneck and tights were made from costume jersey with three-way stretch.

The Grinch Santie hat is a red jersey trimmed with cotton batting.  The boots are wool felt edged in the same cotton batting as the hat.

As a child I watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year.  So much so, that I almost knew it by heart.  One of the most delightful scenes for me was watching the Grinch make "a quick Santie coat and hat".  He was really quite accomplished if you think about it!

The embroidery of the Grinch face was done in black threads.  The eye shapes were cut from wool felt and irises embroidered over them.

I think the hat came out great.  It's definitely the Grinch's Santie hat!

I had one more thought.  Prague seldom gets the attention he deserves, so I made a little needle felted sawed off antler to tie around his head like the Grinch's dog, Max, wore.

Last year, one of my favorite Ruby Red Fashion Friends dolls was released for the holidays.  The design was by Martha Boers. I wrote to her and asked her about it, and she told me it was so easy that I should give it a go.  So, I did.  A year later.  Everything was easy but the hat.  

If you recall, I'd made a folk Alice from a Gail Wilson doll and included a white rabbit on wheels to accompany her down the rabbit hole.  

The artist that made the rabbit makes many more sweet toys on wheels and one was a Christmas train with additional train cars that all hooked together.  The idea was to make one of Santa's helpers to include with the toys "she made".  I also selected a Christmas Rabbit and a cute little giraffe, both on wheels, to ride in the train cars.  Chosen also for their height so they could be seen in the train cars.  I made sure each would fit inside the cars before ordering them.  The costume would be my version of Martha's on a much smaller scale.

I chose an 8" Maggie Iacono doll to dress as Noelle, Santa's helper.

Her short little dress is of wool felt and edge embroidered in red on the sleeves and helm.  Additional trim has been hand sewn above the embroidered hem

The red collar, which snaps on, is also wool felt edged in green embroidery and decorated with gold beads and tiny gold bells. At the center neck is a green silk ribbon bow.

Her tights and arm socks are red and white striped jersey.

Noelle's elf hat is a green and white striped jersey with a silk drop band that dangles bells.  This was edge embroidered, beaded and belled like the collar and has a bit of the dress hem trim on it as well.,

Her elf booties are green wool felt.  Maggie makes hers with hard leather soles, so I did this for Noelle's.  More bells jingle for the toes.

Such tiny bells do not ring but nonetheless make a magical sound to the ears of good little boys and girls.  

The last gift was a doll I'll call Anja. I wanted to dress one more Gail Wilson doll for my friend and once again try my luck with folk doll dressing.

The real Anja is a child in a book called The Christmas Wish, but this little Anja is a winter child taking her wee reindeer everywhere she goes.

Three photos down you'll see the inspiration for her costume in the girl of the two figurines.  I'd even made a gray hat first, but then it occurred to me that Swedish girls wore red hats like this and Anja was born.

Anja wear's a skirt of while pinwale corduroy.  Wool would have been too thick on this little stuffed body doll.  I did agonize over choice of fabric.  The little jacket is a cashmere suiting wool I had in my stash with brass Nordic buttons.

Her little mittens have a thumb and are made from gray wool felt, as are her boots.

I braided her long thread hair.

And she has one of the artist's adorable reindeers on wheels.

This season of creating was very special for me.  I poured love into each project and while very different in nature, each flowed from one to the other.

Plans are being made for future projects, and I am not done in any way shape or form with the Sporting Fashions book.  Or Miss Eloise!   For now, I'm simply enjoying the month of December, decorating my doll displays and dressing them in Christmas finery and fun.  And watching my favorite Hallmark movies with the appropriate mug of cocoa.

I'll be writing a retrospective of the year towards the end of the month, and you'll find out which was my favorite project was this year.  Until then, Merry Christmas and enjoy this season for every reason you can think of!