Seven!

It's official.  All of my children are into their second seven-year cycle.

Kitty Bill had a wonderful birthday filled with all of his favorite things, like pomp and circumstance and cake.

He had a few other things, too.  Vegetable stuffed crepes and tofu scramble for breakfast.  Phone calls and mail from the other side of the world.  And presents, of course.

He was delighted to see that the girls had made him things for the dollhouse.  Moonshine made him some bedding -- a pillow, woven blanket, and woven rug.  Sunburst made him a doll.

While Kitty Bill was thrilled with these gifts, what he wished for most of all for his birthday were two specific Kinderkram castle pieces.  That was all well and good when we lived in Switzerland and wooden toys seemed to drip from the trees, but now we're in England.  The natural toys that fall from the trees on the continent are then subjected to shipping fees, customs and taxes.  So by the end of it, the purchase price for a lovely piece of shaped wood could feed a family of five for two weeks.  At least.

So Einstein and I decided to do a bit of woodworking.  This was our go-to method in the states for everything from play stands to dollhouses.  And you know what?  It feels so satisfying to be making wooden toys again.

Plus, we still had money left over to buy candles for the cake. ;)

Here's the castle defense wall I built from pine using only hand tools.  I used a standard saw to cut the pieces to size then cut the crenellations with a coping saw.  I sanded, glued, and clamped it together.  Then I took some watercolor to it and finished it off with beeswax.

Einstein built a catapult.  Kitty Bill has been drooling over the Kinderkram catapult for years.  Einstein and I drew out some plans to make a similar one, complete with an attachment for horses.  It's made out of a small block of hardwood, twigs, and dowels.  Einstein used a standard saw to cut the wood to size and a coping saw to cut out the pieces.  He drilled the holes for the dowels, and then he carved out the "spoon" with a chisel.

I watercolored the dowels and pre-made wheels to match before adding a beeswax finish.  Though it doesn't look exactly like the one in the catalog, it turned out beautifully.  And it works... perhaps too well.

So far no one has lost an eye.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.


Shared on Creative Friday.

Waldorf doll hospital

Moonshine's tenth birthday is fast approaching, and all she wants for her birthday is to have her doll fixed.  Not any old doll, but Ella, her Waldorf doll.  The one she's been loving on for almost eight years.

We've gone round and round about whether or not we should fix her doll for longer than I can remember.   Over the years she's had a few stitches and both partial and full hair replacements, but Moonshine has been unwilling to let me do anything more out of fear that Ella will be changed.  Unrecognizably altered.  Too different.

I totally understand where she's coming from.  It's a daunting task.  What if I mess up?  It's not just a doll, if you know what I mean.  It's Ella.  And though she looks a bit worse for wear now, she's part of the family.  She's been around longer than Kitty Bill has.  She's a part of us.

And then there is Rosey, Sunburst's doll.  The first Waldorf doll I ever made.

In eleven years, Rosey has been through her share of adventures.  She has required several rounds of stitches and hair replacements.  At one point there was an episode of body restuffing.  She has been around the block and then some.  The poor thing has been absolutely loved to death.

Sunburst has been even more reluctant than Moonshine.  Poor Rosey has been losing her stuffing for years now-- wearing socks on her hands and feet to keep her wool from falling out.  Her entire body, including her face, looks like it has been mauled by an army of pitbulls.  Not once, but twice.  At least.  She requires total reconstructive surgery.

Every couple of years Sunburst and Moonshine bring up the idea of fixing their dolls, and before we can get to it, they change their minds.  But this year they are finally ready.  Both of them.

And so last weekend Moonshine and I set up a makeshift Waldorf Doll Hospital.  The dolls were brought in and placed gingerly in their bed, treated to cups of water, flowers, and get well soon cards. And then one by one they were carried off on stretchers to the first step in their process.  The spa soak.

Here's Rosey waiting her turn.

After soaking in their individually prepared baths with wool wash, they spent several hours in the sauna, or rather, splayed out on the drying rack over a space heater.  In the morning they spent some time sunning in the garden.  That helped them dry a little more, but it also helped lighten the fabric which has darkened over the years.  Frankly, I wasn't quite sure where to start, and I figured it couldn't hurt.

Moonshine thought they looked happier already!

I brought them inside and the girls and I evaluated just which body parts they wanted me to replace.  The dolls had another visit to the sauna-- drying tightly compressed wool takes an awfully long time-- and I got busy cutting and sewing new body parts.

 For Rosey: one pair of arms, and one entire trunk/legs piece.

For Ella: one pair of arms, and two feet.

Sunburst and Moonshine took this opportunity to sit down at the table with me and sew some felt hearts which will be carefully inserted during surgery.  Despite my sewing machine giving me fits, I managed to pull the sewing bit off.  Unfortunately, I'm well aware that this part was the easiest, and the painful task of decapitating the dolls was the next step.

After a break that involved a bit of knitting in the sunshine and a quick two overs of cricket in the back garden, I came back inside and prepped the dolls for surgery.  Rosey's wool needed re-carding, so I took a deep breath, opened her up, and emptied her insides over a towel to let them finally fully dry themselves.


Before the girls had too much time to gasp, I quickly and carefully picked out Ella's upper seams, then removed and emptied her arms.  There were still a few bits of damp wool, so I pulled out a hair dryer and gave their innards a quick blast.

While Sunburst was busy carding Rosey's innards, Moonshine and I tried Ella's new feet to see how they looked.

The poor dear!  Moonshine hemmed and hawed over it awhile and finally decided that Ella would be happiest if her feet matched her legs.  So we opened her up, gave her bits a final blast, and Moonshine set to carding while I sewed up another body.

Bodies are one thing, but repairing heads are an entirely different matter.  My dollmaking book says that if you need to repair a face, you can just cut new skin, stretch it over the old skin, and tack it in place at the hairline.  I'm sure it's very good advice if you have minor wear and tear.  But what if your doll looks like she has had most of her face chewed off?  Then what?  The book doesn't say.  Which is really what has been holding me back all these years.  Is Rosey beyond repair?

Because the next part was a bit scary, Sunburst was adamant that she didn't want to be around to watch.   Moonshine agreed.  So one night while they slept, I pulled out the scissors and my courage and set to work.

I started on Rosey first, because she needed the most attention.  And part of me knew that if I really messed up Rosey, then I could just back away from Ella with my hands up and not completely ruin Moonshine's birthday.

The main problem with Rosey, besides her skin falling off, was that I really didn't know what I was doing when I made her.  I was an overzealous Waldorf convert back in the day.  Not only did I make a full-size doll for a two-year-old (and then out of fairness had to repeat the process for Moonshine three years later), I didn't make her head firm enough nor her neck strong enough.  She was cute, but a bit wobbly from the get-go.  And her mouth-- I know you've all been thinking about her mouth embroidery since the beginning of this post.  Yes, she has full lips.  I recently read somewhere that we unconsciously make our dolls in the mirror image of our children.  I don't know what I was thinking at the time, but Sunburst does have full lips like Rosey's... just as Ella's wide smile mirrors Moonshine's.

Sometimes I think these dolls turn out a certain way for a reason.  Whatever the reason, Rosey's lips have been kissed a thousand times since she came into being, and so I have had no regrets about embroidering them that way.  Until now.  Because now I'm expected to remake them just the way they were.

First thing was first, though.  Rosey needed a stronger head and more firmness to her neck.  There was nothing to do but remove what was left of her hair and face, cut her eye and chin lines, and pray.

To be continued...

For the continuation of this story, please see Part 2 and Part 3.

More handmade toys

As promised, here are the last bits of my handmade Christmas, including Miss Jemima Mouse!

Kitty Bill loved Jeremy Mouse so much that before the day was out he was begging me to make a Jemima Mouse companion.  Luckily, these mice are quite simple to put together.  He insisted she have wedding clothes, as well, and then he created a fort church and conducted a wedding ceremony.  Now of course he's asking for a Tiptoes... You knew that was coming, right?  When things settle down a bit I'll have to oblige him.

Jemima is made from the same Holiday Mice pattern.  Her wedding attire begins with the hat that comes with the mouse pattern.  Then I attached yarn at the back of the hat and knit down to create a cape/veil effect.  If you missed the details on Jeremy, you can find them here.

Here's the wedding photo:

 

If you haven't seen Reg Down's website for the Tiptoes book series, you must take a look!  There are so many wonderful pictures there.  And the books are pure magic.  All three of my children adore his stories immensely.

What else?

Here's the outcome of that knit horse from Jan Messent's book, Knit a Fantasy Story.  It was a small torture to make it come together, but in the end, the beautiful smile on Sunburst's face was completely worth it.  She adores this horse.  She has since named it Bucephalus-- can you tell she enjoyed studying Ancient Greece?-- and she's been busy designing and knitting a realistic horse blanket for it.  Apparently the pattern in the book is just too different than the horse blankets she has seen around here.

 

The little doll on top just seemed like it needed to be there.  She's from the Sally Mavor book, Felt Wee Folk.  I just love her little dolls.


For Moonshine, I crafted two dolls: Little Red Riding Hood and the Pink Baby.  Sounds like it could be a curious story all on its own, doesn't it?  Little Red is technically a table puppet with a felt base, but the other dolls welcomed her into the dollhouse anyway.

 

Moonshine had been ogling the Little Red from the table-theater page in Sunnhild Reincken's book Making Dolls.  This one is not exact, but it's close enough.  The Pink Baby (perhaps it has a name by now) is copied from one the neighbors gave Sunburst last year.  Sunburst traced a pattern, and she kindly helped me sew things up.  There is also a tiny knit blanket, but it obscured the baby too much for the picture.

She loves them!  She really, really does!