Summer girls

Three little girls in their new summer frocks had their identity card photos taken and we decided to take some more photos of them together before they leave this house.

Noora needs love and rules, maybe more than an average child, but she can be really, really good if she really, really tries. I think she would love a hobby like ice hockey or horse riding.

This is Helena. She is a very well behaved girl who likes reading and drawing and coloring books and friends and sausages.

Emilia is a little dreamer. She likes flowers and butterflies and carrots and pancakes. I think she will find a family in no time.

Tuulikki is a trickier one. She is clearly older than the other girls, and finding a family may prove difficult. But on the other hand, she might just be the right one for someone looking for a good friend for going to the gym and other hobbies.

Here all four new UNICEF dolls are together, waiting to be taken to Villa Cooper tomorrow. Our special Summer exhibition this year is old dolls from club members, so visitors may be interested in adopting a doll and supporting a  good cause at the same time. The adoption fee of each doll will enable UNICEF to give six essential vaccinations for one child in need.

 

One hundred

Since 2003 I have been sewing dolls for Unicef, not every year, but often enough to remember the tips I have learned from making mistakes. This year has been a very productive one, and my readers must be bored of seeing doll news over and over again instead of more interesting projects. With this doll I have reached the goal I have set a few years ago, she is my Unicef doll number 100!

My first cyclist doll found a home with my sister, and one of her friends liked the idea so much that she wanted to adopt a doll with road rush and tan lines as well. Or maybe she knew someone who would adopt her. Anyway, she asked if I could make such a doll before Christmas, and so I did.

It makes sense to work on more than one doll at a time, so I made this little tonttu girl as well. She will look less Christmas like without her hat, so she can wear the rest of her outfit all year round.

She will soon be at Villa Cooper with the other dolls I have made. I hope many of them will find new homes for Christmas!

 

The Flying doll and his cousin

 

Who is that, flying through the air? He looks like SuperM!

And so he is! Hello, M!

- Hi R! Are you coming from the sauna in your bathrobe, standing in the snow? What does you Mum say, or our Auntie?

- I’m not cold, I’m a Finn, and Mum doesn’t know I’m here. Besides, this is no bathrobe. It is my Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu uniform, with a black belt now.  But why are you wearing your underpants on top, and what do your Mum and our Auntie say to that?

- They don’t say anything because they know I think this looks cool. And when I wear them and the cape, I can fly like you saw. Your black belt must mean something too?

- Yes, it means I’m cool too and more experienced at my sport than those who have yellow belts, or green or blue.

- Great. Now I must spread my cape and fly home. I have a little party on Sunday. Take care!

- You too and have a nice birthday!

- Likewise, dear cousin!

- J*******a, my pants again!

Happy birthday dear little nephews!

The Swallows at the Library

Finally from the 1st of June the libraries have opened again. The Swallows have taken over the vitrine at our local library. 

John is here with the Swallow's flag Titty made, and Roger is learning to signal with his new semaphore flags. He still has to look up the signs from the sheet of paper in front of him.

Titty and Susan are here, showing some of their clothes and their flower blanket. Their quilts are still at the quilt show at the Villa Cooper which had not opened yet by the time this was put up.

On the bottom shelf are all the Swallows and Amazons books.

The only two translations are here, showing the map of the lake and Wildcat Island. The yellow brochure at the bottom of this photo is about the Unicef dolls.

No Swallows without their friends. Some photos of Dot and Dick had to be there, if only to show the fun one can have with simple fabric dolls.

To fill the space available I took my two other literary dolls, Emil and Ida Svensson along. The Finnish readers will easily recognize them, as Astrid Lindgren's books for children are very popular here, and have been for decades.

Dolls' news and new dolls

Earlier this year my young friend Arthur in England asked me for a pattern for a knapsack so he could have one made for his own Dick Callum doll. He has seen this one I made for the Dick doll I made almost ten years ago.

It was easier for me to make the knapsack (and make notes for making one more later, if needed). I made a T-shirt and shorts for him as well.

And as Arthur and his team are making a Dot Callum doll as well, I made a bag and a set of shorts and a blouse for her. Now they will be well equipped for their adventures as Picts and Martyrs with the Amazons.

My imagination has been running wild with ideas of other literary dolls, and today I finished the last details of this new pair, again a brother and sister.

They are Eemeli and Iida Nieminen (or Emil and Ida Svensson) from Astrid Lindgren's children's novels of Lönneberga. Emil has round blue eyes, round red cheeks and beautiful fair hair, and he was always wearing his "rather ugly cap".

The little sister Ida also has round blue eyes and round rosy cheeks, and her fair hair is neatly plaited. She is very well behaved, and wears a apron to keep her red frock clean. I made the apron reversible so she can wear the clean white side out on Sundays.

I really like the apron!

I hope they will find a family where they can live an adventurous life.

December 12 - Toys in Villa Cooper

Christmas is a time for giving, and children receive the most gifts. The talented ladies and gentlemen of Villa Cooper have created unique toys for little ones.

One the shelves are many softies for babies.

The hobby horses or stick horses are a huge success among girls at any age. They have races and competitions, and the phenomenon has been internationally noticed as an example of girl power.

Rag dolls as a fundraiser for Unicef, and octopus softies for babies. These are also made for premature babies and donated to the hospitals.

Welcome again tomorrow to the next room.

Dolls for Unicef, again

Meet my newest Unicef dolls, numbers 66 to 69 on my list. My hopeful plan is to make them a hundred dolls in my lifetime. I finished this lot today, and they are waiting for the new identity card forms from the Unicef office.

The dolls will not be sold but adopted, and the adoption fee, 20 to 40€ or more, will go 100% to Unicef. It is enough to buy all vital vaccinations for a real child somewhere out there where life is so much tougher.

The dolls don't even have names yet. I will go through my list first, because I don't want to use the same names again. I think the boy will be called Valtteri.

I was experimenting with new hairstyles and noticed that the more yarn I use, the better the hair will look, to a certain limit of course. The girl in the blue and white dress is having a bad hair day because I ran out of that yarn. Let's not call it bad hair, it is more like typical Finnish mouse coloured thin  and limp hair.

Maybe the two redheads ought to swap dresses? The purple might look great with green eyes.

Here are all my socks with the price tags Kaija designed and printed for me. I just stamped the size, price and name of the socks on them and punched the holes before sewing them on the socks.

October has almost over and I haven't sewn any Splendid Sampler blocks since my last post here. Maybe now when the socks and the dolls are off my list I can concentrate on the quilt blocks again.

First Finish of the Year 2015

Happy New Year everyone!

Naturally this doll has its beginning in the old year, babies take their time. He is my 65th Unicef doll, once again for my sister in Germany. She has by now taken care of the vaccinations of the babies of almost a whole village, as each doll is adopted for a fee that buys all the vaccinations for one real child.

As this doll is not for little ones to play with, I could make his shirt with tiny buttons, and the hair is a machine sewn fringe hand sewn on the head, not recommended for children under 3 years either, but looks a lot better than  individual strands of wool yarn sewn directly on the head, like a ryijy rug.

The knitting pattern is one our grandmother used for our mittens, with a new look from the self striping yarn. I used the same yarn for his socks.

We have started a new bird spotting list at the beginning of the year, and already one rare friend is on the list: the Eurasian treecreeper. We have put special special birdhouses for them in the forest but they have not been used yet. Almost every year we notice this little bird climbing up the oak we see through the kitchen window, or in the silver birches in the garden. They don't come to the bird feeder.

My last Christmas flowers. I hope you like the scent of hyacinths!

Stash Use Report for October, and Unicef Doll Show

I had totally forgotten to write my stash use report for October, because there was so little going on. I bought nothing, which is very good. On the other hand, I can only think I used 2.5 m for the Unicef dolls I made:

I always sew on the marked lines and cut after that, so the seams will not draw and the fabric stays nicely in place. The faces are painted with textile paints before sewing and stuffing so the paints don't spread. The clothes were made mostly in November so I will count the fabrics for them in this month's statistics. These two girls are going to Germany with my sister tomorrow, for her friend's little granddaughters. I guessed right, the girls love pink and red dresses.

My other sister wanted dolls for her own granddaughters, and as I was busy with making the other dolls, I promised to make them on one condition: She will paint the faces and sew the hair on the four of them. Look at her magic touch:

Here are all the new dolls in a group photo before going to their new owners near and far:

The dolls are made like traditional rag dolls, using recycled materials and leftover bits of fabric. Each doll has the Unicef logo sewn on their leg seam, and an identity card from Unicef, filled with the doll's name and details by me. The dolls can not be "bought" but "adopted", and each of them represents a real child who is helped to a better start in life with the immunsation against deadly childhood diseases which Unicef provides for them with the adoption fee of 20 € or more. The idea and the original pattern of the dolls came from Italy, and they are made by volunteers in France, Czech Republic and Finland as well. The other half of the identity card is a postcard, where the maker of the doll can add her name and address. The doll's new family can fill in the form with information of the doll's whereabouts and family, and send the postcard to the "birth mother". Usually the dolls are adopted at Unicef events or in their shops where school classes or handicraft clubs have delivered the dolls they have made together. The makers have no knowledge of the destiny of them and so the postcard is a nice thankyou for the maker. Inventing personalities and finding suitable names for the dolls is one of my favourite parts of creating a doll for Unicef. I keep a list of my dolls and try not to give the same name twice.

On my walk last week I saw floating rocks?

No, the swan family has returned after six weeks' absence. I think the parents have been taking the young ones around and showing them possible places to stay next year when they are on their own.

You can still see how the young swans are grey and their bills are not bright yellow like the adults. This morning we had frost for the second time, but the ponds are not likely to freeze over before it gets much colder.

Friends, Gifts and Dolls

Some time ago I received a gift from my dear friend Melanie. She was in Egypt earlier this year on holiday, and bought some beautiful handwoven cotton scarves there. After she made her lovely Helping Hands quilt, she sent pieces from all those scarves to each of us whose hands are shown on her quilt. As soon as I saw my new fabrics, I knew where to look for a pattern to use them and make something nice.

I have had this Kaffe Fasset book for a long time, and the handkerchief corner quilt on the cover has always pleased me. I'll show you the results later, the idea is just maturing now. Thank you, Melanie!

This week another dear friend sent me unexpected mail. This came from Simone:

Bicycles on the wrapping paper and the stamps (for Mr. K!) and the owl must be for me.

 

Inside was this cute little wallhanging for Halloween. Luckily I'm not afraid of spiders or ghosts. Thank you Simone! (Without my photo editing programme I can't turn the picture, so you'll have to tilt your head.) Simone is also one of the Helping Hands friends, and you can see what she did with her scarf  fabrics from Melanie if you scroll down her post in my link.

Finally a sneak peek at my dolls I'm making as Santa's little helper. They are my newest lot of "Anna ja Toivo" -dolls for Unicef. The names Anna and Toivo are also Finnish words and mean "give" and "hope". Very appropriate for dolls used to raise money for saving children's lives by giving them inoculations. Four pretty ones are at my sister's as I have outsourced the beautician's and hairdresser's services to her for the dolls going to her granddaughters.

Only one doll has a dress by now, but two dresses are in process and ideas for the other clothing are on paper. Everyone has at least undies, and they are sitting on the sofa near the fireplace so they are not cold. I think I'll knit some socks for them tonight.