Labor and delivery

Sometime last year, at least a month before Christmas, my friend Danni (pictured here) messaged me and wanted to order a doll. She said it didn't have to be done by the holidays, because she knew I was crazy, but anytime after that.

After that, of course, I started packing. Then we moved. Then I unpacked. I didn't even get much spring craft show sewing done, though I did enough that I didn't embarrass myself at the few events I scheduled.

Every so often, as I packed, unpacked, and sewed, I'd remember the doll. And then something else would crop up, and I put it off. I had fabric put aside but that was the extent of my work at that point.

Then, one day on Instagram, she messaged me and said, "Babe, it's been 6 months! Are you making the doll or giving birth to it?"

Sometimes you need to light a fire under my ass. The doll was done and in her hands within two days.

I just wish I could make a doll that had her smile.

Abuela

My favorite orders are always the custom ones.  I love seeing what people come up with -- the thing they could never find, or a recreation of a long-lost toy.  Recently I was contacted on Etsy by someone who wanted a specific doll for her daughter.  A doll that isn't made.

Her daughter is in love with the grandmother character of a cartoon show that I've never even heard of.  There are dolls of the major characters, but Abuela didn't get a doll.  And that's who her five year old daughter wanted for Christmas.  When Christmas came, she was disappointed.  And then her mom thought to try Etsy, to see if anyone could make one.

The mom sent me a photo of the character -- which I'm not going to put up because it's licensed and I'm not and it's not an exact replica anyway, just an "inspired by," but still -- and I got to work.  The only fabric I didn't have on hand was light gray for the hair, but luckily the thrift store down the street had a pale gray men's shirt on the dollar rack.  I used the lower portion of the sleeve, so I still have a whole large shirt left for other projects.

I'm really loving my machine embroidered faces.  The hand embroidered ones had a different feel, but even when I was really moving, I couldn't do ten faces in a day -- and in busy season, that sometimes is what needs to be done.

All the other fabrics I had on hand -- the bright pink was the pocket from a skirt, the paisley was the back half of a vintage skirt that I'd cut up ages ago, the lace was two separate bundles of hem lace that probably arrived in a cookie tin from one or another elderly female relative.

She went to the post office on Tuesday, in time to arrive for a special birthday party this Saturday.