Getting Festive

 The Rose Cottage Friends are starting to feel a little festive...

Lindsey has donned a pretty knitted Christmas dress

She is joined by Everlee Rose and Sophia who are admiring some of the toys.

This shelf will gradually evolve over the next few weeks.

Peggy Sue has put on one of her favourite dresses of the season.

Hazel wants to start decorating her little tree.

Martha, Eva and Nancy have changed into Christmas clothes.

(This so called 'New UN-improved layout, means that the photos load on the opposite order to how you want them...took me several goes to get them in the right order...now I know that they load back to front it should make it a little easier....BUT WHY do they do this??)  

A Year in Review 2019

Although there has inevitably been some new arrivals this year, most have come from charity shops and been real bargains... and of course I have made a lot of dolls this year, which really helped.  The dolls that didn't come from the CS I bought in January before Percy became ill which were on a long term wish list, and a couple that had been on my wish list for a very long time I bought when the opportunity arrived later on in the year.    I'd like to do even better next year on limiting my spending on dolls and doll items.  I will have to anyway as it seems Percy's treatment will be continuing for most of 2020 as well which has come to a bit of a shock to us as we thought the treatment would just be for a year.  So there will still be more dolls that will have to be sold, as well as the ones I still have for sale.  I AM negotiable on them, so if you are interested please don't hesitate to contact me.

Some highlights of the year are:

Henry getting a new head of hair and of course visiting New Zealand 

Finding Kiwi Sindy in an Op shop in NZ...just at the right time, when I needed a 'pick me up'.  She has become a firm favourite of mine.

My £1 vintage Action Man.

The making of Martha the Elephant (and her two sisters for my Mum and Sister) and doing a 50 plus day project with her.

Making my childhood doll Linda her first new dress ever!

Finding sweet baby Natalie for £1.30 in a Charity Shop.  What a high I got from that.

The making of Howard Bear and enjoying him.  

My Tiny Rag Dolls (minus three that were given as gifts)

Five on Friday

Kiwi Sindy had a treat come through the post today. 

I have long admired this original Sindy outfit and finally succumbed to purchasing it for her.  Sometimes you just gotta!  

Clipper has been on at me to finish making the three TRDs who are a WIP.

So as I am currently not knitting after hurting my shoulder last night, I sat quietly this morning stitching while icing my shoulder.

I got this bundle of fabrics from the local charity shop during the week, which will be fun to make some little clothes with.

Lastly I found Peggy Sue giving Martha a hug today.  Don't they look sweet together?

A Couple of Outings.

The weather has been fabulous this week, and today and yesterday Martha got to visit a couple of places for the first time.  Today Nancy, Lucy and Rose also came along and they declared the gardens just perfect.

Yesterday Martha enjoyed a walk around Wrest Park, once of our favourite places to visit, as it is relatively close and easy to get to.  She is pleased to be getting out and about a little bit.

Today we visited the Celebration and Dahlia gardens in St Albans.

Martha was delighted to find some pumpkins!

She admired the Dahlias up close and personal.

Sat amongst the flowers

Laid back and relaxed to the hum of bees.

Nancy hasn't been out for a while so she was pleased to get some time in a beautiful garden as well.

Rose and Lucy joined in and had fun too.

Rose thought this Dahlia matched her beautifully, and I think she is quite right!

Creative Week 19

Another productive week.

I made a couple of necklaces, one for Martha and one for a friend of hers.

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Six little shawls - I can't show all of them yet, nor with them on the dolls,  so you'll have to take my word they look really cute on them.

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Another pumpkin for Martha

A cardigan/shrug for Mini Kit

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Two little dresses for my little Ari Dolls

Olive (I made her dress a while back) Rudy, and Skye.

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Unfortunately I can's show a lot of what I have been working on this week, but I have finished:

Five Tee Shirts for Tiny Rag Dolls

One Cardigan for Tiny Rag Doll

One Short Sleeve Cardigan for Tiny Rag Doll

Four (sewn) Skirts for Tiny Rag Dolls

Four Wigs for Tiny Rag Dolls,

Four pairs on Undies for Tiny Rag Dolls

Tiny Cup and Saucer.

Cap Sleeve Dress for Tiny Rag Doll

(I will add photos of these at a later date to this blog post)

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Two new dresses for Martha:

This one is a pinafore and it has a couple of cute pockets. 

I made her a tiny bear to go in one of the pockets.

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Quite a lot of the Tiny Doll knitting was done this weekend.  Some while we were up at my DIL's yesterday afternoon and the rest today while sitting out in the garden enjoying the fabulous weather.  

It has been a good productive week and I am pleased I have achieved the goals I set for myself.

Creative Week 18

Another productive Creative week.

I finished Maude

The third elephant in my 'Three Elephants' project.

Martha, Mavis and Maude.

Mavis and Maude are now on their way to NZ to my Mum and Sister.  I can't wait to hear whether my sister likes her and whether my Mum will recognise what it is and like it or not. I am guessing she probably won't anymore, but at the very least the elephant can sit in her room (and hopefully not go awol as is want to happen in dementia units a fair bit)

As mentioned in a previous post I repaired Delphine's hair and made her some shoes.

I continued working on Martha's World and have set up a page for the daily updates.  That can be found here:  100 Days of Martha the Elephant's World.

I made her a pretty coral dress with the lovely 50p bargain wool I got from a local CS.

I also made her a 'Blue Hues' dress from some of the left over yarn from making the dresses for the American Girl and other dolls, previous years.

I made Martha a little cat:

As the weather is cooling down quite a bit I made Martha a little variegated yellow cardigan.

It is a lovely fit and she is very pleased with it.

I've been making tiny underwear, and also wig making for my tiny little dolls, but they can't be shown yet,  I'm also currently working on a chair for Martha, but it is not ready to be photographed yet.