Barbie paints the town red

If you grew up without a doll to play with and you suddenly get a chance to play with one what would you do? Well i did what I guess most would. - jump at the chance to dress the doll in different dresses. Of course I had the pleasure of designing and stitching them too.When I found my five year old niece had a 'thing' for Barbie. giving her a wardrobe to play with seemed the best gift. Sewing those tiny stitches was a challenge as my right index finger finds it difficult to wield a needle after a accident.
I searched for scraps of silk and lace in my stash and came up with a collection of dresses that would gladden a little girl's heart. And was she glad!

         The wedding dress was the biggest success needless to say!

  Well so was the pink as it was her favourite colur!

   The gold net transformed this into a ball dress!

      The gagra-choli made Barbie as Indian as she could be.

 My crochet needle did its bit too and these three dresses were the result.

 More dresses with lace trim and accessories to add glamour.

 And simple ordinary dresses for those ordinary days..

I enjoyed making these up for my niece and she has a grand time dressing up her little dolls. Do you have a little one who would like a wardrobe for her Barbie? You could order some then. Similar ones not identical ones as each dress would be unique in its fabric and the little trims that go to make it special. Your girl will always have a unique and special wardrobe for her girl(s).

Snug as a bug in a rug

An affinity for bugs is not something to boast about but if it is a fact then you cant but state it. Be it inside or out in the garden, the creepy-crawlies find their way down my back or up my jeans making me leap like a startled fawn as Wodehouse would put it. But this post is about another kind of bug that is making the rounds in my house and I am having an attack of the bug right now! Yeah after crochet bug came the cross-stitch bug and now it is the quilt bug. Tired of blankets that fell short – they would either cover the feet or the face but never both – I decided to customise one for dh and thus was born this pieced quilt. 

The patch-work almost made me give up on it – my hands started locking up cutting all the pieces and I put it away for a year before bringing myself to piece it all together. Then came the quilting. I was too nervous to machine-quilt it and so I hand-quilted sitting for hours with the quilt spread on my bed . It was worth the effort and like Linus and his blanket it has become inseparable from its owner. I put it away only when the heat of the summer sun makes it impossible to use.

                                    A close-up of the patch-work and the quilting

The experience of making my first quilt gave me the courage to make one for Sid who needed it for the winters of Boston.  This was a themed quilt, reflecting the atmosphere of a farm with a morning and a night side. This time I spent hours painting the quilt, thankfully there was no piecing involved. It was a unique, one of a kind quilt and found favour with its youthful owner.

                                                A day in the farm

                                                                                        Night on the farm
 Now truly bitten by the bug I did this sampler quilt from an online class at Craftsy.com and the more I saw what people were coming up with the more I wanted to make quilts. 

That one took a year as the class spanned all of 2012 but I finished this last month for the newest member of the family. It features the traditional Greek Cross and looks bright and colourful – just right for a child.

                                                                         The front

                                                                                               And the back
And the awesome news is the quilt top I am working on now is being bought by someone. I decided a while ago that it was time to peddle my wares and have got my first custom order. A happy ending or rather beginning to my bug story.

                                               Just Squares
So now you know where to go or rather come when you want your child to be as snug as a bug in a rug. With air conditioning the rule rather than an exception, your child is going to need a quilt to keep warm. And you can get them custom made!
I will post pictures of the other kids' stuff that I craft in between my quilts in my next post