Livia

This is Livia,

Although she has been with me for a few weeks, maybe a bit more, I hesitated to make pictures of her and 'put her on line'. Also it has been such a long time since I have been here! Today I took the chance;)  Enjoy her pictures!

It started back in April with a pattern called 'Big fig' I bought from Fig & Me 

Here her head is covered. The whole process took days!!!

Here she is finished and ready for clothing.

Her hair is made of wild brush-able mohair yarn. 

With this doll I learned to make little knees 💖

I made her a dress and underskirt from woven Japanese fabric and embroidered it with small silk ribbon flowers (my own pattern)

Her shoes are crocheted, made to fit (no pattern)

We went out today to explore an abandoned house site. Lots of wild flowers here. Because it is very windy she wears her woolen col. May be she will need a cardigan and hat later.

Her undies made of quilt fabric, has a pocket because her skirt doesn't have one and I believe one always need a pocket😉

The sun came through. 

Livia with her little family, a little baby brother and a small toy doll in a all in one suit. ('Baby fig'  and 'Wee baby' pattern)

Well you know how little sisters are.....

And how hard it is to choose from all the pictures!

And one more, 

lots of love and thanks for visiting!

Groetjes

Annemieke

 

Manx log cabin

This is a doll quilt (or little wall hanging) I made, using a folded log cabin pattern. Oscar our Dachshund, was thinking about joining my doll I guess!

It is also often called: the 'Manx log cabin', originated from the Isle of Man. Fiona of this blog post here wrote a very clear tutorial and nice story of it's history, worth reading! I added a practical little step to this tutorial.

 Like a regular log cabin you start with a square and add strips of fabric in a chosen width.

 Only before stitching the next strip, you fold the sewn strip back (mostly 2/3 of the width, minus the seam allowance). So far the same tutorial like Fiona's.

 What I did to make it easier to iron the fold in the strip is: I used a template (made out of a cereal box) with the desired width.

In my case my strips were cut to 3,5 cm (very narrow, you would prefer to make wider strips). After sewing with a 0,5 cm seam allowance, 3 cm was left. 2/3 of 3 cm is 2 cm. So the width of the fold is 2 cm as is the template is.

 Here the fold is ironed down and you can take a peak under the fold.

a few blocks done

 There is no need to quilt this, which I think is a great advantage! To join the blocks you work like a quilt as you go method ( just picked a clear tutorial by Leanne and Marci with pictures) only in this case you don't have to worry about the batting.

 The things I learned is to: 1st pay attention with what thread you sew, because it shows on the back. Secondly how you start and stop your sewing line, this will also show.

And thirdly only sew the logs length without the seam allowances at the beginning and the end (like in the improvised drawing above). I'm referring to the last rows because this will make it easier to sew the blocks together. 

Sewing the background squares together I chose to do this by hand, probably the only method without sewing all through the front. 

The little quilt is finished with a little binding. I used mostly woven fabrics and linens. Also lots of Japanese woven fabric scraps. I love the feeling of all these types of fabrics, lots of texture!

I first saw an old quilt with this pattern at a friends house in Maryland (USA). Her family called it: 'a toe catcher log cabin', a funny name, I think, but very understandable if you look at all those folds!

Oscar thinking: She smells nice...may be I could try something here....

Me talking to Oscar: I know it seems tempting but you are not going to fit in there as well.....

Enjoy your week,

GroetjesAnnemieke