I’ve had a fun couple of months making for the grandchildren, most of which has now been dispensed. As I write this I realise that I forgot to photograph a few things, but never mind.

First up were two dolls for Little E and baby I. I used an extra large white tee shirt which I dyed with tea. I think I could get four dolls out of that one tee shirt, as I have heaps left. I used the Liz Haywood zero waste doll pattern, which you can buy on Etsy, as well as a couple of her clothes extension packs, also on Etsy

One of her patterns has a variety of clothes and I made a simple tee shirt and shorts and can’t believe I didn’t take a photo of them. Here is one of the new dolls showing the tee shirt and a prairie skirt and another of her displaying her shorts. The fabric was in the goodie bag at Perth Frocktails and is a beautiful knit.

Miss G already has one of these dolls, and her name is Esme. When I was making this one, we decided it would be called Maggie. Time will tell whether that sticks! Anyway, Esme and Maggie both received one of these outfits for Christmas.

I made all three dolls (Baby I’s doll is as yet unnamed) a mermaid outfit from one of the clothes extension packs. My sewing machine is full of sequins! The tail and the top are separate and the top is actually part of a swimsuit pattern in one of the sets of patterns. The photo below shows Baby I’s doll. I gave her pink cheeks but kind of regretted it as they were way too pink.

I made Baby I’s doll a little dress and shorts with fabric left over from her smocked romper which had belonged to her grandmother (Oma).

I couldn’t live with the pale pink mouth above, so here she is with her new mouth, of course I forgot to remove my pen guideline!

I put the dolls and their clothes in little totes which are reversible. Christmassy fabric on one side and plain red on the other.

Miss G also has her doll named Dolly, which is a baby born doll, so bigger. I made her this little set, which I rather like.

I also made a swimsuit from scraps of swimsuit lycra in my stash. Isn’t it cute?

I created a dinosaur tee shirt for my grandson using some images created on my Cricut which I fused on. He loved the dinosaur poking out of the pocket and immediately added some little toy ones. He was adorable!

Miss G was very upset that the felt Christmas tree didn’t have a father Christmas, so I set about making one. This is the first one I made, from sparkly felt, but it’s a tad big and very ugly. so I had to put it off to the side. The minute Miss G saw it she used it as a finger puppet, which was quite cute.

I found some Christmas fabric and cut the Father Christmas out leaving a little seam allowance. I did some backstitch around all the details using some of my mother’s gold thread, and used a piece of plain white for the back and interfaced it. It was impossible to tell the front from the back and I sewed it with the interfacing on the outside. Not that it mattered, Miss G loves it and it makes a very nice addition to the tree.

A couple of years ago I made a plate to put food for Father Christmas and the reindeers, but this year I made magic reindeer food. I saw this idea at a pop up market and thought I’d make my own. I The bag on the left is a scrap of Christmas fabric, which is the piece that I took the Father Christmas for the tree from, and the cross stitch on the right is from a Christmas card given to me by my friend Suzanne. I added the sparkly braid. The labels were made on my cricut.

I made three of these as I did one for my grandson too. There will be a fourth one next year!

The food consists of porridge, some of which is coloured red and green, some sprinkles and anything else I could find in the cupboard.

This is the message I used, which I found on the internet.

Here is a photo of the girls doing the sprinkling in their Christmas PJs. It made me smile

I realised after I made the food that it wouldn’t vanish without some effort and Tom tells me that he had to rake it up. Can’t have them thinking the reindeer didn’t want the food! Next year I will colour sugar so it just be hosed off into the ground.

When little E unwrapped Maggie she took her straight to the piano. I love how she placed the doll’s hand on the keys.

So those are my Christmas makes. I didn’t make any clothes for humans, I think because I was obsessing over the dolls and their clothes.