Thanks!

Thanks for the dolly love, y'all!
In answer to Donna's question, the doll is a discontinued Vogue Pattern.
I can look up the number, but anyway it is really well designed, and I am glad I got one before they were all gone.

Doll-mania continues

I made a doll for the Hug-a-Bugs, really me, last year when I participated in a doll clothes swap with the wonderful ladies at Sugar City Journal.
The swap was for clothing to fit an 18" doll like an American Girl, but I didn't have one, so I made one.
Anyway, I was going through the dollies around Christmastime and I found this doll, her name was Siobhan, and thought to myself, "She never plays with this one, maybe I should just donate it to the shelter, I can always make another one." So I did.
Well, as you can imagine, though it did take a little while, when she saw that it was gone, all I have heard from the Elder is "Where is Siobhan? Why did you give her away?"

So the day before yesterday I started making a new Siobhan.This morning we stuffed her, the Younger Hug-a-Bug and myself, and he proved an excellent assistant.

Take a bow new Siobhan -

would anyone out there be up for a new Doll Clothes Swap?
I had a ton of fun last time.
Leave me a comment here or email me at bandjontheriver(at)msn(dot)com if you would like to join in.

Woo Hoo! I do love swaps.

buncha knitting and sewing and stuff

I spent a lot of the past week at the sewing machine.
I made myself a new shirt, made the Elder Hug-a-Bug a skirt, and just finished a doll for the CraftHope project.Here she is next to her friend Chloe.

The mailing deadline for CraftHope is June 13, but they have received so many dolls that I don't know if this one will get to be used right away.
I am a procrastinator, as I have stated often before, and even though making a doll only takes a couple of days, I waited for over a month to even get started.
For her body I used my favorite shirt that I couldn't wear anymore because it developed a large hole in the front. I was glad to be able to reuse it, it is a nice soft cotton.
I also finished one sleeve for my Elizabeth I sweater this weekend.
This is some sloooow knitting, but I am sure that I will love wearing it if it ever gets done.

Even with all that craftiness, I was still able to fill my belly with lots of food.
We spent Memorial Day lunch at my parents' house having some delicious wieners and super good pie that was gone before I thought about taking a picture of it.
(Can you see how the hot dog fairly glows with yumminess?)
The kids had a super time, and besides spending time with my parents, I got to see my brother and his family, it was a good day.

What a day

Today I had a rare Sunday afternoon off.
My lovely husband took the opportunity to plan a family outing to the woods.
Our destination was William O'Brien State Park, about an hour north of Saint Paul, and it was beautiful there.
There were well-maintained trails, and we saw 3 caterpillars, the kids were ecstatic.
The columbine are in bloom, and they were everywhereThere is a small lake to the side of the Saint Croix river where the kids took a little dip.
Next time we will remember to bring swim suits.
Truly a wonderful way to spend the afternoon.

Lunch bag

Some may call this jumping the gun, but I call it being prepared.
The Elder Hug-a-Bug will be in full day kindergarten in the fall and she will eat lunch at school.
I don't relish the idea of buying school lunch every day, so I made her a cool lunch bag to entice her to bring her lunch.


She is just learning piano, and she really loves it, so when I saw this awesome fabric at Treadle, I knew what had to happen. Honestly, I was powerless against it.
Look at the little animals, they are singing and playing piano and there are sweet phrases all over.

This pattern is from Sewing Green by Betz White.
The bag is lined in vinyl-coated cotton for easy cleaning, and it comes together really fast.



When she saw it finished, she said "I want to try it out!"

So, it looks like it's pb&h and an apple for dinner tonight.

busy

We had a most eventful week.
My lovely hubby took Thursday and Friday off last week, and we filled every minute with fun.

Thursday we took the kids to their first Twins game.
We had some pretty sweet seats on the lower deck, 3rd base side.
I didn't bring my camera, as I didn't want to lose it, so you'll have to imagine our great view.
The kids really enjoyed the whole experience. Especially the cotton candy, cracker jack, hot dog, snow cone, and chips.
Just so the portion control police don't come to get me, we did share most of that between the four of us.
We taught them "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" and they really enjoyed the 7th inning stretch standing up with everyone and singing out at the top of their lungs.

We also took the kids to see Monsters vs. Aliens.
They loved it, and we had the theatre practically to ourselves since the movie has been out for weeks. The Younger Hug-a-Bug could ask all the loud questions he liked and I didn't worry about bothering the other patrons, as they were one other mom and her 2-year-old.

The biggest news is: Thursday, while I was at work, the Elder Hug-a-Bug mastered riding her bike without training wheels!
She is overjoyed, and so are we all.
We took a family bike ride to the park and had races around the walking track. Then off to swing and dig.
Super fun.
The Elder also mastered climbing trees this week.
Whew, kind of a long post, but that is what we've been up to.

Spinning Update

Here's the thing,
I think I love spinning.The hank on the left is what I spun the other night, and then I brought the stuff that I had on hand from a 6 year-old purchase to the park and spun up some more.
I did it at the Park! while I was watching the kids.
I probably only have about 50 yards of the blue, I will knit up a swatch today to see what it looks like.

In other news, the shade garden is coming along quite well.
And this-is a girl determined to bike without training wheels.
So there is spinning excitement all around here.

Enjoy the sunny breaks today,
Jess