“And the prettiest sight you’ll see is the HOLLY that will be…”

(Click HERE to go directly to my Sew,Mama,Sew! giveaway post)

Yes, I am still working on Christmas gifts, with all my favorite songs in the background… I was perhaps a bit delusional in thinking that if I started making gifts in July, I would be able to take December off from sewing and crafting. At this rate, I may take ONE DAY off. It’s time to admit that maybe part of me ENJOYS the last-minute rush. To wit, I got up this morning and painted 10 little polymer clay snowman heads before work.

Here’s a gift for my best friend’s 3-year-old daughter (CONNIE: Close your eyes). It’s sort of a paper doll made out of fabric, with clothes that can be switched out, with a pouch on the back of the pillow to store all the pieces.
This was my first project from Wee Wonderfuls: 24 Dolls to Sew and Love, but I know I will make more. Each one is cuter than the next.

Of course, in my attempt to streamline the process, I ended up making things more difficult. I’m a great believer in making more than one of the same item at a time to cut down on time. For example, if I’m going to be getting out scraps of fabric for the little dresses, I might as well cut out two. Well, in this case, I decided that rather than sew the cotton print fabric to the felt backing for each piece, I would use fusible webbing, which would also keep the edges from fraying. This did work well in that the clothing looks great and it was much faster than sewing around each little piece. On the downside, it made the clothing a bit stiff, so it didn’t want to stick smoothly against the puffy pillow. I solved this problem by sticking bits of the rough side of some Velcro to each clothing item, but I’m wishing now I had just followed the directions. And now I’m stuck with a second set of clothing with the same problem.

This was a great project for scraps. I had a charm pack of some pretty prints that I used for most of the clothing. The yellow polka dot is a flannel bit I had leftover from a baby quilt I made eight years ago! So cute.