Cats Complicate Everything (And You Wind Up Being Grateful)

Madeline was a pest.

She refused to let me sleep in on weekends.
She tried to steal my toast at breakfast.
She sat on my books when I read.
She tried to steal the yarn when I knit and the thread when I sewed.
She got herself shut into closets on a frequent basis.
She liked to watch you run around calling for her while sitting very still in plain sight.
She thought it was great when I was sick, and had to stay home.  (Because then I stayed in bed all day like a proper cat - she purred happily next to me all day.)
She ran in front of me and nearly tripped me at least once a day.
If I was taking a picture of the dolls, she wanted to be right there in the middle.  If I wanted to take a picture of her, she wanted to walk away.
She put all her toys in places she couldn't reach them, then meowed for me to get the yard stick to rescue them for her.
She wouldn't let any visitors over the age of about 2.5 pet her, and would happily enforce this by biting them.
It took twice as long as it should to get ready for work in the morning, because she demanded I stop and pet her, or took off with my hair elastic, or brought me a toy to throw (she liked to play fetch).

I had to have her put to sleep almost a month ago now, and I miss her so much!  :(

I miss her greeting me in the morning when I got up, and trying to steal my toast.  I miss her when I'm reading and she's not lying next to me (or on the book).  I miss her when I'm knitting, because I kind of got used to knitting in strange contortions to keep the yarn out of her reach.  I miss her when I get home from work, and she's not there at the door, delighted that I have once again managed to come home.

She was a pest for 14 years.  I wish it had been 50.

Sugarplum Fairies and a Parcel

My sister and I are taking Nieceling to see The Nutcracker tonight.  We've none of us ever seen a ballet, let alone this one, but we all know the story.

We like to make a tremendously big deal out of Special Events in our family.  We don't do a lot of "big" things in a year, so we like to make the most of them.  In this case, we got Nieceling a fancy outfit to wear, and her mother has managed to keep exactly what it is a secret.

She has seen the shoes, as we needed to make sure they fit, but the dress itself?  That is a surprise....;) We've got a little dollar-store nutcracker for her to have at the end, which nicely avoids the expensive souvenirs available.

It could be we won't like the ballet, but we are going in pre-disposed to enjoy it to the hilt.  Nieceling knows the story by heart now.

We'll probably only go once in her life, but she'll remember the planning, and her storybook, and the fancy dress, taking a taxi, the ballet itself, and getting her own tiny nutcracker doll.... and it will blend in with the years of memories of baking and decorating cookies, dancing to Christmas music, trees, tobogganing, and lights and just generally Christmas.  We'be been switching gradually to more "experience" type of gifts, and all of the kids love it.  And so do we. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And on a more materialistic note, guess whose Fairyland order just shipped?   

...

:D

Yeah.  They might not be here for Christmas, with the high volumes of mail, but they will be here soon!

Fairyland was quite fast this time around!   It was such a lovely surprise to see the shipping notice this morning. :)

Coming up for air....

Anybody still out there?  It's been about four months since my last post.  I had hoped the project at work would ease up, but it actually got quite a bit worse for a while there.  The good news is they are now paying us for 20 hours of the overtime we work per month, so at least we are getting extra money out of it!  Money that goes mostly into my RSP, hopefully moving my retirement date forward!

So I've declared today a Holiday in the name of mental health.  Since it is a Saturday, and I technically only work Monday to Friday, I feel that is pretty fair.  ;)  I'm very grateful to have a job, but I must confess I'm getting pretty burned out.

I had the money saved up to replace Sebastian in September, but was dismayed to find that the Ruth sculpt was still unavailable from Fairyland.  Today, seeing that he is still not available, I used the money to get a blank Realfee Mari instead! She is just so incredibly CUTE.  She was a bit of an impulse purchase, which I ordinarily avoid, but looking forward to her arrival is already brightening my days considerably.  She is a whole new size, so I am looking forward to making her a whole new wardrobe next Spring!

The face-ups Fairyland has been doing recently are not really my personal taste, but I have my eye on trying to commission a real live face-up artist through Den of Angels with some of this overtime money!  The blank sculpt has such a sweet look to it, that honestly I could probably live with her blank too... LOL

(Have you seen Wovenflame's pictures of a blank RealFee Mari?  If not, you should really go look!)

I also managed to get two Realfee bodies, which are hopefully for Kipling and Cairo.  I've always wanted them to be taller than Samara, you see, and looking at owner pictures last week, I think they should work spectacularly.  I hope so, anyway!  I'd love if the RealFee bodies arrived in December, so that they could "grow" before the annual Christmas story(ies) but it is much more likely to be January I think.

I have been enjoying catching up on blog posts, Flickr, and Den of Angels.  It feels like a long time since I've had enough time to do so, and it is lovely to feel enthusiastic about the dolls again.

I don't expect to have time to do anything with the dolls this month, but I have high hopes that at least in December I may have my weekends back.  I quite miss them, and I'd be disappointed not to get at least one Christmas story put together!  It wouldn't feel quite like Christmas anymore without it... :)

Christmas 2012
Christmas 2013
Christmas 2014

Is that...?  Yes, I rather think it is the belated rousing of my normal Christmas Cheer....

Winter, we are done with you!

Winter has been hanging on and on around here.  We get a couple spring-like days, and then we're back to snow.   It's been good from a flooding perspective, as the Spring Melt has been more gradual than usual....but we are universally fed up with the grey and cold!  LOL

I've been battling the greyness with colour:









Here's a couple links for you:
1)  Antique Lilac has been doing a lovely series on doll photography that is worth checking out!
2)  The Postmans' Knock has a 2-part set of tutorials for various handlettering styles. (Pt 1,  Pt 2)

We've got some sunshine out there today, and we're up around 0 degrees, so me?  I'm going to drop everything and head outside for a walk.  :D

Because Spring is sort-of, eventually, really-truly, just-around-the-corner!  :D

A Bit Of Random

It's been hovering at about 2 degrees C for the last several days.  It is wonderful! (Not so wonderful as the man in shorts I saw yesterday thinks it is, obviously, but pretty awesome!).  This morning I can see patches of sidewalk, which makes walking to work much easier. 

The sun is even out!  The Weather Forecasters keep warning us it isn't going to last and isn't really Spring, but no one is listening.  It is ABOVE ZERO.

Life is good.  :D

Here's a few things I've been enjoying lately:
Elvie Studio  - Prettiest journaling ever.  I would love to be able to do that! 

The Postman's Knock - I mentioned this the other day, but it is worth another mention.  Calligraphy and some neat tutorials.  I've used this one twice, most recently to decorate the envelope of my sister's birthday card. :D  It turned out pretty good, and considering my lack of artistic talent, that is exciting!  LOL

Many Small Friends has been doing a series on sewing with knits that seems really helpful! 

Open House Miniatures  has the most amazing printable version of a McLoughlin Folding Doll House.  I think this would be really neat for the dolls.  (Just a note, I found the site slow to load.  Hopefully a temporary thing.)

Miniature Gardens/Fairy Garden..... They are so charming! (And would be so perfect for dolls!)

I'm working away on a little blue Pukifee blanket right now, doll-wise, and saving egg cartons for my second attempt at the brick wall for Parker' clock-tower attic. 

I didn't like the way the first one came out after the grouting.  It's perfectly usable, but not quite what I'm looking for.  So this time the steps will be slightly different:

1. Cut out all the bricks!
2. Paint all the bricks while unattached to wall!
3.  Place grout on the wall.... (which is just a piece of cardstock, that then gets attached to the "actual" back wall.)
4.  Set painted bricks in place!

I found that I just lost too much of the brick texture when the grouting was the last step.  I did a little test, and I think the new order should do the trick.  Two of the three necessary egg cartons have been collected.  :)

Catching Up!

The Internet hasn't been cooperating lately, but it seems to be doing better the last couple days.  Is it a co-incidence that that also marks the end of the couple week long streak of temperatures hovering at -30?  Hmm...

I finished off a couple sweaters today.  They were sadly sitting in the "add snaps and buttons" pile, and both were for Emily.  So I thought it was about time to get them done!

Here's the Rainbow cardigan, which I just adore:

The whole time I was working on this sweater I had songs from the 80s playing in my head.  LOL  It is such a cute sweater and I love the way the hood is constructed.  :)  This is from Kristin Maw's "House Sweater for Littlefee" pattern, which can be found on Ravelry or Etsy.  It was a really quick knit!   I may make a single colour version for Emily with the pocket sometime too.

The second sweater was a pink sweater made from my own pattern.  I think I really do have that exactly the way I want it now!

Yesterday I had Nieceling pick out the winner of the Pukifee dress and blanket set giveaway, which she really enjoyed.  She loves sending mail, and nothing makes a six year old happier than a little power over the world, so picking the winner was definitely her idea of a good time.

This is the set here, modeled by Kipling:

You can see that Kipling had some (unwanted) help from Edith!  The blanket is from a free pattern on Pixie Faire.  I knit the Bitty Baby size (minus two repeats) with laceweight, on 1.25mm needles.  The yarn is actually Aunt Lydia's Crochet Thread (100% viscose from Bamboo), and it is lovely for this sort of thing.  It has a much better drape than some of the other crochet threads I've tried.

I've been playing around lately with hand-lettering and calligraphy.  I'm terrible at it, but it is fun!  I really like this site:  The Postman's Knock

Definitely worth checking out if you are into that sort of thing.  It gave me some inspiration for this summer's project:  Nieceling and I are going to embark on an epistolary adventure this summer.  By which I mean that I've been collecting addresses from various relatives willing to send mail back to her and will mail any letter she wants to send.  Good practice for her both in printing and in spelling/putting together written sentences, and she will be uttlerly thrilled to get letters or postcards back.   :)

Thought I'd share this....

“What Constitutes Success”
By Bessie Stanley (1905)

He has achieved success who has lived well,
laughed often and loved much;
who has gained the respect of intelligent men
and the love of little children;
who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;
who has left the world better than he found it,
whether by an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;
who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty
or failed to express it;
who has always looked for the best in others
and given them the best he had;
whose life was an inspiration;
whose memory a benediction.

 Ran across this poem today, and thought I'd share it, despite it not being doll-related.  It seems like a pretty good definition of success, though I admit to the impulse to go through and change all the "He" and "men" to a gender neutral term.  ;)

Parker's Attic

Otherwise known as the Very Slow Project:

This is where I am so far.  Not far, as you can see!  I'm done her bed!  It was a little crate something came in, and I sewed (rather badly) a mattress for it, re-used a little pillow I'd sewn in the past, and her blanket is done now as well! :)

Today I printed out the Clock-Window, and cut the hole for it in the back wall.  It looks a bit weird right now because you can see the outside parts - that back wall will eventually hopefully be brick, and only the circular part of the clock face will show.  That's what the egg carton is for;  making the bricks!

The goal is to complete this project buying as little as I can. So far it is kind of fun trying to think of what I can re-use to create the items I want.

I'm really pleased with the way the Curio thread from Knitpicks worked out for Parker's blanket, it's very light and crisp, and has a pretty good "drape" to it.  It's usually intended for use with crochet, rather than knitting.

Parker herself is still a work-in-progress, so she won't be appearing in photographs just yet...

All's Quiet On The November Front

Miscellany:

1.  We've got a good amount of snow here right now, which makes me happy, but not the people who have to drive in it!  :)  I love how a good blanket of snow mutes all the noise of a city, and there's nothing more peaceful than walking along a snowy road with big, fluffy, snowflakes drifting lazily down.

(To be fair, it's much less charming when the wind is roaring away, sending all that snow seemingly directly into your face....LOL)

2.  I've been largely working on Christmas presents the past couple months.  I don't usually make handmade stuff for Christmas, as I like to keep my Christmases stress-free.  However, this year I'm in a Hat phase, so everyone is getting a hat.  I'm on the last one now, for Nephew The Younger.

3.  Of the doll items, I did finish a cute little doll blanket for an as-yet-not-introduced doll.  The pattern for the blanket was this one, and it was excellent.  I used black, white, and two shades of grey, and it turned out just the way I wanted. :D  Definitely a sign of a good pattern!

4.  My sister was visiting, along with Nieceling, this weekend and of course Nieceling brought out Saila and asked her mother to read Saila's journal to her.  There are a lot of Inuit names, particularly placenames in the first few pages.  When I read them, I go with my best-guess pronunciation based on some Internet research, but my sister decided to avoid the problem altogether.  Thus Saila's story sounded hilariously like this:

My name is Saila "something."  I live "someplace".   We used to live "someplace else."  I speak English and "another language."  I go to "a school."

Nieceling was outraged,  and kept saying "Mommy, that's not right, it's *insert word that sounds sort of like what I say when I read it*!"  She knows the story pretty much by heart now.  :)


Some entertaining links:

1.  Eve Studio has a truly adorable baby dragon, with faceplates for different expressions.  It is hilariously cute.

2.  Spampy of Spampy's Stuff has a facebook page/community that is actually quite active, if you are on Facebook.  I mostly just read posts, as I don't much like Facebook for interacting with other humans.  ;)

3.  From the Behind the Plastic Flickr group....Whoa.  This is amazing work!

Fall Has Definitely Set In!

It's just plain cold out there today.  Which works, because I finished Version 2 of the Marigold hat yesterday, and was able to wear it today. :D

Nieceling was here this weekend, and had plenty of adventures with Saila, though we had no time to photograph any of them.  (This happens a lot around small children... LOL)   Saila watched cartoons, tap-danced, slid down the railing, helped with the laundry, pushed elevator buttons, helped Nieceling go through the Wish Book, and had several wardrobe changes.

Her hair was practically standing on end when Nieceling went home, but you know what, a quick light brush and it was hanging as smooth and shiny as before.  Now that's good quality doll hair!

Some Random Things You Might Enjoy

Have you seen these little poseable skeleton figures that are out now?  Zorropirate  was kind enough to direct me to the Amiami site, where you can pre-order them.  Can you say Perfect Christmas Present for my nephews??!  Seriously, they will get such a kick out of these.

Eve Studio Project has their dragon available in two sizes, now, and it is awesome!  I won't be getting one, but I'm hoping lots of other people will so I can admire it.  (The Internet is so great for this - I don't have to own 95% of the things I think are awesome. I can just look at other people's pictures of them!)

If you haven't seen Sharon's transformation of Kidz n Cats Grace, I suggest you go admire it. Sian is now such a perfect little character!

Craftsy has some new entries to their free Mini-Classes, if you're looking to learn a new skill! I've tried a few of the free ones and found them very interesting. :)

The Trixie Belden series is available as ebooks.  I have a budget of one ebook purchase per month, and nothing scheduled for November or December.  I just re-read the six I own from childhood (two inherited from some older relative), so I'm thinking I might need to try a couple of these that the public library didn't have when I was a kid! :)

(I loved these books so much that my eight-year-old self insisted on naming our dog Trixie.  LOL)

Sometimes it just all goes wrong...

I've been doing something novel.  I've been knitting myself a hat.

I finished it today, and tried it on, and it was awesome!  PERFECT fit.  Extremely flattering. Covered my ears completely, which means it could be worn in full out winter and not just cold fall mornings.

This hat was exactly what I wanted it to be, and it had been blissfully easy to knit in the evening.  I got gauge first time, memorized the pattern repeat...it was honestly fun to knit.

It didn't just look good on me;  it looked great on Mom! She promptly requested one in red, and my sister wanted one, and....then I blocked it.

For the non-knitters, this means I soaked it for 20 minutes in warm water as per instructions, then pulled it out to very gently get the water out.

"This," I thought to myself, "looks kind of... big."

But then I ignored myself because, you know, maybe I was wrong.  And also, I love this hat.  Did I mention it was the most flattering hat I've ever had on my head?   The brief time I spent prancing around the apartment in this hat had transformed me into someone fashionable, who could even one day wear Outfits rather than just clothes, and would understand the great mysteries of our time like why you are not supposed to wear black with brown even though either one seems to be acceptable with all other colours.  I'm not saying I was going to start wearing accessories or anything, but the power of this hat was so great that I could have.  ;)

Therefore the hat HAD to be okay.

Once the water was out I prepared to stretch it around the 8.5" plate, to give it the distinctive slouchy look.

Only... there wasn't really stretching involved.  In fact, trying to block it as tiny as I can get it?  It's at least an inch wider on every side of the plate.  This is a BIG hat.

Actually, no, this is a HUGE hat.

The very pretty, pure wool yarn (the perfect shade of light grey when dry) seems suspiciously inelastic at this point.  I didn't even know wool could do that.

It's drying now, and I'm working really hard at convincing myself that maybe when it's dry it will miraculously fit my head perfectly again?  Maybe?

(Yeah, I'm not convinced either.)

Looking through other people's projects, I'm seeing that the same thing happened to quite a few others, and most of the ones that seem to have been successful mention using smaller needles or less stitches.  No gauge though, so it is hard to figure out how much I'd need to adjust down to make a new one that fits the way this one did before blocking.  So disappointed.  Should have read the notes on other people's projects first!

Lesson Learned:  Always read other people's project notes on Ravelry FIRST!

Lesson Possibly Not Learned:  I'm trying again with smaller needles.  What can I say, I really loved this hat!  LOL

Inventing The Perfect Doll

Do you ever think that such-and-such a doll would be perfect, IF....?  That happens to me a lot.  LOL  So every  now and again I stop and think about what the perfect doll (for me) would be.

I always come back to two options:

1)  Diana Effner little darling doll on a body with as much poseability as a Fairyland Littlefee doll.  It can have mechanical joints rather than ball-jointed ones if it's easier, and no changing out of eyes or anything, and be made of vinyl.  The hands should be in a position that lets them hold props, too! It would be awesome!

2)  A Littlefee with faceplates designed by Diana Effner.  The set must of course come with multiple different expressions - neutral, happy, sad, angry, sleeping....all of them with faceups.  This doll would fit in all the patterns I have for Littlefee, and be so much fun to photograph with the different expressions.

Which is not to say that I don't love the dolls I have, or am unhappy with them.  Just that if one of those options ever became available, I'd start setting aside funds that same day.  ;)

ETA:  The Little Darling dolls can be found here.

That Time Of Year Again...

I feel the urge to de-clutter coming on. Something about Spring and Fall always sets de-cluttering episodes off for me. :)

I think it's time to deal with the fabric bin. It is stuffed utterly full, which makes it hard to find what I want.  And there's a remarkable number of times I go looking for fabric in there and...can't find anything that suits what I want to make. 

To me, those are two sure signs that it's time to purge the fabric I'll never use and re-organize what I want to keep.  I think that will be my weekend task.  Most of the fabric is rescued from old kids clothes not in good enough shape to sell back to Once Upon a Child, and a lot of it is just too thick to be used with the dolls.  So it needs to go out or be cut up for rags I think!

Then it might be time to go through the doll stuff, and see if there is anything that doesn't get used or needs repair.  The craft and doll stuff is the main source of clutter in my home these days, since I tend to have de-cluttering fits fairly often.  Though I'd also like to maybe re-organize the bookshelves, now that the summer is over...

Nostalgia and Some Reorganizing

 I bought a record player this weekend, so I can actually listen to my old childhood records that I've been moving from apartment to apartment all this time.

That certainly brought back some old memories!  My cousins and I, and later my sister and I, spent hours listening to records like the Sharon, Lois, and Bram one above, singing and dancing along.

In other news, I've folded the separate doll blog for the play dolls into this one.  I tend to be working on one thing or the other, so it didn't really make sense to keep them separate - one blog would always be getting updated infrequently!   So you may notice the posts from that blog are now over here.  :)

An exercise in patience...

Got my yarn!  It's exactly the colour I wanted, and as I knit up a swatch, very nice to work with.  But then found that not only the pattern I intended to use with this yarn, but everything I want to work on for Nieceling's birthday requires my 3.25mm needles.

...which have vanished.  I have the little plastic envelope they came in - I store them in these to help keep them organized.  But this one?  Is empty.

How I can lose circular needles with a purple cord, when I'm very careful to only knit in two places of my home (to prevent just such occurrences! LOL) is a mystery.   I guess it is natural talent!  ;)

So I started another  shirt from the same pattern as the Rainbow Tunics I'd made for Nieceling's birthday.  It's fun, it's simple, and best of all - I have both the yarn and the needles required!  I'm doing the shorter version, with stripes.  I'll set it aside once the new 3.25mm needles get here, so I can finish Nieceling's birthday presents.

I'd really like to try to adapt this pattern to make one in laceweight for Emily sometime.  I have a fingering weight pattern I made for myself that I could adapt really easily, but I think I'd rather have the drape of laceweight if I made this for her, I think.  Which means starting from scratch!

An Ode To Canada Post, In Contrast...

So Saila arrived last week, and is awesome!  She was shipped via Canada Post, and arrived quickly and perfect condition. :)





I got one knitted birthday present completed, and another one started....but the next project is in jeopardy, as the yarn is swiftly becoming Schrödinger's Yarn.  :(

For the first time ever, I've had a problem with a Knitpicks order.  The tracking number I was given shows they sent the package via UPS (always a bad sign...use Canada Post, people!), and it claims they tried to deliver my order on Friday.

...I was working from home that day.  There was no knock at the apartment door, there was no phone call to my fully charged cell phone sitting on my desk next to me as I worked (apartment buzzer goes to my phone), and there was and is no card with a pickup location.  There was clearly no attempt to deliver it.

I went to the nearest UPS "Access Point" to see if they had the package last night, but they said they don't have it and have no way of tracking it - according to them I needed to go back to Knitpicks.  *sigh*  Knitpicks says that UPS has it.  The UPS phone person says that the location I went to yesterday does have my package!

And this is why I love Canada Post.  They are awesome!  They actually deliver packages, and if you are really not there?  They leave you a card (so you know they were there!) with the address and hours of the conveniently nearby post office to collect it at. ;)

Brain Eaten By Maplelea...

I'm not abandoning my BJDs, no worries!  LOL But every summer what little time I have for crafting gets taken over by projects for my niece's birthday in September.  (Yes, I really AM that slow a knitter...and I'm worse for sewing!)

This year I decided to "help" myself by getting myself the 18" doll I've wanted since she came out, Maplelea Saila.   This will be tremendously useful in a year or two when we get her one of these dolls, but at the moment isn't...really useful since she has a Journey Girl which a bit different size!  Saila is so adorable though, and educational.  Nieceling and I have been preparing for her arrival and she will be thrilled when she gets here this week.


~~~

I've accomplished pretty much nothing on the BJD front this summer.  Switching out two visiting kids this summer has proven much more challenging than having just one, even though there is only one of them here at a time! LOL  I love them dearly, though, so it is worth the disruption.

I've been checking in on all the blogs as often as I can, and have been admiring all the dolls and projects.  I am looking forward to the last weekend of August and Labour Day weekend as I expect to have time to perhaps take Emily out again then. :)

Lilacs!

Lilacs are my very favourite flower.   I love them, and look forward to their blooming every year.  They only bloom for a short time, so we have to enjoy them while we can!

This morning I saw the first of them starting to bloom on the way to work. :)



NOW it is Spring.....

Okay, I'm....puzzled?

Flickr tells me when someone new is following my photostream, and I usually click over to theirs to see if they have interesting pictures, because they quite often do! :)

Today I've got a notice that this person has followed me, and amidst a bunch of nature photography on his photostream, he's posted....one of my pictures of Cairo?  (My original is here.)With no reference to the fact that it's not his picture?

It's not even one of my better pictures of Cairo!  I'm thinking he can't be meaning to claim it as his own, or he wouldn't be following my photostream and attracting my attention.  Maybe he thinks this is like Tumblr, and is trying to re-post content he likes?  In that case, are any of the pictures on his photostream pictures he's taken?


This is just weird.

~~~

Also weird:  The 10cm of snow we got yesterday, which I'm really hoping melts today!

This is where I point out interesting things....

I hadn't any time this weekend for pictures, but I did get some knitting done.  Almost done version...umm, I forget how many...  (Four?  Five?) of the top-down laceweight sweater pattern.  I'm seeing hopefully only one more knit through in my future, as I adjust the pattern for the neck.  LOL

In absense of content, let me point you to a few really neat things:

The April "A Doll A Day" Group on Flickr - The list of prompts is here.  I'm really enjoying seeing the differing interpretations of the prompts.

Icicle directed me to this tutorial for drafting a Pencil skirt, which looks eminently suitable to translating to Minifee size.

While on DoA, I found a link to this relatively new forum for Toy Photography, The Captive Subject.  There's some interesting stuff there. :D

Fairyland has a new event starting on Friday, though there are no details as to what it will be about.  The fact that I am not intending to buy anything does not prevent me from being extremely curious.

Pixie Faire has been doing a freebie every Friday for the last couple weeks.  I got a couple free patterns that way, which will help when I start working on doll clothes for the Nieceling's birthday.   I think they are supposed to have another poll to pick a pattern on Wednesday, and then the pattern chosen will be available for download on Friday only.

Eve Studio Project (the people who make the BJD cats) have an adorable Pug dog available for purchase now, and will soon have a rabbit available as well.  Want something a little more unusual?  They're working on a dragon!

And in other news, our snow and ice is gone!  It's true, now everything is mud and garbage.*   But I think I see buds on one of the trees in the yard, so it's only a matter of time now before Spring really gets going! :)

~~~

*This happens every year.  What exactly do people think happens when they throw their take-out coffee cups and cigarettes into snowbanks?  That they miraculously vanish forever and ever?  Really?  ::headdesk::