Creating One of My Many Cloth Dolls

I thought it might be fun to show the process of creating one of my many cloth dolls; so here she is on the sewing machine finally being put together. In this step I am sewing the head to the front of the body using muslin and I have already embroidered the facial features a few weeks back.




Okay now the front of the body is ready to be attached to the backside of the body. Now onto other body parts such as the arms and the legs. What I am doing here is sewing the arms onto the body front and when I turn it the arms will be sewn to the inside of the front and back of the body.






This is the completed body of the doll who will be 23 inches long. Now onto the hair, bloomers and dress. Yup that is Oreo's pound puppy sitting on the table ( my baby dog)




This is the cloth doll with the completed dress and hair added to her, she is coming out pretty cute....




This is the finished rag cloth doll, and I will be adding her to my other blog so that the doll or the pattern can be purchased and I will also be naming her and talking more about her at It's Just Krazy Kute Productions

A Recipe for Potato Soup/stew

I love potato soup/stew and so with a little experimenting I like using my crock pot to make this.
You can do this either way; but my family likes the potatoes with the peel on, and I know some people don't like the peel so if you don't peel your potatoes.
For my family I use about 9-12 potatoes and the large the better, I slice the potatoes at a angle and toss them in the crock pot with 4-6 cups of water, depending on how large your family is but if you end up with extra you can freeze it for another meal.
I love adding caned milk or regular milk can be used, add 2 small chopped onions, and you can add cooked up bacon, sausage, hamburger(cooked) celery, basil, peas, carrots, in this case I add onion, already cooked hamburger and basil.
You can add whatever you and your family like, I want to mention the canned milk really gives it a good favor and you should add at least 2 cans to your crock pot. Check on it from time to time just to stir and add about a tsp of flour for a more thicker sauce if you would like or just leave it as is and have a thinner soup/stew.
Now set your crock pot to low( start this early in the day) and let it cook all day long, serve with corn bread or sourdough toast,buttermilk biscuits and a green salad.

Busy Crocheting last Night

Well gosh, last night was so nice and warm but quiet that I had to find something to do. So I double some yarn I had called Country creme and make 2 small baskets from the yard.
They came out quite interesting doubling the yarn and using a small crochet hook.
I used a double, triple and decreased a stitch here and there; the larger basket is about 9 inches tall and the smaller between 4 1/2 to 5 inches tall. I did these up as I was watching Step-Brothers and Hancock both were okay....
Guess I am just an old fan of classic movies I love Abbott and Costello in met Frankenstein and Dracula.
I like new movies also, I just did not care for the language content in Step-Brothers, I like some things left to imagination I guess. So you can call med an old FUD dud.




I also have the new doll I am going to make this weekend all cut out and ready to go. I did her face in cotton embroidery floss by hand already now all I have to do is start sewing everything together, she is going to be a fairly large cloth doll and she will be small kid safe.

Computer Woes Again

Well it is nice to be back, on my computer which crashed on me almost 2 weeks ago. Now you all kind of know what happened or why I disappeared good grief, that's why I have not been talking about the new doll I am creating.
This crash also was not good for my online school, yikes right now I have an F in biology because I could not upload my assignment so I am working hard to change that.
It was a bad crash also; the tech had to re-register my computer and just put on new protection, no it did not have a virus, just not sure what made the darn thing crash, it will just have to remain a mystery. On to a more positive note....

We cooked out doors the last two days because of all this nice weather and so I am going to share a simple recipe for my homemade sauce.
The sauce is really simple just chop an red onion and chop a green pepper into small pieces and you will need:
1 cup of heavy dark molasses
1/2 to a cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup to 1 cup of Ketchup (depending on how much you need.)
Tabasco sauce about 1/2 a tsp.
1/2 of 57 sauce
Mix everything in a small bowl until well combined; you should have a nice thick sauce to spread over chicken, ribs, steaks, and now grill away.
This is a bit spicy so if you don't like lots of spice leave out the Tabasco sauce. Use a brush to brush onto your meats and when its done it will have a dark rich looking glaze. This is really yum on any kind of meat product.

A Few New Things and Things to work on

I just finished these two tiny kittens from some scrapes of fabric I had laying around the large cat measures 8x10 inches and the smaller cat is 6x8.
They both are my own original designs, both have been stained to look much aged and there are small black beads for eyes and embroidery for for the noses.
Both cats are filled with fiber fill, they are not really for small children but those just young at heart.
What I did was to just free hand draw on to some paper and cut the patterns of the kitties out and trace onto some cotton fabrics and the rest is just imagination.



This is the smaller kitten 6x8 and I call him MOE




Now the larger cat I call BEBOP and he is the 8x10
Oh yes I wanted to mention that small wall quilt with all the black crows so here is a picture of the finished quilt I started a while back. The quilt is also dimensional in that the one wing is free from the quilt in that it is not sewn to the quilt or I guess one might call it depth perspective.
You can can find the quilt on my small store in Artfire or by looking at the bottom and clicking on my Artfire window.
Right now I am working on a new rag cloth doll that will be for young and older but still young at heart. This doll is from a very vintage pattern and in a few days I will share the steps to making her or how I will complete her, right now she is all cut out and sitting by my sewing machine ready to go.

A Couple of Recipes to Share with You

I am going to share a yummy idea for some broiled pork steaks.
In a medium bowl add 1 cup of corn syrup
1/2 of a sliced yellow onion also separate the onion
1 cup of tomato sauce
1 tsp of A-1 sauce
1tsp Chili sauce
black pepper
salt
1 cup of brown sugar
Brush and pour over steaks and broil about 8-10 minutes on each side or until they look done through and through; be sure to coat both sides with sauce. These steaks will come out a bit on the spicy side but they are quite good; serve with cheese corn bread, and a green salad and you are ready to go.







Now for desert.......
What you will need is one box of white cake mix
1 can of Ruby Red Squirt soda pop
Pour half of soda pop into cake mix and blend well and pour into a grease 9x11 cake pan; bake until close to being done.
Now take the rest of the pop and mix 2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar mix thoroughly together; take cake out and pour over cake, place back in over until took pick pulls out clean. This makes a nice treat after dinner and the cake is so moist and sweet that you will not need to top this with anything else.
The powdered sugar and pop make a type of candy coating over the top of the cake and hardens just slightly.

Finshed Old Red dog

I had some fun with this McCall's pattern, I used some red rayon stretch fabric that was textured bumpy and fur like . I made the body out of this fabric and then I used my wood wax stain to make the dog look stained and old looking. I took the wood wax and a old cloth and rubbed a a dab of wax onto the fabric, the effect came out pretty interesting looking. I filled the dog with fiber fill and sewed blue buttons on for eyes, added the bow which is sewn into the head a bit, finally I used 4 strands of black cotton floss to create the nose.
It was a simple pattern with a new idea to create an aged old red dog, this is not for a small child but for those who are older but still young at heart.