more birthdays, more sewing

The holiday season is in full swing here. With back to school followed closely by C's birthday, then K's birthday and Halloween and P's birthday at the end of January, we are busy busy busy from September clean on through to February. Now that my kids are old enough to get exctied - and request costumes! - I find myself looking forward to the day after Halloween the way I once looked forward to the day after Christmas. In fact, I'm starting to think that the tradtional holiday season of Thanksgiving though Christmas will be something of a break after two birthdays and Halloween! Meanwhile, pushing on. There are two little ones who have been quite neglected in our house. That would be Mary and Chelsea, K's favorite baby dolls. I've been meaning to rectify that for some time, but her 2nd birthday tomorrow finally gave me the needed motivation.

When she dives into her presents tomorrow morning, she'll have a tiny stack of sorely needed doll clothes. Mary and Chelsea are both 12" huggable things. Mary is Melissa and Doug, a gift from Grandma last Christmas and Chelsea is Corelle, a gift Mommy brought back from the Weekend Sewing Workshop last May. (I was staying at a hotel in Chelsea, hence the name.)  While Kitty struts the town in mostly couture ensembles, her poor babies are laying around in the very ratty pj's they came in!

It's hard to come by 12" doll clothes patterns, but I found M4338 at the last Joann sale. It doesn't look like much on the envelope, but the pieces are basic with lots of options. They have a roomy fit, which I think is probably going to make dressing easier. I had just enough of this scrap of Lisette dragonflies to copy her 2+2 blouse.

I used a vintage Simplicity pattern for the yellow pants and to copy her mommy and girl Picnic blouse. The vintage patterns seem to be short in the arms and legs. That didn't matter here, since I wanted the 3/4 sleeves, but I'm not sure I'll use it again. It seems to be for a different kind of doll.

Back to the McCalls again for this dress, to match her brand new Music Box Jumper,

And also for this dress, squeezed out of the scraps remaining from her red voile dress. The denim and red floral dresses for K were already made from scraps from *my* dresses, so we're going to all have to be careful not to overdo it on the matchy matchy, you know? I'm in fact, wearing that red voile Washi as I type and I promise to share all those details just as soon as the photos get back from my photographer. For now, I'm off to wrap presents and ice her pink chocolate cake!