Introducing Baby Petunia

For this birthday gal turning 4, I made another doll for her.  Each of my girls has two now.   And each is a little different.  We are all about diversity here.  This is Baby Petunia.  I was going for Baby Zinnia, but she liked Petunia better.  Every doll made by me has a flower name...it's tradition.  I'm glad Clara didn't want to break it.

You might recognize the dress as a mini one of these too.  My birthday gal introduced Petunia to Lily and assured me that they are friends (typing that, I just realized the Harry Potter correlation...how funny.  I had thought of Petunia being HP's aunt and that is why I wanted Zinnia instead.  I forgot about her other doll being Lily until now...and she is a red head too).

A Rose by any other Name...

Lily, Rose (Ellie the Elephant) and Violet

--and cute Clara in the backround pushing the stroller much too close to me for me to get her in the shot

I said there was a story behind the flower names, so I thought I'd post this cute picture of all 3 dolls and tell the story. Way back when I was pregnant with Sophia, just after we found out we were having a girl, we started the name game of trying to agree on a name. Phil and I have always had much different opinions on girls names. Just to give you an idea, it came down to either Sophia or Melia (taken from the name Amelia). Two really different sounding names. Anyway. On the weekend days that Jakob woke up early (which is every day), we would have him crawl into bed with us and sometimes we would have him come up with names for his little sister. I remember that some were crazy ones taken from characters in books and his imagination, but the one that got the best laugh was when he suggested the name "Rose". Not a bad sounding name, until you put it with our last name and say it fast. It starts to sound like rose bud and images of 'Citizen Kane' flood my head. When Jakob suggested it, the first thing we did was say it together with our last name and then we started laughing and couldn't stop. I just remember how good it felt to have a good, long, belly laugh. And of course I could never think of using that name without getting a case of the giggles, so we never seriously considered it, but Jakob was set on it for a long time...really until we told him we settled on Sophia 2 days after she was born.

Fast forward 1 1/2 years, Sophia was getting her first Magic Cabin doll for Christmas and Jakob again said that we should use the name 'Rose', after all, she had red hair. So Rose it was and then she went back and named her yellow haired doll 'Daisy' (she's not in the picture and is the only non-Magic Cabin doll she has). When she got her dark haired doll, she picked the name Violet (our yard was always full of those in Spring time and Sophia loved to pick them). When it came time to name Clara's doll of course we had to come up with a flower name and we already have a name picked out for her second doll that will come in a year or two. So that's the story of the flower names. I also have to say that I'm so glad I have been picky about the gathering of dolls. Sophia has her 3 dolls all hand made and loves them very much. She still cuddles with them at night, dresses them up and pretend plays with them. Clara is already doing the same and I'm going to try my best to limit her dolls to the ones I've made for her.

The Other Two

Now time to tell what I made for the other two. Jakob got the book cover and Sophia got the quilt. While those two projects were fun in their own way, these two were especially fun, because I was bringing something to life in my own way.

Clara has been sleeping and using one of Sophia's Magic Cabin dolls on loan for a couple of months now. It was decided way back in the summer that she would get one of these dolls for Christmas, so Sophia was happy to make a temporary loan. After finally deciding on the coloring of the doll, which went through many changes until I finally decided on something similar, but not quite the same as the one she was borrowing, I ordered it. The kit arrived and sat...funny that this is the one present that I knew I was going to make way back in July, but it was the last one I made. Baby Lily, as she has been named by the older 3 (all of the dolls have flower names...there's a story behind that) was made in a couple of late nights the week before Christmas. I went with the 'Anne of Green Gables' look. Clara loves her. Here she is opening her Christmas morning:

And here she is lying on the quilt that I made to go with her. Again I used some pieces from another embroidered pillow cases.
For Ethan I went with felt animals. He's been asking for some and I think he really liked these. He got a rabbit, squirrel, beaver, robin, cardinal, turtle and penguin. (The basic critter pattern was created by Valerie, the turtle pattern was from a book I checked out at the Nashville Public Library...I know I wrote the title down somewhere and just can't find it and the penguin pattern I think I got from Valerie as well, but I think she got this one from somewhere else)
Can you tell these are all from the same pattern? He's declared the squirrel his favorite.

Little and Lovely

Here is what I have been making--a bunch of doll quilts. Except for one small zip lock bag with green strips and a bag of dark blues and navies, which didn't seem to work as a doll quilt and a couple of other random scraps that just didn't go with anything else, I used up all of my scraps smaller than a fat quarter. My mom is headed to a craft show in WV (Harper's Ferry, I think) so she is going to try and sell them there. Here's a collage of the various quilts.

Sophia's favorite, the crazy one at the top of the turquoise picture; my favorite, the ones in blue. Hopefully, some little girls go home happy from the craft show.