If you are a doll maker you simply will not believe what I have found… 10″ doll needles! Yep, you heard me correctly TEN INCHES! What’s even better is the diameter of these lovely needles… they are a size 4/0 diameter sewing needle… 0.072 inches or 1.83 millimeters thick.

“So what?” you say. I’ll tell you sew what… for those who like doing button joints these needles will fit through the eye of an average button and their super long length makes them great for button jointing really big dolls.

If you’ve ever made a big doll and have been faced with the challenge of joining arms, legs, etc. through a wide doll body you’ll know what a pain it is to use a 4 to 6″ long doll needle which only makes it half way through the body making it so that you’d have to push the needle through half of the body and out through the centre of the back and back into the doll again only to come out the other shoulder… sewing it this way has always made it difficult to get the right amount of tension through the shoulder or the hip of the doll in order to get the doll tightly jointed.

So where did I find these spledid needles… I found a needle company in India who makes them and ordered them direct from the factory. This was no small feat, but was totally worth it. I now have enough needles to enclose a needle in each of my doll kits and to sell some inividually. If you’re interest in buy one of these incredible needles, please drop me a line using the contact page. Needles are $3.00 Canadian + shipping.

This weekend I was up to Barrie visiting a friend & didn’t have the chance to get out Garage Sale-ing. Instead I stopped at one of my fave local antique malls – Roadshow 400 Antiques.

Normally I have a really tough time getting out of the mall for under $50, but since I’m effectively between jobs I challenged myself to keep it cheap. I saw tons of things that made me drool including these two beautiful Wades…

The pitcher was selling for $295.00 and “Peg” was priced at $40.00… a fair price for either item, but out of my range for this particular trip.

What I did come away with was the little booklet in the image at the top of this page – The Canadian Red Cross Society: Knitting Instructions for War Work.

Published some time during the Second World War, this booklet contains patterns for all the knit goods required by the Canadian Army, Navy and Air Force including the following;

• Socks
• Knee Caps
• Gloves
• Half Mitts
• Broadcast Wristlets
• Rifle Mitts
• Whole Mitts
• Two-way Mitts
• Plain Knitted Scarves
• V-neck Sleeveless Sweater
• High Neck Sleeveless Sweater
• Plain Helmet
• Steel Helmet Cap
• Turtle Neck Tuck-in
• Balaclava (with chest and back piece)
• Ribbed Helmet
• Quebec Helmet
• Pullover with Turtle Neck and Sleeves
• Men’s Convalescent Jackets
• Lightweight Amputation Covers
• Seaman’s Stockings
• Sea Boot Stockings
• Areo Cap & Helmet

There are no illustrations of what these patterns work up to look like. When I get a chance I shall have to work through them to see how they all work up.

If you’d like to see the patterns & try them yourself, I have scanned the booklet as a PDF. Be forewarned, its a huge file. With 18 pages its approximately 31 MB. If you try any of these patterns, please send me a photo so that I can add it to this site (with appropriate credit given and reciprocal links where requested).

So how much did this little gem cost? $3.15

Happy Knitting!

Since the beginning of January, Mum has started co-ordinating group crafts for the MGVC Monday morning general interest group.  They started with penny rugs & now (in time for Easter) Mum has put together a crochet project.

Aren’t they so cute?! These are two Crochet Chick and Eggs that Mum made for Easter when I was probably about six or seven years old. In advance of her interest group mini-class she’s made about eight more of these little guys as samples which she’s also planning to sell at the next MGVC monthly meeting with the left overs to be posted on Etsy.

The pattern for these cute little fellows is an oldie, but a goodie. This pattern is called “Happy Easter Animals” and Mum clipped it from Women’s Day magazine back in March 1978. I’ve scanned the pattern as a PDF. There is also a Pom-pom Chick, Sailor Duck and Baby Bunny included in the pattern as well. Feel free to download the pattern and give it a try.

I remember loving these when I got them. I was the type of kid who always had a doll in my pocket & these reminded me a little of Smooshies (a squishy little pocket plushy popular in the 1980s).

Included along with the pattern was a cute little poem titled “What is a PET?” from the book For Those Who Love Pets by Mary Catherine Shannon.

A pet is a playmate, a patrner, a pleasure
Who brightens your life from the start –
A lovable, laughable, huggable treasure
Who wins a warm place in your heart.

A pet is a jester, a trickster, a teaser
Who’s always prepared to perform –
A pouncer, a bounder, a fetcher, a pleaser
Whose greeting is welcome and warm.

A pet is a blessing for so many reasons,
A gift of delight that endures –
A faithful companion, a friend for all seasons
Whose home, now and always, is yours!

I’ve often been asked where I get my ideas or where I learned to sew, draft patterns etc. The easy answer is that I learned it all in theatre school (in my early 20s), but I’ve been thinking lately that there were a lot of important lessons I learned at an early age which provided me with the tools and mindset that made that kind of learning easier later in life.

Probably the best tool that I had as a child was a book by Eric Merinat called Les Marionnettes de Papier.

I can’t rightly remember where my Mum found the book. Whether it was at a garage sale or at a bookfair – all I remember was that I’ve had the book for longer than I have been able to read French. The book is a collection of very well illustrated whimsical paper marionette patterns. What this book did really well was to illustrate how flat pattern pieces become three dimentional forms.  The pattern pieces were all shown on a grid and Mum showed me how to copy them out by hand and I rolled, folded, glued and taped little penguins, bunnies, ballerinas, clowns and indian princesses to my heart’s content. It wasn’t long before I got a sense that I could borrow elements from each pattern to try and make things that weren’t in the book. I did this with varying degrees of success. Some projects didn’t work out, but others (like my John Smith and Pocahontas puppets) won best of show ribbons at the Markham Fair. Even now I still find myself going back to this book for ideas and pattern shapes.

To the best of my knowledge, there was only one edition of the book and it is only available in French. However, should you ever come across it I would suggest that the pictograms are good enough to make it a worthwhile purchase. Every kid should have a copy of this book in their craft space and teachers would be wise to give it a try. At first it may look complicated, but trust me it took my cut and paste to a whole new level and gave me a head start for when I started to draft my own patterns because it helped me start to think of flat shapes as potential three dimensional forms.

Having done a quick search online, there are a few copies still available on Alibris.com

If you’re not quite following what I’m talking about, check out the following videos:

• Card Weaving on and Inkle Loom by ijpmck (Youtube)
• Birka, brocade with silk and silver tablet weaving by Birkvaever (Youtube)

I’m not ready to start into this yet, but you can bet that this summer I’ll be up to my elbows in it.