That horrible moment . . .

When you realize your child's lovie needs washing . . .

And then your child figures out what's going on . . . .

. . . I only wish I'd had the camera on hand for the reunion. You've never seen such love and adoration.

Baa baa black sheep, have you any wool?

This adorable little lamb baby is one of the best things I ever stumbled across. 

 For those of you who are intermediate - advanced level artists with a sewing machine, this pattern is absolutely worth the time and effort.

 I say intermediate - advanced level not because the pattern is exceptionally difficult, but because it assumes a lot. There is no hand holding taking place with this pattern, and there really doesn't need to be -- but if you're the type of person who wants to know exactly how many inches down the body to tie off the head, you'll be pretty frustrated with this one. If you're the type of person who likes to tackle a pattern and make it your own, you'll ADORE this pattern.

I, for one, loved making this lamb. I foresee many, many more in my future.

The pattern can be purchased here.

More dolls!

If you can believe it, the Christmas rush is well underway here at Making Friends. I'm busy enough right now that I've closed rush custom orders and I'm currently taking orders for delivery in October.

Allow me to share with you my last 2 custom Waldorf orders - shipped in the last 2 weeks.

The sad thing for me about a rush job is that I don't really get time to get to know the dolls, bond with them, really fall in love with them. But then I remind myself that it's not important how I feel about the doll (beyond being able to take pride in my work), what's important is how the kid/adult getting the doll feels about it. 
Here's Lola. She was ordered on Monday evening, and shipped on Thursday. How's that for a speedy turn-around time??

With a rush order, I have to work with whatever I have on hand -- so that's one VERY good thing about them! There's no time to just wander through the fabric store, or to visit the yarn shop -- which is good, because I have a plethora of amazing fabrics and yarns already. Look at Lola's hair -- isn't it fabulous? I had that yarn just waiting for the right doll. I might never have used it for fear of not having it on hand anymore (sounds silly when I put it in words) but Lola needed curly blonde hair. And here we are :)

Then there was Carolyn. I was contacted by a mom with a little girl having a birthday in late August. She knew she had left it to the last minute, but did I think I could possibly complete a rush order for her daughter's birthday?

Ordered on  Monday, shipped on Friday. This one was more of a challenge - there's a lot of hand-work on this body style! Couple that with the fact that I don't usually have black hair yarn on hand . . . I actually had to raid my knitting stash for this one, so there are some premium, fancy-shmancy yarns on this doll's head.

And her dress fabric is one of those "I can't use this! I'll run out" things again. It's pretty perfect on Carolyn though, don't you think?
And yes, I totally ran out. And I'm fine with that. There's a whole bin of gorgeous fabrics here waiting to be used.

It would seem I neglected to share this adorable baby dragon with you.

This one is all natural. Stuffed with wool, made with cotton fabrics, and some lamb . . . I love her little snout.

Apparently Boober approves of baby dragons. One of these days I'll show you the behind the scenes images from a Making Friends photo shoot.

There are lots more baby dragons coming. Stay tuned for more images! I have lots more to show and share.