Kit's room

So for her birthday we got my daughter a longed-for American Girl doll. I think these are just very expensive, but we've both enjoyed some of the books. And my girl really wanted one and it was lovely to be able to get the doll for her.

Anyway, one of my concerns was where to keep the doll. They're big -- 18" tall. Most kids I've seen with them keep them on top of some surface -- a dresser or a bookcase or something -- but she doesn't have that furniture in her room. So we decided to use the 3' space at the end of her bed as Kit's room, a place for her to keep the doll and accoutrements and to play with her.


The only problem with this idea was that the door to the attic is on the facing wall so we had to be able to access it. Also, because the space is so small we wanted as few obstructions as possible -- i.e., no legs. So we made a deep shelf out of plywood and hinged the supports. So when we want to get into the attic the table folds down.


We can even still hang up her play tent when the table is folded out of the way. In use, the table is fine for putting the bed on, dressing the doll, etc. It's not sturdy enough to lean on or draw at -- there's too much play in the hinges. I think if we decided it needed to be stronger we'd think about putting fold-down legs just in the front corners.

You get a peak here at some of the clothes I made for Kit. The Frannie dress pattern for girls includes a version for an 18" doll; that's my favorite thing I made so far.

Easter rabbits 2011

This year's Easter rabbits weren't quite ready on time -- the kids got them Easter morning but they were naked.

These went together easily, as they really should since I've now made 6 of these Gail Wilson rabbits. The only real problem was that the oatmeal linen I used was kind of thick so the girl rabbit's pinafore was a tight fit over it before I let out the seams.

The pink wool is leftovers from a coat I made years ago. I didn't have a good fabric for the inner ears so I used the same pink and needle felted on some cream and brown roving. It looks cute; we'll see if it holds up. . .

Easter rabbits

I love this pattern from Gail Wilson. These rabbits are made of wool, stuffed with wool, have button joints and tiny button eyes. The pattern comes with the clothes too, and even pantalets for the girl bunny.

I made these in 2009 for the kids' Easter basket. All the fabrics were leftovers and everything went together smoothly. Then in 2010 I made these:



I like the colors on these but the head shape isn't so good. I think the fabric I used -- some long-ago leftover black wool crepe -- stretched lengthwise more than widthwise so I couldn't get the nose to stuff outwards and instead the heads just grew. I still think they're cute.

The problem now is that the kids want rabbits for 2011 too!

Favorite toys -- wooden trains

Hands-down, wooden trains were the toy that got the most play at our house for about 5 years, starting when my boy was 1.5. For years they got so much use that we kept them in the living room; Daddy or I built a layout nearly every day.

We eschewed a train table; our layouts were just too big. Sometimes they wouldn't even fit in the living room and would snake around the dining room table too.

These days the trains do get less use; they're in the upstairs playroom now. But they still come out every month -- and now the kids build the layouts themselves.

We started out with Brio trains but around 3 years old my boy started asking for Thomas engines. I was resistant -- why add to commercialism? -- but came around. Having engines with names added another dimension to their play -- at the height of their train interest the kids acted out story lines from the original books and made up their own stories about interactions between the various engines.