Christmas projects

Christmas isn't Christmas for me unless there are a few hand created Christmas projects. This year I made "fancy" dresses for my granddaughters and their American Girl dolls. I used the sewing patterns which were sold 20+ years ago when the American Girl dolls were first introduced by Pleasant Company. Fortunately, these patterns have been converted to a PDF format and are available on the Internet. This dress was adapted from Addy's tartan plaid fancy dress pattern.

I found the beautiful blue duponi silk in a remnant bin and had just enough for three dresses. I used a different color silver edged ribbon in the galloon lace to differentiate each dress. Each girl also received a pair of dressy black doll shoes and a Christmas accessory AG kit which included a miniature version of "The Night Before Christmas" by Jan Brett, a purse, a necklace, and some earrings.

The pattern directed that the sleeves be gathered with elastic. I've found that the elastic stretches out over time, so I adapted the sleeves to have a narrow band lined with ribbon trim.

I also found some silver fringe to add to the ribbon sash, just like the one on Addy's dress.

My son-in-law, Andrew, and daughter, Janae, also made the girls American Girl doll beds.

The garage workshop was a busy place as they cut, sanded and sanded some more, and then painted these adorable stacking beds. They can easily sit on each other to form bunk beds. So cute! My daughter also sewed together mattress pads and pillows.

This is my special "just for me" project. The wool nativity is large, about 12 X 30 inches. I used this pattern from Under the Garden Moon to create it from wool pieces. My son-in-law made me a custom frame while he had the miter saw going in the garage. My daughter painted the frame with Martha Stewart gold paint with a darker wipe off glaze. It will look beautiful on my golden wheat hued living room wall next Christmas.

Next step? Vacuum and sweep up all that sawdust!