Lilo and Stitch

As I said earlier, Penny gets a Disney Princess and her sister, June, is getting princess sidekicks.  For June's first Christmas, they got Elsa and Olaf.  This year, they're getting Lilo and Stitch.  I used Carolyn Deangelis' pattern for Leiloni, the Hawaiian girl, and I added some details to make her look more like Lilo.  I've done Leiloni before: 

This is an example of the head being attached to the body in one piece.  Not my favorite look.  There's no chin and she just winds up looking like she's eaten too much Spam. I Googled for images of Lilo and decided this was the direction I wanted to go:

And here's my final product:

I just freehand cut all those little green leaves and individually glued them on.  I know -- the horror.  But they were just too tiny.  Ain't nobody got time for that.  Next, it was on to Stitch.  I simply Googled him and found tons of images.  I looked for the one that was the simplest and would lend itself well to an ornament.  Here is my final product:

And here's a little lesson on perspective and sizing.  If these two ornaments were going to stay together forever, I would've made Stitch substantially smaller than Lilo, like he is in the movie.  But when Penny and June grow up, their ornaments will be on separate trees and I didn't want June to be stuck with a bunch of tiny ornaments.  For that reason, I am making all her ornaments full-size.  Here's what they look like together:

 

Dutch Couple

I haven't done any international people in a while and I decided I wanted to add to that collection.  I like the idea of little groupings within my collection.  I'll make it easier for my kids to divide up the ornaments when I die.  "You get the international people and I get the Peanuts characters."  LOL!

So far, this is what my group includes:

 

Most of those are DeAngelis Patterns -- all except the Thai people and I did them myself.  And once again, I didn't put noses on some of these and I don't know why.  It makes the Thai people look like aliens.  My stitching details have evolved over time.  Anyhoo . . . I was perusing patterns one day looking for something simple and decided to whip up the Dutch Couple:  Dutch Uncle and Della From Delft.  Once again, I drew inspiration from Clif and Ouida.

Clif's Pair

Ouida's Della

You can see that Ouida used the original hair pattern, while I went with an actual braid like I used on the Anna and Elsa Frozen ornaments.  I did a little little Googling and decided to add a white shirt to my Dutch Uncle.  I kinda like Clif's hat with the brim.  Different stitchers add their own unique details!  

Sparkle Angel

I make an angel every year for Audrey.  I've about run through all the DeAngelis angels.  (All the ones I like, anyway.)  I knew I was going to have to design something.  In the meantime, I ordered some new felt from National Nonwovens and they had some new glitter felt.  It's kind of interesting.  The dots are random sizes and sort of scattered irregularly.  I had red, white, and green and I thought it would be perfect for a Christmas angel.  I headed over to Etsy and bought a piece of clipart.  Etsy is my go-to place for clipart because I can't draw.  I thought this was perfect for what I wanted:

I think the sparkles on her dress made me think of the glitter on my felt.  I made a change to the hair for engineering purposes.   I think she turned out great!

DISCLAIMERS:

In case anyone happens by and thinks I've stolen someone else's work or thinks I'm profiting from it:

• I purchased the clip-art.  I did not do a "right click/save as."
• I am not selling a pattern made from this clip-art.  I'm not even giving away a pattern made from this clip-art.  
• I am not selling ornaments made from this clip-art.  

Birthday Party Cake and Moonbeam

A treasured friend of mine has a daughter turning one next week.  Lorraine really treasures the handmade gifts I've made Millie -- like a whole wardrobe of baby doll clothes -- and she has always loved my ornaments.  Two Christmases ago, when Lorraine announced she was having a girl, I made her the Blessed Event ornament:

To be fair, this isn't actually the one I made for Millie.  I had to wait until they arrived with a gender reveal gift and then I quickly wrapped the felt baby in a pink blanket and glued it together right there in front of them . . . aaaaaand forgot to take a picture.  Suffice it to say it looks just like this one but with a pink blanket.  

This past Christmas, I made this ornament for Millie:

In case that looks a little familiar, here's why:

It's actually the Moonbeam mouse ornament.  There's so much you can do with mixing and matching pieces parts of existing patterns.  

For Millie's first birthday, I made her a toddler quilt:

And I also made her this ornament.  It's the Birthday Party Cake pattern.  Just perfect for a 1st birthday gift!  I plan to tie it to the bow on the quilt package.  

And here is sweet Millie with my husband, Scott.  Her party is this Sunday and it's a fiesta theme.  Millie is turning UNO!  Because babies and tacos . . . it's a thing.  

Good Cheers

I do a mouse every year for my mom and I've about run through them all.  And then I started converting bear patterns to mice patterns simply by changing the head.  I Googled, "Christmas mouse" and found an image of a caroling mouse in a top hat.  That immediately made me think of the Carolyn DeAngelis pattern called Good Cheers:

All I had to do was change the head and add some ears and I was in business!  The shape of my house head was actually round like the original pattern.  Something about attaching that hat pulls the sides in right there where they come together.  I'll have to monkey around with that on future patterns.  I know my mom will love him.  

Lucy

I don't know what it is about these Peanuts patterns, but they seem to be kicking my butt.  First, there was the Charlie Brown fiasco where my facial features turned out so bad, I had to take the whole head off and redo it:

Yikes.  I still cringe when I look at that first one.  Snoopy and Woodstock turned out great.  But then I had an issue with Lucy's skirt.  Here was the first round.  

Seriously -- what is wrong with me?  And it looked even worse from the back.  She looked like she was in a gang with her pants sagging.  I wound up taking the whole skirt off and then I had to glue it back on.  GLUE!!!  Oh, the shame.  I can live with it, though, because she looks so much better:

Here's a side-by-side comparison:

Much better!  We'll see if it can get it in gear when I do the rest of the characters in this series.

PLEASE NOTE:  I have never personally communicated with the pattern designer other than to order the pattern.  I didn't receive a free pattern for this post and I'm sure she doesn't even know this blog exists.  I just saw these photos on Pinterest and followed the link.  

Elsa and Frozen

Back in 2015, I started a set of Frozen characters.  I did Anna and Olaf:

Can someone explain why I didn't put a nose on Anna????  I'm gonna have to fix that.  I meant to get to Elsa in 2016, but somehow that didn't happen.  I make a Disney princess each year for my friend's little girl, Penny.  Penny had a baby sister last October and I asked Naomi, their mom, what she'd like me to make for June each year.  She thought princess sidekicks would be good.  That took me back to Elsa.  I made an Olaf for June and then I finally designed an Elsa for Penny and actually made two so Mariah would have one for her set.  I think next year, I'll make Anna for Penny and then get around to designing that pesky reindeer.  What's his name?  Sven?  Something like that.

Since I sort of cobbled this one together from several different patterns, I'm happy to share it with you: