Mom is making an apple pie for family's Friday night dessert, while dad is still at work. He is waiting for the last boat to leave. This boat trip seem to be very popular with only 8 pence a ticket and chilled milk & berries at the cafe for excited travelers.
Pillows in the sofa are fluffed, tea and biscuits are ready, elder sister and baby hippo couldn't wait to show new dance steps they have learnt to dad. Little sister is dressed up and looking cute for Friday evening's fun!
I got inspiration for these paper pieced dolls from Kumiko Fujita's book '318 Patchwork patterns'. It is a delicious book with adorable pictures from front page to the last. The patterns are actually meant for hand sewing, but we can tweak them and sketch out on graph paper to turn them into paper piecing patterns.
This girl is in the book but I changed her face and hair style to give her piggy tails.. I find pig tails on little girls extra sweet, even more so when they go up and down swinging to the dance steps!
I was afraid of spoiling their faces if I stitch their eyes with thread, so I thought of sewing black beads but the ones I got turned out too big for the tiny faces. So I couldn't escape this necessary step. It was a relief to see they came out well with twinkly eyes and sparkly smiles ( * v * )
I got a little bit stuck on how to convey the sailing boat feeling. When I was looking through the fabrics I found one border print with clouds. After fussy cutting, it was perfect fit for a boat gently swaying on the waves.
I used regular batting for the inside and plain linen on back side of the mat. Dolls are about 2.5" x 5" in size if I remember correctly. My friend said she likes her tea mats, that made me very happy :)
Thanks so much for visiting! Hope you are enjoying a delightful summer ( ' u ' )
