Christmas gifts in the making

I've been forced through time constraints and logistical issues with the children to work on/take pictures of gifts at night with NO natural light. the best thing I could come up with was the romantic glow of our LED Christmas lights, so here we go. just a couple of things  I managed to squeak out for Christmas gifts. 

above is a mini quilt I made for my grandparents. true to my nature, I randomly decided to make it at the last minute, didn't have experience with the technique  needed to do the project, and had to make it at the speed of light. what inspired me to make it was some leftover scraps of batting from making our neighbor a playmat for their baby. I stitched the batting into a rectangle and found some remnants in my horrible tangled beast of a scrap pile. leftovers from the girls' quilt made it in there....the Valori Wells that I have been hoarding, and the kona cotton bone colored solid. both of those fabrics feel exactly the same when you run them between your fingers - good quality. 

the binding is also the kona gray solid from the quilts, and the red is pieces of something (Swedish fabric?) that a friend gave me. 

the colors are all off from having to increase the brightness of my dark nighttime pictures. the red fabric isn't at all pink, and the gray looks more saturated here than in real life.

the idea for the design came from the Purl Bee here: Flying Geese

sorry for the awful pictures. nothing beats daylight. after quilting along the tops of the triangles I ended up with this interesting geometric pattern on the back. this little quilt (16"x21"??)will most likely end up in my grandma's room where she is camped out and bedridden. anyone who wanders into her room will likely be forced to admire my hasty and clueless workmanship.

this is what I came up with in hopes of producing an "Angelina Ballerina" for the girls. she is rather small, but she IS a mouse. her body is also made of kona cotton in bone, and I embroidered her little face on in black thread. honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to making dolls, but it was 40$ for an Angelina doll on Amazon. no freakin way. 

Angelina Ballerina

I was hoping to make one for each of them, but I don't think that will be happening in time for Christmas. Definitely at some point though. And then I would like to make a "Cousin Henry" and "Alice" too. the Angelina stories are pretty sweet, and I love the artwork in the original books. this doll is not anything near perfect but I think the girls will really like her anyway. feeling a little handmade doll in your hands is something special...I just hope she lasts more than one day with all of her limbs intact....she must look at least something like the Angelina in the books because Violet just walked by the computer and exclaimed "NANNA!" which is what she calls Angelina. Lol!

 to go along with their Angelina doll and the 2 books we got them, I also made the girls each a tutu. these tutus will be photographed after they are unwrapped and worn in daylight. tulle and satin ribbon, as it turns out, look hideous at night under artificial lighting....

so all of their Angelina gear is wrapped and then wrapped again together to make sure they open it all at once.

let's just call her crooked whiskers "charming"