My First Dotee

dotee doll #1, originally uploaded by poketypatch.

Today I was notified that my little dotee had been received. The recipient, Maggie, was very kind to say she liked the doll. If you are looking for inspiration in order to start handcrafting a dotee, you should definitely check out Maggie's flicker set - crazy for dotees. She has quite a collection!

Dotee Doll Swap

Recently I joined a swap for Dotee dolls.  Happily, this one came in the mail to me from Brandy.  She named her Carla.  Dotee dolls are tiny, handmade cloth dolls (4 to 6 inches).  They have a circular face that can be drawn with markers, embroidered or even painted.  The stuffed doll usually has a hanger made out of ribbon or beads, and a beaded tail (or legs).  The stuffed doll is embellished with beads, ribbon, sequins, yarn...just about anything.  I believe that the craze was started by Dot.  There are lots of tutorials online to help you get started.  There is a video tutorial here and a nice pattern here.  Once you have made a few dolls, you can start swapping!  There are so many swaps on swap-bot.   And, there are lots of pictures on flickr.  I made one for swap as well, but am waiting to post until it is received by its new owner.  

Another fun thing that I like about the swaps on Swap-bot, is the packages usually contain a few "extras".  In addition to the doll, Brandy included a cute, handmade card and a little magnet.  How thoughtful!

PRESIDENT OBAMA

020 - OBAMA, originally uploaded by poketypatch.

I became a living room photographer today as I tried to document this most wonderful day.  With HD tv and a good camera, it is amazing some of the shots you can capture!

Here are some more I took...

The Clintons

The First Lady with the Lincoln Bible

The new First Family

Feeling a little Blue today

So, I am feeling a little blue today.  It has been one of those stressful weeks being a parent.  Sometimes you just need to take a break from parenting...my head hurts from trying to make the right decisions.  It always helps to look at pretty pictures....here are the ones that came up with the tag "blue" on my flickr site...

my blue cornflower

a little blue pengquin

my brown and blue purse

blue flippers on Willy

a blue shirt on Crenshaw

and, beautiful blue eyes on Henry

Okay I feel better now. I love my kids.

Strawberry Swaps

I joined another swap on swap-bot. This is a website that organizes swaps for everything from scrapbooking supplies to atcs to quilt blocks to funny socks! If you look hard enough, you can find a swap for just about everything. There is a deadline to sign up for each swap. After the deadline, I am guessing that a computer program sets people up with their swapping partner. You send out to one partner(s) and receive from another. I have only completed two swaps so far, and I am becoming a little addicted to getting packages filled with fun goodies. 

This one was a pincushion swap. I read my partner's profile and learned that she likes miniatures. She doesn't crochet or knit, and indicated she would like amigurumi. I picked an easy pattern from Amigurumi!: Super Happy Crochet Cute.  This book is full of cool patterns and easy instructions.  I chose an easy strawberry pattern.  I had some strawberry pincushions that were my grandmothers, and these reminded me of them.  I have to say that they were really easy to crochet up, and fun to embellish with felt and little beads.  Here is the finished project.