Hi everyone,
A few of you asked about my sprained hand… it’s better…a lovely yellow color with a bit of purple going down my pinkie… look at the wrinkles!!! Goodness gracious, where’s the Jergens???
Barbara sent me some WONDERFUL pictures and you are going to love them!! Here is her email explaining them. ENJOY!!!
Hi, Jeanne,
I finally got the Splash Party photoshoot done. Hopefully this will help you some during your time crunch so I tried to keep it simple. The pool was made from a Matilda Jo pattern. She used to sell on Pixie Faire but has her own site now. The liner is recommended for rip-stop nylon but I could not find a piece big enough. I used leftover PUL from making diaper covers and it worked fine. It reminds me of a lot of the backyard pools I’ve seen. The frame is cpvc.
The girls are wearing the new swimsuits I sewed for them. They wanted to make sure they were all seen (fully, their word not mine) so they insisted on a picture together outside the pool. Pictured left to right are Betsy, Barbara, Taylor Jane, Janeen, Amelia Dawn, Cleo Patrice, Fallon and Chloe Danielle. Greer Adele and Claire are seated because their hair kept getting in the face of the girls standing next to them. Not to mention I needed a couple to sit to fit them all in the picture and those two seemed the most obvious.
Greer Adele, Janeen, and Amelia Dawn showing off their tushie ruffles. Claire is showing off her bow.
Everybody into the pool. Well maybe not everybody since we would have needed a bigger pool.
Sara helping Stevie Pilar (aka Mini Sara) learn how to swim. Betsy’s cousin Barbara is helping her sibling Linda to swim. Hubby says it looks like they are trying to drown them. I told him it takes imagination to interpret the scenes correctly. I ran out of time so Camille and Kendall are looking on wearing swimsuits by Etsy shop Menabella.
Betsy and Barbara are on a swim team and decided to practice wearing their bright pink swim team suits. Amelia Dawn, Greer Adele and Claire are cheering them on.
No splash party is complete without a beach ball toss. Siblies Bailey and Sydney are joining in the fun with Greer Adele and Amelia Dawn. Watching the fun is Claire, Jane Tonner, Sara and Hanna. Sara and Hanna’s swimsuits were also purchased from the Etsy shop Menabella.
About Menabella. The shop makes beautiful swimsuits for 18” dolls and Wellies (they also fit RRFF). If your dolly girls need swimsuits it’s a wonderful shop to know about.
Thanks, Barbara
Thank you Barbara… I feel cooler already! Your swimsuits turned out so cute! You did a great job on them! Love the pool and your water!
See you,
Blessings, Jeanne
Oh, what wonderful and fun pictures, Barbara!! Thanks so much for all the work I’m sure it took getting them all dressed and set up in the various scenes (not to mention building that pool!!). It’s nice to see the older girls are trying to teach the little ones how to swim!! It’s an important skill, and better to learn at an early age than to wait until your 30+ like I did!!
Barbara, in regard to your comment yesterday about my being flexible….sometimes I just have no choice!! LOL I kind of have to choose my battles these days, and I also know that, with his cognitive impairment, Ron can change his mind fairly often sometimes. Ron used to love spicy foods, but that has changed in the last few years; as my dad would have put it, his “taster” has changed! This can be challenging, because sometimes something he once loved no longer appeals to him! (And I, too, sometimes check on the weather reports for my old home town in Upper Michigan!)
Karen, thanks for your comments about Ron’s pressure sores. His problem is, he doesn’t move enough, but since he’s been in this adult family home, I think he’s getting up and moving around more frequently. Still, once those pressure sores get started, it can take a while to get rid of them. He had this problem once before, and does have Silvadene cream to put on them, which works quite well.
Thanks, Charlotte. So glad you liked the pictures. I didn’t “learn” to swim until I was in high school. I nearly drowned when I was a toddler and thanks to the quick thinking of my five years older cousin I didn’t. She saw me jump in the water and reached in and pulled me up by the hair. This may have stuck with me because I would not take my feet off the bottom of a pool for years, and we only had wading pools in our backyard so that wasn’t a problem. I found I could swim in high school due to motivation. We had a pool in our high school so for PE sophomores had to take swimming. If you had Red Cross or some other training you were a white cap and kind of acted like a lifeguard. If you could not swim you had to wear a red cap (and they were ugly). No way I was wearing an ugly red cap and being looked after by the white caps. Otherwise you were a blue cap and that’s where I intended to be, but you had to swim the full length of an Olympic size pool. So I jumped in and swam the full length of a pool for the first time in my life. We made sure our children could swim from an early age and they were even on swim teams when they were young.
You mentioned Silvadene cream. That stuff is like a miracle for burns. My daughter walked into the exhaust pipe of our riding mower when she was little and it left a mark that would have made a huge scar on her thigh. A woman I worked with mentioned it once because her daughter had scalded herself with boiling water and the doctor recommended the cream. We got some and the results were amazing. No scarring whatsoever.
Thanks for sharing the great scenes with the pool and all the fashionable swim suits. What a lot of imagination and work went into it by all. Everyone sure has enjoyed it. Thanks again 🥰
Oh Barbara, what a delightful swim party! Such cute little swimsuits and that view showing the back of the suits is adorable! Made me laugh! In fact I laughed a lot at the cute shenanigins! What a fun group! I loved the pictures of the “swim lesson”, and remembered my time learning how to swim at the YMCA with my Brownie troop. We all started at the shallow side of the pool and gradually worked down to the deeper side as we made progress, but, guess who never made it out of the shallow side? Yes, me!! I still remember practicing putting my face in water in the bathroom sink and then trying to open my eyes, but it never panned out. As I look on your cute scenes, I think you need a handsome lifeguard! Don’t you have a boy doll? Swimming trunks should be a piece of cake for you! Next project could be a lifeguard chair setup high where he could see what was going on! Ha, ha!
That pool is wonderful! I was thinking (before seeing ) that it was an inground pool, which I don’t think works as well with dolls. Yours is so realistic and what little girls would be using anyway. I guess it collapses? The monkey pattern is just darling and works so well with your group! You did a super job and I enjoyed the “show” very much! thank you for sending it in!
Jeanne, oh my, your hand! I hope it gets better as the days go on. I hope George is continuing to improve and prayers for both of you!
Thanks, Linda. So glad you enjoyed the event. Made me want to put on my swimsuit and join in but the girls told me I would take up too much room. I’m thinking of a lifeguard chair. The woman who created the pool also did a lifeguard chair with pvc and I found another place yesterday with a pattern for the perfect ladder done with pvc. They’re on my agenda. Sorry no male dolls in my collection. Mostly because i like sewing for the girls. I loved sewing for my son but when it came to dolls I’d rather sew girl things. There is an “inground” pool for 18″ dolls but it’s just a flat piece of plastic and I wanted something more. My pool is not collapsible but it does come apart since I opted not to glue the pieces together. Right now I have a place to put it so it will stay up.
Your pool party looks so fun, Barbara! I especially like Sara helping Stevie Pilar.
I hope your hand isn’t hurting much, Jeanne!
Thanks for your kind comments yesterday, everyone! They are appreciated.
Barbara – what great pictures !! It’s so fun to see your girls playing and standing around the pool you made. The girls sure need it today!! What a clever way to create the pool and the water! The whole scene is wonderful and the girls appear to be having lots of fun.
Thank you for letting us see the pool party.
Jeanne, hope you hand isn’t still painful.
Thanks Paula. Glad you enjoyed seeing them all enjoying themselves.
Thanks so much Karen. So glad you enjoyed the pool party. Yes, I thought that was sweet of Sara to help Stevie Pilar, especially since the pool is very deep for her. In my imagination Stevie Pilar is Sara’s four-year old sister and they love spending time together.
Barbara I am very impressed with all the time and work you put into this! Thank you so much for sharing, you girls are awesome and the pool is really great!
Thanks, Sissy. I’m glad I finally got it done. It has been in my imagination for quite some time. Now it’s fun going back and looking at the pictures.
Dear Jeanne, I am so happy that your hand is improving! (Were you able to read my email?)
Thanks for sharing Barbara’s photos. The girls are certainly having fun in the pool.
I’m always grateful for Jeanne’s willingness to share our creativity. Wouldn’t be as much fun if I couldn’t share things with my Sofa Sisters. Glad you enjoyed the event.
I love Barbara’s monkey pool! It turned out wonderfully. The size is perfect too. And your use of that sparkle water stuff is such a great idea. The girls can actually float! And that beachball floats too! What an all around fabulous idea. So, the outside and inside of the pool are made from that plastic diaper lining stuff? After seeing your pool, I’ve about scrapped the idea I had of using cardboard. Yours looks so much more realistic. And the suits are so cute. I actually, went to the site and bought a couple a few minutes ago. Other person will have a big fit! Thanks Jeanne and Barbara for sharing the fun pics.
So glad you enjoyed the splash party. I actually liked this pool better for the smaller dolls. My two 18″ dolls can use it too but they won’t be able to invite as many guests. The site I went to yesterday that had the pattern for the wonderful ladder made with pvc used a small pet pool which is about as deep as mine but round. Dionne just bought a larger version for Azure because all his other pools kept getting holes and the pet pools are made to deal with pet’s nails and they do fold up. So you could go that route and then create the wonderful scenes you do so well.
Just read this reply again and wanted to mention that Azure is my 2-1/2 year old grandson rather than a pet although they do have a few of them too. LOL
I have been eyeing those pet pools. 🙂 Maybe, but yours is perfect. 🙂
What a wonderful pool! So well done. The “water” looks so inviting. All the swimsuits, especially the tushie ruffles are so playful. They look like they are having a ball and I wish I was there!!
Jeanne so glad your hand is getting better, there were a lot of prayers from the sofa for you and so many who seemed to need them right now.
Maybe Karen will send pictures of the girls enjoying the new doll. I wonder Karen, do any of the girls sew for their dolls?
Have a great day all.
Thanks so much Dorothy. Glad you enjoyed the event. I was just going to do regular tank suits but thought the tushie ruffles were so cute that I just had to add some to a few of the suits. Looking at my dolls from the back I was amazed at how even though three of them are LDs they actually do have different figures. The other two are Maru Mini Pals and they do look the same.
Hi Dorothy, Marion and Rose are crocheting a blanket for their dolls, and Marion says she wants to start making doll clothes. She has been learning how to use a sewing machine and has made some skirts.
Jeanne, so glad your hand did not suffer any serious damage. Right now your hands are so full you need both of them.
The pool did entail some work but like anything else once I figured out the best way to sew the PUL for the liner (different than for the diaper covers) I was good to go. But then when we tried to put it together we discovered that I had sewn a couple pieces together wrong. I was doing two of these, one for me and one for my granddaughter Jaiden. Hers went together perfectly but I guess I was getting weary when I did mine and didn’t measure the one side right. Thankfully it was a quickie fix.
Once I decided to forego the zig zag in making the swimsuits and go with a long straight stitch, I could better control the sewing and was finishing the basic suits in about 15 min. each versus the three days trying to zig zag them. I sewed the embellishments on by hand while watching TV. Hubby and grandson Skyy helped a great deal with the pool. They cut the cpvc and David put the pools together after I finished the liners.
I came up with the idea of the shredded fill when I was doing a Barbie pool for my Heartstring dolls for a contest I was entering a few years ago. One of the few things I’ve ever won. But the shredded cellophane “water” I used for that was impossible to find this time and I ended up with a cellophane and paper shred combination. But in a way that might have been better because the depth of the pool needed something with more density to keep the pool filled. As is I had to fluff it up and rearrange the fill depending on the photo I was taking. Not surprising I had to get on the girls every now and then to keep the water in the pool. It was coming out on my kitchen floor every time one of them got out. Something I saw yesterday suggested using “slime” for water. They said it wouldn’t hurt the dolls if they didn’t have cloth bodies. But you had to clean the dolls afterward and I thought my idea was better. It was a good compromise between nothing at all and “slime”.
Thanks so much Jeanne for allowing me to share my fun efforts. Hopefully it gave you another day of respite.
Dear Barbara, I love the pool! I was thinking there could be a sign post that says “1,621 miles to PA start swimming now” (laugh).
And yes I agree, being on Jeanne’s sofa with so many incredible women makes everything more fun!
Running quite late today between Kitties and a grocery trip. Your pool scene is just fantastic, Barbara. You did a super job creating the pool and the sparkly Easter grass “water” is great. Of course it takes imagination to interpret the scene correctly. I had no problems whatsoever. 🙂 Love all the cute swimsuits and the back ruffles and bow. Always liked those back ruffles on little girl swimsuits. Thank you so much for sharing. I really enjoy it.
I hope your hand continues to heal and feel better very soon, Jeanne.
Thanks, Laura. I have the swimsuit pattern in a size for larger dolls like RRFF, AGAT and Wellies. I think now that I have the knack I might make some more. I did enjoy picking the fabric and deciding on embellishments.
Wren Feathers has a post today and a free cute 18″ doll dress pattern, in case anyone is interested. 🙂
Thanks, Joy. I’ll check it out.
Barbara it was such fun seeing your girls playing in their pool. You are so clever. The swimsuits are amazing. Good tip about using a straight stitch.
Jeanne, I am so glad your hand is getting better. I hope George is improving too. You mentioned someone called Anne Johnson in a previous blog, gave me quite a jolt. That was my married name for 27 years, took me a second to realise it wasn’t me lol. Memory is a funny thing. I have lived here in the Southern Hemisphere for 50 years in January but unless I am concentrating my brain still says March is spring September is Autumn. And, of course, it isn’t September is spring here, April is about Chrysanthemums not Daffodils, but my brain doesn’t register that easily.
Ashley and Sam are both sick with the flu, Sam is going to the Dr today. I am not well either but I just have a cough and cold, I had my flu jab earlier so whether that protected me or not I don’t know. The other two both had high temps and Sam’s isn’t going down much, I missed out on that part thank goodness. The older two are in Australia so were lucky, Ashley came down with it the next day so would have been infectious before they left.
Doesn’t help that we have a new puppy! Poor Sam, it is like having a new baby in the house. She has to get up to take her to the toilet during the night and Echo hates being on her own, the first couple of nights she cried all night (she came from a litter of 9). We have taken to putting a cover over the crate and leaving the TV on so she thinks we are still there. The cats have made it clear who is in charge, especially Luna who was the one traumatised when Sam first moved in. This time she didn’t really have to do anything to put Echo in her place, she just stared at her and the puppy is terrified! It is poor Louis, my dog who is having the most problems. I might have to try that Rescue Remedy again on the dog this time.
Take care everyone
Apparently, influenza A is going around here. Has that high fever etc. In our grands 2nd grade class, there were only 15 out of 30 kids still in attendance last week. Grand’s best friend had a seizure, from a fever spike, in class, passed out, and had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital. He’s fine, but scary. And lots getting Covid, but it is the new strain of which there won’t be vaccinations available until September, some time. Hope everyone in your family gets well soon.
Dolly swim party pics sooo cute. Thankyou!♥️