Parcels - it's all about parcels

Getting a parcel is wonderful fun.  These days I don't get parcels from my grandmother so I find other ways to ensure that nice little boxes with lots of sticky tape all over them, keep arriving on the door-step. 

One way is to participate in (or organise) swaps of Blythe Doll goodies - which I do through Ravelry.   Violetta got to open the latest parcel ...  




 And she called Bird and Julia over because ...

Another one of US !!!

De-boxing a LPS Blythe can be arduous ...  there are lots of knots and things

Here are last - little Heidi the Hiker.  Julia likes her pantaloons and Bird approves of her ponytails. 

 Heidi offered everyone a 'lick' of her lollypop and then she showed off her
"'tremely cool sunglasses"   but Bird got the giggles ...

Those sunnies are really quite funny

 Meanwhile - Violetta had found more things in the parcel - all in pretty pink paper ...







 








"Well - this certainly IS a lovely dress and beautifully made but somehow I think it is more Audrey's style ... "

and here is Audrey wearing the completely wonderful Audrey Hepburn outfit ... dress, gloves, pearls and tiara!   thank you "Squishy10"   from Ravelry for a great swap outfit. 

I must show you the outfits I made for this swap - in a future post.

The other way to make sure you get parcels is to buy things on the www.  When people discuss the decline of "bricks & mortar" shops & shopping this factor is never mentioned - but surely one of the best parts of on-line shopping is the arrival of the parcel - and by the time it arrives you've almost forgotten what you bought and you get that wonderful 'parcel opening' thrill ...

One of the doll's house / miniatures companies had a special on some kits that you have to put-together yourself ... I couldn't resist getting some natty little tables - very useful bits of furniture for problem corners.

Not sure when I'll get the time to put the kits together ...
Of course I'd bought some other things too ... a jardinière on a pedestal (I'll plant a fake aspidistra in it) a very nice ham with garnish and 3 little mice.   


All very Beatrix Potter's "Two Bad Mice"   (only there are 3!) 
Now to get the "two red lobsters ... a fish, a pudding, and some pears and oranges." 

Tom Thumb doesn't even need to carve this ham - it is already sliced

And the LPS Blythes had a very nice dinner to welcome Heidi ...

Holiday Knitting

Well we've been back over a month now but I'm still in mourning :-/  it was a lovely holiday - what isn't there to love about France in the spring-time! 

Naturally I did some knitting - can't go anywhere without a suitcase full of knitting projects.  This sock was mostly knitted in Belgium -

Appropriate given it's colour and those famously yummy Belgium chocolates :-)

I finished it in Versailles - also appropriate because of the amount of walking we did about the palace gardens and grounds ... Marie Antoinette's impossibly cute 'hamlet' ... the Petit and Grand Trianons ...

 

The colours of spring in Europe are lovely - and reflected in the clothing worn by many women and children (must be sub-conscious) !   Soft greens, aqua, clear jade, teal colours, apple greens ... the colours of all those new fresh leaves against the freshly washed sky ...

I found those colours in some yarn in the wonderful haby shop in our favourite town in Burgundy - Avallon.

Luckily, one of my daughter's friends is expecting her 2nd bub which provided the excuse I needed to buy it - bought a pattern & the needles ...

 Really European style with all those stripes.

I think I was somewhat obsessed by those colours - bought this deliciously fluffy mohair in Vezelay - 

I bought it from the breeder  :-)  she showed me photos of the goats and everything ... very lovely.

My 2 Blythe Dolls came with us!!   and I did some knitting for them too ...  Lillian needed a chic Parisian dress ... classic, understated elegance - 

figure hugging with 2 little 'Dior pleats' at the back (a bit hard to see in the black yarn) -

Audrey asked for a similar dress - but with bracelet length sleeves and a frilly hem "like the dress in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the one that other Audrey wears with the big hat" ...

We all did lots of shopping in France and the Blythe Dolls needed a new bag!

I met up with a lovely group of knitters in Paris - a knitting group I met on Ravelry .  Despite my appalling lack of French they were very welcoming and sweet.  As a group they had been knitting shawls and were having a Shawl Fashion Parade in the Palais-Royale.  I took this shawl project but I'd only just started.  I'm not entirely happy with this and it will probably get un-knitted ... not sure about the yarn - I love purple, I love green but I don't love the way they are mixing here.

Breakfast at Tiffany's - a Blythe tribute

My daughter calls the phenomenon "compulsory procrastination" - when you are really really busy but you spend valuable time doing something completely NOT on your To Do list. e.g. when the person up a ladder cleaning the leaves out of their gutter should really be working on their PHD and the only time you feel like cleaning the refrigerator is when you've a project or an essay overdue ...

So when my ToDo list is completely out of control what do I spend time doing? A tribute to That dress from "Breakfast at Tiffany's". My new Blythe doll is called Audrey - she doesn't like the idea of a cigarette holder and tells me that it is actually a magic wand. I'm not telling her that it is really a broken paint-brush!

Though I have a great many 'issues' with the story-line of B@T's, Audrey Hepburn looked completely gorgeous in those Givenchy dresses. I had fun getting the cut-away back looking similar - though it created problems with fastening - snap-studs are quite bulky on the tiny scale of dolly dresses. Audrey Hepburn's pearls etc were a separate necklace - for convenience I've sewn Audrey's to the dress.