I followed the book’s directions for peanut butter kiss cookies. The chocolate in the middle of the cookie is a chocolate chip rather than a chocolate kiss. I invented two other types of cookies. I followed the peanut butter cookie directions for cookie size, cooking time, and oven temperature. I used a different cookie dough and got a slightly larger cookie.

Here is another picture of the cookies. I have added a tea cup to help show the scale of the cookies.

I added Florabunda and her tea cup to the last picture. The cookies are a good size for eighteen inch dolls, but a little large for Florabunda.

Tiny treats is a delightful book. It has plenty of ideas for miniaturizing food. A child can make some of the things in the book without help. Sometimes an adult will need to help make the treats. Occasionally an adult (like me) can even make something in the book without a child around. Someday I hope to make the book’s tiny Oreo cake, but I will probably need a child’s help to do that.

The Dream Seamer is a one half inch (12 mm) medal circle with a small hole in the middle. To use the Dream Seamer, first make sure that the seam allowance on your pattern is one fourth inch (6 mm). I like to use a mechanical pencil with the Dream Seamer, but I have used a red pen in the photo to make the illustration clearer. If you are right handed, hold the pencil in your right hand. Put the pencil point into the hole in the middle of the circle. Hold the pencil at a ninety degree angle to the paper. The Dream Seamer should be inside the pattern. One edge of the Dream Seamer circle should always touch the cut line of the pattern. Use your free hand to keep the Dream Seamer on the cut line. Draw all the way around the arm or leg pattern, one fourth inch (6 mm) on the inside of the pattern. Cut on the sew line to remove the seam allowance and create a template.

Sometimes you may want to alter a pattern to fit another size doll. You need a sew line to shrink or grow a pattern using a photocopier. To keep the seam allowance one quarter inch (6mm) on your new pattern, you should cut away the seam allowance, shrink or grow the pattern and then add the seam allowance back on. To add a seam allowance, the Dream Seamer should be outside the pattern. When adding a seam allowance, the Dream Seamer should touch the sew line as you trace around the outside of the pattern. You can order a Dream Seamer from A Dollmaker’s Journey. Scroll down almost to the bottom of the supply page.

This rather strange photo shows the progress of my dolls’ feet project. I used a doll leg and foot pattern from Soft Dolls and Animals! This week I just wanted to learn how to make pretty cloth doll toes. Later I will design my own leg and foot pattern with toes. To save time and fabric, I did not cut and sew the whole leg. The results of my work is this six foot photo. (Sorry, I don’t usually make puns, but I just couldn’t help it.)

The left most foot was made from the original pattern. For the next few feet I tried free form sewing of the machine sewn toe seam and the soft sculpture hand-sewn toes. When I looked at the feet that I had made, I decided that I would need a template for the toes to get the result that I wanted. After a few more tries, I am happier with the toes. Now I need to learn how to add toenails.

My attempts at writing the music out by hand, however, were illegible. When our efforts to produce a clean copy of the music failed, I turned to my ever patient tech support (husband).

He found a program called MuseScore to use for typing music scores. With his help I laboriously typed the music in, note by note. After the work was over, the fun began. We were able use the program to experiment with tempo and with different instruments playing each section of the piece. The program offers all sorts of ways to play the music from the harpsichord to a variety of human voices. When we had a sound that we liked, my husband made a short video using two pictures from the story and the sheet music.

You can find the story by clicking here: “Princess Florabunda and the Dancing Sleepover” or at the bottom of my pattern page.

If you would like to hear the music and see the video, click the picture.

Click the sheet music for a pdf.

I wrote this book for elementary students to use with an adult. I tried to write clear instructions for a consistent progression of skills. To make the book more interesting, I wanted to include some light humor. I also wanted to explain some techniques in a boxed area of the text rather than with the general flow of instructions. I decided to use a cartoon version of Florabunda for humor and to introduce the technique boxes.

I tried to draw a cartoon Florabunda, but I do not have the artistic skill. My husband helped me turn photos of Florabunda into cartoons.

First we photographed the doll in several appropriate poses. Here is the first photo that we used:

Then my husband experimented with photo-processing. After some frustration, he found that he needed to shrink the photo before working on it. Then he used line detection on the smaller picture to make a black and white image. One program that does line detection is call “Charcoal.”

His drawing program contains cartoon balloons that will accept text and change shape. Now I have a cartoon version of Florabunda.

Florabunda has many jobs. She is a cute little doll that is fun to play with or collect. She can also be a doll that belongs to a larger doll. She stars in a story about modern little girls and another story about princesses. (For a free download of the stories, check the bottom of my Patterns Page.) Her newest job is to teach sewing skills.

Remember that you can download patterns for Florabunda and her friends on my Pattern Page. If you are only interested in Florabunda and would like a hard copy of her patterns, you can order a book with all her patterns from the My Books Page of this blog or from Amazon.

Florabunda is wearing a sundress that matches the eighteen inch doll’s dress. Here is a close-up of the two dolls.

The pattern on Florabunda’s dress is scaled to match her smaller size. The smaller size print was not available at a fabric shop, so it was printed with a computer printer on printable fabric. I do not have the skills to create this interesting fabric on my own. I had my husband’s help and we found that the project took more effort than we expected. The first step was to scan the original fabric.

Then we picked out a rectangle of fabric that included the complete design without any repetition.

My husband used a photo-processing program to straighten the design so that it would match the straight of grain when it was printed. He also used the program to crop the scan, leaving only one complete design.

While he was still in the program, he shrank the design and then repeated it until the now smaller design would cover a sheet of printable fabric.

The colors on the first printed sheet did not match the original.

We went back to the photo-processing program and worked on making the colors match. We printed several paper samples before using another sheet of printable fabric.

The computer printed fabric is a little more difficult to sew on than regular fabric. It is slightly thicker and does not drape as well. It took some effort but, I was happy with the little dress when I had finished it.

It is a little different from my patterns and my other two books. This book is written for elementary students to use with an adult. It is a series of sewing skills presented in a learning sequence. The patterns are for bedding and clothing for eighteen inch ( forty-five centimeter) commercial dolls, such as the Springfield dolls or the American Girl dolls. I think that making clothing for larger dolls is a good starting place to learn to sew.

I felt comfortable writing this book, because I taught elementary school and have an MA degree in curriculum and instruction.

If you think that this book sounds interesting, please go to the the “My Books” page on this website. You can learn more about it and also see ways to order it.

Here is my latest book,Sew a Small Doll and Her Clothing:

This book contains the pattern for Florabunda, all of her clothing patterns, and her shoe patterns. If you are interested in a 7.5 inch (19 cm) cloth doll patterns or clothing patterns for this size doll, and would prefer a hard copy to a downloaded pdf, please check this book out on “My Books” page.

My next book should be out early this week. I will tell you about it soon.