One of the best ways to stop things going flat after Christmas dinner is to play games. If you have teenage children from different families staying, who don’t know each other well, break the ice after supper on Christmas Eve by playing Consequences, which invariably gets lewder and lewder, followed by Charades. Read the rest of this entry »
BABY GOWN
2m (21/2yds) fine white cotton
White cotton thread, pins, needles
Lace tape, if desired
Narrow satin ribbon for back ties
Broad satin ribbon for neckline facing, if
desired
Cut the following pattern pieces
1 skirt length
1 bodice piece
2 sleeves
Neatly hem the cuff edge of the sleeve. Turn the cut sleeve piece inside out and fold in half, right sides together. Stitch along the open side, 6mm (1/4in) from the edge, to form the sleeve. Repeat to make the second sleeve. Sew a single even row of running stitch around the top of the sleeve and gather slightly so that the sleeve becomes the same size as the sleeve opening in the bodice. Read the rest of this entry »
A child’s favorite doll teddy bear is very special and often becomes a memento that is kept throughout a lifetime. A number of famous bears belonging to presidents, prime ministers and royalty have crept out of the toy box and into the limelight in their owners’ adult years.
Dolls have been around since at least the time of the Greeks and Romans. From the literature and art of the time it is known that both civilizations had jointed clay dolls; rag dolls date from Roman times. Girls in Greece were expected to sacrifice their dolls to Artemis, goddess of the Hunt, once they had been outgrown. Dolls of other cultures were crudely shaped from pieces of wood or corn stalks and representative of a god or spirit rather than used as a plaything, but in the eighteenth century glass-eyed dolls of heavy wood began to appear. Read the rest of this entry »
MATERIALS
Wooden coathanger
Strips of thin foam sheeting
Narrow ribbon to cover the hook of the
hanger
A length of satin or other luxury fabric
for hanger covering, approximately
15cm (6in) wide and three times the
length of the hanger
Trimmings of lace and satin bows Read the rest of this entry »
