If you follow me on Instagram, you might remember seeing this craft project table at an earlier stage. Well, I feel like I haven’t gotten very far lately. 😟
Do you ever get so far behind on your sewing and craft projects that you start to feel kind of hopeless? I’m there.
This dress pattern was supposed to get posted just before Halloween, but it didn’t make the cut:
After failing to get it sewn in time for Halloween, I tried to finish it before Thanksgiving, but it’s still not done and I think I’ve lost some of the photos for the tutorial video. So frustrating! 😵
I might try to re-do that pattern and tutorial again next fall, but right now I’m too frustrated to do anything with it.
My projects for 18 inch dolls aren’t any better. See this lovely pink pinafore? It’s all cut out and partly sewn, right?
Yeah… Nope. That pattern didn’t work out at all. It’s WAY too big for my 18 inch dolls. Ugh!
I was hoping to have a pioneer-style 18 inch doll dress and pinafore and bonnet pattern for y’all to make for Christmas gifts this season, but that ain’t gonna happen! 😉
Sorry everybody!
Instead, I’m going to focus on a project I’ve promised for a friend. Her little girl needs some doll clothes for her 18 inch doll, and I’m just going to use my own, already-designed, tried-and-true patterns to create her little dolly wardrobe instead of trying to invent something new! Here’s how far along I am so far:
Not very far along, right? Oh my goodness! 😲
Here’s a view of my daughter’s bed with all the fabrics and patterns laid out:
As you can see, this dolly wardrobe isn’t very big so far… I better get my behind in gear, or there won’t be anything to post next week on this website!
Are any of you struggling to find time as well, to get your holiday sewing projects done? Feel free to leave a comment.
What are you working on?
Are you having any sewing struggles?
Let’s all leave positive and encouraging sub-comments to help support each other as we try to tackle our holiday sewing and craft projects! 🎁
I know just what you are talking about. I took everything out of my craft room.I am so over whelmed, with all the stuff I have, I am trying to get everything organized.I found several projects, unfinished. I can’t get over myself. I did take time out to make some Gnomes. There is such a thing as writers’ block, well I am having crafters’ block!…or maybe just can’t get in the mood. I am sorry, I mumbled all this to you.I hope you have better luck . God Bless you Chelly.l.o.l.
So it’s not just me, huh?
Good job on getting the gnomes done! Hey, that’s something…
Yeah, the whole “so behind it’s become a ball of frustration and despair” thing has been a badly recurring pattern for me for the last couple years especially. I had a summer sew-athon planned where I was going to go through your patterns and make clothes up for my … collection of dolls. My printer died and just got replaced this month. And then the desktop that had to to-do list and indexes on it (who needs what outfit, which fabric I planned to use?) The boot drive spontaneously konked out and now it won’t start up until I get a new drive and reinstall Linux Mint. Luckily I made that desktop myself so I should be able to fix it – I just hope I can recover my info off the bad disks! In short, there’s always something that gets in the way unless you really just say “Ok, that does it, I am taking the time to do this and everything else needs to back off.” And sometimes not even that works.
How are you dealing with the COPPA crisis? I’ve been concerned since I know you post the instructions to your patterns on YouTube. Since I know you don’t do this for monetary reasons you’ll likely be safe marking yours as ‘for kids’, but I’d hate to see you (or anyone) get slapped with a huge and idiotic lawsuit because the FTC seems to think adults shouldn’t have dolls.
While waiting for your printer to work, you may want to use your public library. There’s usually a small fee for printing, but it’s a backup option that a lot of people forget is available.
As far as COPPA goes, I marked all of my videos “for kids” because I’ve tried to keep my website and YouTube channel family friendly from the get-go. And you’re right, I don’t make a lot of money off of my videos, so the financial loss isn’t as great for me as it is for some other people.
I was sad to see that MyFroggyStuff’s Bella and Toya have changed their format to avoid financial loss, but I get it. I totally get it. I wish companies like Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel would offer her a contract to put her Darbie Show on syndicated television. She’s a one-of-a-kind genius entrepreneur who inspires creativity in children and adults alike! She deserves that kind of recognition for all she has given us. 💙
Not available to me, sadly. I haven’t been able to get to a public library in over a decade – no working car, no local public transportation, and it’s too far for me to walk. If it wasn’t for Instacart starting up in our area (and Schwan’s home delivery for longer than that) our whole diet would be canned food and dry goods delivered by Walmart and Target.
I hadn’t monetized at all, but I didn’t like the mark for kids thing because I didn’t want to lose my comments section or ability to organize my videos into playlists. I feel like I’m being told I’m not allowed to interact with people because I’m too old to play with dolls and that makes me weird. I’m watching until mid-December and then I’ll probably take my videos all down, sadly. Most of my stuff is doll unboxings, ooaking, or video games. Thankfully I hadn’t put much up yet, but this is sucking all the fun out. I’m glad you’ll be able to keep your videos around.
My mom (age 61) was a huge fan of the Darbie show and is very upset to see it go. I’m going to miss the room-boxes and such more. I actually found out about Fresh Dolls because of MyFroggyStuff and managed to get one (and would love several more if I could afford them!) I have the one my mom insists looks like Beyoncé.
Well you do take on a lot. So take a deep breath and relax. Everything will get done. One step at a time. If I had a dollar for everything that was not finished I could pay people to finish them for me. Not that I would cuz I like doing them. Keep the positive but do not over do it. You’re great and we are all human.
Thank you, Dodi! I appreciate your kind words of encouragement. 😊