Christmas gifts for the dolls

My Sasha secret Santa parcel arrived at the beginning of December and I saved it for Christmas day.  No peeping, apart from noting the postcode (UK) and wondering who had sent it.

Our tree and gifts, the secret Santa is a turquoise blue parcel just under the branches

During November and December I was busy knitting sweaters and a cardigan for some of the 19.5" Gotz girls and boys, I had grand plans of making sure that each and every play doll in the house would have a small package under the tree on Christmas day, but this was not to be (my own dolls didn't receive anything apart from two of my three Sashas who benefited from the swap).  Making clothes and labelling the gifts for the dolls was another way of giving my daughters Christmas presents.  In the event I managed gifts for the following dolls:

Samantha (pink welly boots)
Harriet (blue ugg boots and blue tights)
Matilda (bolero top and black shoes)
Belle (bolero top and white shoes)
Peter (converse high top tartan shoes)
Matroshka (AG doll dark pink ballerina shoes)
Harry Potter (green sweater)
Ron Weasley (maroon sweater)
Hermoine Granger (sky blue cardigan and white shoes)
Jayne (silver shoes)

In addition, my elder daughter knitted a striped scarf for her younger sister's doll Samantha. I was pleased with how well she did with making it and sewing in all those ends - the scarf even has a fringe at either end.  Just such a shame that her Christmas holidays have to be spoiled by the looming GCSE examinations (our next 6 months will be dominated by them) and therefore she has little time for craft work.

Many of the shoes I had bought over a period of time and stored away to match up with outfits I will make, I had hoped to sew a few dresses to match shoes in time for Christmas, but a bigger sewing project for my younger daughter (read about it in the next post) meant I ran out of time before Christmas day.

The girls decided to bring all the dolls downstairs even though they knew that not every doll would get a gift.

The dolls wait to find out which one will receive gifts

The Harry Potter knitwear was inspired directly by the description in 'Philospher's Stone' of Harry's first Christmas at Hogwarts - so in theory I was 'Mrs Weasley' when I knitted these items (though there is no record in the books of Molly Weasley knitting for Hermoine, I have no doubt that she must have done, especially as Hermoine eventually became her daughter-in-law).  In a way, the idea of labelling each package with the name of the doll rather than my daughter's names came from this scene in the book as well.  On Christmas eve morning I realised that I didn't have enough of the maroon sock wool to complete Ron's sweater.  It was two old balls of 4 ply which I was knitting together to form 'double knit' thickness (actually more like Aran weight), and I knew I wouldn't find an exact match.  Unlike Mrs Weasley, I couldn't conjure up more wool with a flick of a wand! A quick walk to my local wool shop resulted in a lucky find of flecked double knit maroon wool which blended in perfectly with the existing work knitted, so I completed the sweater in the early hours of Christmas morning. Whew!

Christmas packages for Ron, Harry and Hermoine

Christmas packages for Matroshka, Harriet, Peter, Jayne, Matilda and Belle

The girls didn't open the doll parcels until mid afternoon (church, lunch and other gifts first), however they were delighted with all the doll gifts and were particularly thrilled by Ron's sweater and loved the Secret Santa outfits for Florence and Nicholas James.  I had requested a Christmas dress for Florence and a Christmas jumper with jeans for Nicholas James.  Florence received matching tights and a flower for her hair to go with her lovely white dress - the dress has a velvet purple ribbon around the waist and the tiniest seed buttons on the bodice.  NJ's red jumper has NOEL knitted into the front and I'm really pleased he has jeans now because all he had before was his football shorts, and I dislike making trousers.

Samantha's new scarf and wellies

Harry is dressed in his Mrs Weasley sweater

L-R: Hermoine, Florence, Nicholas James, Harry and Ron

Hermoine and Florence

Nicholas James, Harry and Ron

Matilda and Belle show off their new bolero tops and shoes