Sasha schoolroom

My girl created a 'school room' for the Sasha family under her high bed.  It started with Betty's lovely swap gifts - my girl made a pencil pot for the pencil crayons and a working drawer for some of the stationery out of lego.  Then we made a chair for teacher out of lolly sticks (she did a lot of the sticking, I helped her work out how to construct the chair).  Yesterday she spent the afternoon working with her knotting book and some rope, and created a high swing strung between her bookcase and bed.  Today she created the story:

It was 'wet break' so the children had their break time indoors.
Florence, Laura and Miranda were relaxing and chatting.

Reuben was playing with the toy dogs in the hammock

Nicholas James was sorting the pencils in the pencil pot
(turning them all the same way up),
with the stationery drawer beside him

The stationery drawer open

Anna the teacher was relaxing with a cup of tea in her office

Miranda asked the teacher for the weekend book

Anna gave Miranda the weekend book

Miranda gave the weekend book to Florence
who read out loud what she had recorded in the book over the weekend

Miranda went to the swing hoist rope and untied it

She stood in the hoist loop and gripped
the rope tightly to pull herself up to the swing

She pulled herself up to the swing

She strapped herself into the swing with the hoist rope
and swung gently forward and back

Reuben was very surprised to see that Miranda
had climbed up to the swing without any help

The others came to see Miranda having a break time swing

Anna came to call the children back to class

Leaving her new chair

The children gathered to hear the lesson

Anna talked all about making the swing and
promised that the children would learn how to tie knots

(it didn't rain today, gloriously sunny, 'wet break' was my girl's way of explaining an 'indoor break time')

(Nicholas James is wearing a Dollydoodles hoodie I bought at Dawn's house in June.  This summer has been too warm for him to wear it, however now that autumn has arrived, he was pleased to change his clothes to jeans and hoodie.)

Back to school

To complete the Back to School Swap I knitted some socks to go with the cricket outfit and sent them to Betty, she was very pleased and said that her Prince and her Caleb are sharing the Pinehurst School uniform and cricket set.

Nicholas James models the cricket socks

close up of the cricket socks, as per the Pinehurst pattern

While making the outfit for her Caleb, I made 2 sets of the school shirt and grey shorts, and three blazers.  I bought some green gingham and designed a pattern for the school dress I used to wear, to match what is shown on the Pinehurst Primary School website.  None of my existing patterns included a dress of this style, so I used other pattern pieces as a guide and drew out what was needed.

Miranda and Reuben in their Pinehurst uniforms

Miranda and Reuben in their Pinehurst uniforms
without blazers (good for a hot day)

back view of Miranda's Pinehurst Primary school dress

Miranda was very pleased to model the new school outfit and Reuben was also pleased to be given a copy of the outfit I sent to Betty.  I haven't repeated the cricket outfit yet, as I have other sewing and woodwork to do first.

Laura proudly put her new school dress back on again (she had been wearing the apron sundress from Betty) to pose for back to school photos with Miranda and Reuben before they return to the serious business of lessons in their class in my daughter's bedroom.  My girl has made a desk drawer and pencil pot out of lego and together we have made a chair for teacher out of lolly sticks.  Teacher is my blond Gotz 19.5 inch Anna.  No photos of the classroom yet, maybe in a future post.

Laura, Miranda and Reuben all ready for school

Inspired by the BBC proms

Recently we took our girls to three of the BBC prom concerts in the Royal Albert Hall (it was a first time for me and the girls, my husband had gone years before).  Such a memorable experience for all of us.  We didn't take the bigger dolls, though for the last prom (Saint Saens Organ Symphony) the cloth pony and a small china doll my little girl bought at the church fete came with us.

Last Saturday it was the last night of the Proms - we watched the concert on TV.  It was a wonderful concert, with a truly inspiring female conductor for the first time at the last night concert in proms history.  My younger girl wanted to do a photo story with the dolls, then decided to write a script, inspired by setting the dolls up for the prom on TV.

This is her story:

Inspired by the BBC proms
by DollMum's daughter

One day Laura, Miranda and Florence were in a concert. Miranda was playing her viola and the other two were dancing. They were having so much fun that they didn’t notice that they were an hour late home! So mum collected them with a very angry look on her face:  :-/
“I’ve just heard that mum and dad have booked two tickets to go to the Royal Albert Hall to see the Proms!!!” squealed Laura excitedly when they got home “oh I really wish I was going!” “Really, ooooh yey! Shame we can’t go.” Florence said. “Where’s Miranda?” “She’s outside in her tent practising her viola.” Mum answered. “Why is she practising her viola just after a concert?” Florence asked, “well why not?” mum replied.
On the Prom day Laura and Florence thought that Miranda was playing her viola in a normal concert, so they thought mum and dad were taking her to her concert and then going to the station, BUT, no, they were wrong. Miranda was playing her viola in the Proms!!!
When they got home, everyone wanted to ask lots of questions: “how was it?” “how did it go?” and stuff like that, but Laura just said to Miranda “have you ever been to the Proms before?” everyone stopped dead silent waiting for an answer, and then:  “yes, but, I’ve not only been to one, I’ve played my viola as a proper soloist... TONIGHT!!!” Laura just stood there, bewildered. “What ~ when ~ how ~ ?” Laura spluttered trying to think what to say. “Why ~ why didn’t you tell us?” she smiled, trying to turn off her giggles. Suddenly a joy came through the house that evening. Everyone felt very, well, joyful and proud of Miranda.

The End

My girl took some photos of the dolls on Sunday and this photo is the best of them:

Laura, Miranda and Florence celebrating the last night of the Proms 2013

I took a photo while the Last Night of the Proms was on TV:

Laura, Miranda and Florence inspired by Marin Alsop
conducting the Last Night of the Proms