Oh Brother! A lovely new embroidery machine!

My wonderful, kind and generous hubby, recently bought me a lovely new sewing machine that also does embroidery!  I had been telling him about it, having seen it in a sewing shop in the UK whilst I was over there.  He suggested that I might like it for a combined 10th wedding anniversary/Christmas present!  I gave it quite a bit of thought because it was expensive and I wasn't sure how much use I'd get out of it.  However, because this particular model can also be used as a regular sewing machine, I decided that I would love to have it and so it arrived last week!

It's a Brother Innov-is 955 sewing/embroidery machine and came with:

• LCD touch screen
• Automatic needle threading
• Extension table
• 296 embroidery designs
• 129 utility and decorative stitches

You can also download designs from the net, I have so many ideas!!!

Brilliant eh!  I did a bit of research on how to buy the machine because Brother no longer has a distributor on the Iberian peninsular, however they do have an agent based in Valencia who was really helpful and they got the machine to me in record time.  Because I'm in the middle of a big commission I wanted to wait until I'd finished it before getting involved in trying out the embroidery function of the machine, I've not tried that facility yet....but I'm gathering all the necessities so that very soon I can have a go!  I'm very excited about it and I'm hoping it will be the perfect machine for making doll clothing with embroidered designs on!

So watch this space!

And so that this is not a completely non dolly post, I thought I'd share a couple of photos of Emily, my Gotz Happy Kidz, who wanted to have her photo taken with this monster truck on Sunday as there was a car show locally:

And because she looks so small in that photo, she wanted me to take a close up of her in another location so that you could see her cute outfit that I bought last month from My Doll Best Friend, it has the cutest Pug wearing earphones on the front and came with the printed leggings!  I bought the knitted hat locally, it was actually made for a premature baby!  And the boots were already hers!

Thank you for stopping by my blog, I hope you all have a great week!

'F' is for Furry Friend....

Sian, as my Kidz n Cats Grace is now called, decided that Friday is the day for making new friends, so she looked at all the furry creatures here and decided that this little black and white cat is her new friend!  She has a cat of her own, after all she is a Kidz 'n Cats', isn't she, but this one seems to have taken a liking to her too, so who am I to argue about their new friendship!

Doll:  Kidz n Cats Grace from My Doll Best Friend in the UK customised by me

Dress by me

Tights also from My Doll Best Friend

Beret by Hattie at The Sasha Village

Denim trainers/sneakers from Zapf Baby Born

Cat by Volks, Japan

Please welcome Kidz n Cats Grace!

Well it was only a matter of time before I brought a Kidz n Cats doll to live at my house, thank you to Dee, Jenni and Jessica for enabling me!!! :)

So on Thursday, Grace arrived from My Doll Best Friend in the UK, she got here really quickly because I only ordered her on Sunday!  I could see straight away that she had potential and thought I'd just change her wig, maybe I'd tone down her lips a little as they were quite pink!  However, never content to just do the bare minimum, I ended up giving her a full makeover.

Firstly I removed her wig, it wasn't a bad wig but it was a little bit shiny and 'synthetic' for my liking, so it had to go.  I already had this Monique Gold Roxie in mind for her, the colour is Nearly Black and the size is 8/9 inches.   Then I decided to tone down her lips.....but I thought I might as well add some blush....OK, maybe I'd remove the whole faceup and start over!!!  So off came the original paint, leaving the tiniest trace of her eyebrows so that I could redo them in just the right place! 

Next I thought "maybe it would be nice if she had glass eyes!"   So I cut through the 'pate' on the top of her head, removed her head from her body,  and cut into the little 'pockets' that hold the original acrylic eyes in place.  I removed those 'pockets' altogether, just leaving enough for the eyes to 'sit' on.  The eyelashes came off with the removal of the acrylic eyes.  Once the eyes and lashes were removed, along with all the original makeup, I sprayed  her face with a coat of Mr Super Clear Flat, this gives a nice base surface to work on and to build up the colour.  And that was it, I gave her a new look using artist quality chalk pastels and watercolour pencils and I sprayed MSC between stages as it helps the pastels to adhere to the vinyl.   Now all she needs are clothes of her own!

I hope you like her....I think her name might be Sian, but not entirely sure yet!