Happy New Year

My posts have been sporadic lately, but I came close to meeting last year's goal of blogging weekly -- I almost averaged once a week, with 49 posts for the year. I also succeeded in sewing a bit, making 10 tote bags and three pinafores, as well as starting (but not finishing) a Swiss dress. I still have about a dozen dolls to introduce, and lots more clothing, props, and display ideas to share. With a new job keeping me busy, I'm going to try and maintain the status quo rather than make new blogging goals for this year.

In addition to the pale blue tutu, I received two other boxes with Sasha goodies in the mail the week before Christmas. The first box contained a baby walker that I'd won from Shelly on eBay. I'm so glad that I won this because it is the perfect size for Cleo (who's wearing a Dollydoodles sleepsuit here). She's hard to photograph, but oh so adorable.

The second box contained eight pairs of DollyBlue boots (plus a surprise pair of bright pink shoes!). Here is Chloe wearing a pair of pink boots that I won on eBay, along with a Sharon Clancy outfit that deserves it's own backstory. I'd seen this outfit for sale on eBay back in the spring of 2009, and thought it was really cute. I noticed the dress and bits for sale this past fall, but decided against buying it without the cape. Then a few weeks later the cape was offered for sale. Oh how I wished I'd bought the dress when I had a chance. Fortunately I knew the seller, and was able to contact the new owner of the dress to see if she would be willing to sell it to me. As a reader of my blog she offered to give me the dress; I felt awkward being given something that I'd asked for, so we agreed on a trade: a pair of purple DollyBlue boots that I'd bought with the cape. Thank you Chris, and Nikita too -- I love this outfit!

And thank you Carrol, for making me all those boots. After winning the pink pair on eBay, I contacted her about buying purple boots to replace those I'd traded, plus boots to match my three folk outfits (blogged about here and here). My original thoughts were black for the central European, brown for the Bavarian, and white for the Swedish, but with custom boots I wasn't limited by those colors. Unable to decide, I bought multiple pairs; these are great boots and I know they could/would be worn with lots of other outfits. I also have a fourth folk outfit now, which needed no boots since it came with wooden shoes. I was made by Helena in Canada, AKA the eBay seller dolliepatch, and modeled after an old picture that I believe is of Dutch girls. Don't these four look stunning?!

Any thoughts on which color boots look best: red or white with the Swedish outfit, green or brown with the Bavarian outfit? Here's a close up of the five boot colors being worn by the dolls in the photo above.