Gifted

This is the new addition to the doll cabinet

Isn't she just beautiful?  A showcase of a gifted talent for dolly making and dressing.

Gifted to me, very generously, by my dear friend Sarah - who now makes amazing art quilts. 

Seasons Greetings

Hope eveyone had a wonderful Christmas Day with family and friends, and here's to 2012 - may it be happy and healthy  :)

teehee

Look! It's not a leotard!

13 - yes thirteen - months since I last had a cross stitch finish (it pays to actually DO some stitching of course) here's the one and only for this year:

It also helps that it was a little one  :)

M Designs "Love Tree", over one on 22ct hardanger using Chameleon threads "olive"; for a friend's annual Christmas gift. 

Here's to 2012 Rachel!

From the archives...

Well, from the depths of the drawer in my doll cabinet actually, where she had been hiding for over 10 years.
A visit to the dolls hospital, a new knitted vest (thank you Grandma!) and a new outfit later (slightly modified vintage Simplicity doll pattern), she has a new lease on life.

She's a UK made Pedigree hard plastic doll circa early 1950s.  She was given to my sister when Liz was very little (Grandma can't remember who by) and travelled out when my family emigrated here in the mid 1960s.  Unlike all the other similar vintage Pedigree dolls I found on the internet, this one isn't a "walker" and doesn't have a voice mechanism.  Those are sleep eyes though, as they should be.
My girls are quite taken with her.  I wonder if Liz will want her back?

Daisy Chain

Found these photos while uploading others...

One of our neighbours had a wonderful crop of daisies, and Tink spent a lovely afternoon in the sun about two months ago making this very long daisy chain. 

It was for Jess, she said. 

So it stayed in the lounge until Jess got home to admire it.

Brag Time part 2

Since Tink got her dance exam results at her class this week, we knew that Jess would get her results tonight.
Jess had been a bit concerned about her jazz exam: it's her first year doing jazz and I put her into the Grade 5 class because the timetable suited us (and I thought she'd be ok going in cold at that level with 6 years of ballet and 2 years of rhythmic gymnastics behind her).  Contemporary she was comfortable with: Miss Emma at SABA had laid a solid foundation in last year's Level 1 class and, mother's rose tinted glasses or not, I felt Jess was one of, if not the, best dancer in the class because of it.
I wasn't wrong.  Jess came beaming out of her class tonight with, for both Contemporary Level 2 and Jazz Grade 5, the result of:

High Honours!!

Way to go Jellybean, Evil Gym Mom knew you could do it.

Brag Time - part one

A month ago, on the weekend after the Shore Junior competition, the girls had their dance exams. 
NZAMD Jazz, much like BAL ballet and RAD Ballet, have two parts to the results:  what the child did in each section and an overall "mark" categorised in words such as "pass", "merit" "honours" etc.
RAD issues a beautiful A4 certificate with the pass level in a big font and another A4 sheet listing the ten sections that made up the exam, with the marks the child got in each section, adding up to the overall number that then became the pass level.  For example, a mark in the 75-100 range meant one got Distinction.
NZMAD and BAL also issue beautiful A4 certificate with the pass level on it.  Their "score" sheet however is a bit different - and way better in terms of feedback, I think. Instead of only four awards (not achieved, pass, merit and distinction) there are nine levels starting from 55%, going up in 4% increments, giving a much finer grading.  I always wished RAD did it too.
The NZMAD and BAL score sheets are the actual notes from the examiner as written during the exam.  The big bonus here is that there is always a comment about what the child did well, and something about what the child needed to work on. Fabulous feedback!  Very encouraging for the dancer.
Finally, at last night's jazz class, Tink got her score card.  She had been hoping to do at least as well as last year (honours - meaning 85-89%) and really wanted to do better.  Her teacher had said to me that this year's examiner, while very lovely to the girls during the exam, was known for being a tough marker.  Uh oh, I thought - there goes Tamsin's hopes of a better mark than last year....
Well, Tink and I were tickled to find this in the result box of the score card:

Honours

Along with some lovely, encouraging comments from the examiner telling her to work to maintain and improve the lovely style Tink is developing.
How cool is that?

Way to go Tinkerbelle!!!