Sewing machine catastrophe and new doll

Hi all, I'm so sorry I havn't blogged for some time again, I've had several flare ups of the old fibro, and a bout of flu/flare up that ended with a chest infection, and then I had to catch up on sewing for the shop, as I have had several orders these past three months, (certainly not complaining about that, but orders means making more as I am a one woman business, with a part time nursing job as well) so as you can imagine after my set back things got rather hectic round here,and then - just when things were going well again- disaster struck!

My trusty Toyota decided to play up on me and the stitch selector dial broke! it just split inside and the fancy stitch I use for my overlock would not be selected no matter how hard I tried to turn it, there was just no bite on it.

So after some cursing I decided to do a quick put me up job on it and got out my trusty plyers to try to turn the dial to the overlock stitch I use and then at least I could use it for overlocking the seams, after several turns and stitch tryouts I managed to find the overlock stitch.  I then got out my old janome for the straight stitch and I was up and working again.

Oh dear! what a crowded table I had for a while , please excuse the garden strimmer/son's bike/disinfectant bottle in the background ! don't know why the disinfectant bottle was there! I live such an organised life  ;)
Well thankfully I managed to find a new dial on the internet and I was very impressed to receive it just two days after ordering!

Wonderful, all fixed and ready to operate again with only a little set back time wasted. (the episode with the plyers)

I decided to make another Rag doll for the shop, but wanted a more cute, more quirky and more up to date style. So I experimented with a bigger head, more colourful hair , and a simpler dress, but still colourful.-- So this is what I came up with.

Here she is waiting to be added to the shop. I do hope someone will like her!