Christmas present sewing

So, a first for me... I made a rag doll for Alice. I used a pattern that I found via pinterest 
to make this doll. I've never really followed a pattern for anything before so learning the language of patterns and sewing (beyond quilting) was a new one for me. I found the pattern for the doll itself easy enough to follow but struggled a little with the dress. I'm still not sure where I went wrong but there are quite a lot of open seams and I can't see any in the demo pictures. Still, I was reasonably happy with the result. Alice had no idea that it was coming, and seemed pretty happy with her present. Dolly has been given lots of toy food and has been given lots of cuddles.

The Woodlanders

I haven't read any Thomas Hardy since GCSEs or A-levels. Last summer I drove my grandma and her partner to Thomas Hardy's two houses in Dorset. One was a tiny but beautiful cottage where we walked through some woodland to reach it. The other was bought and designed by Thomas Hardy once he was an established author. The latter house was where he wrote the Woodlanders, but really as I was reading it I was absolutely imagining the setting of his childhood cottage home.

The story is based around the lives of people based in a small woodland village, most of the people make their living around the care and sale of wood. This is a romance in a way, as it follows the marriage of Grace to the doctor of the area in an attempt by her father to move Grace up in the world. I really enjoyed the description in this novel. It took me a few pages to get into the language of the novel but I loved it. I don't know if I'll be reading any more of his novels in the near future but if another title (that I haven't read) is on my list, I'll look forward to reading it.