Here’s our whale, made by us.

I was so eager to make him, while Isabelle was still interested, that I didn’t even bother with seam allowances. That would probably explain why he didn’t match up properly, his bottom was a little too big and he ended up bunchy.

And that also explains why his flippers seem tiny and pointy.

But ain’t he cute? And big too. Bigger than I expected. From the picture in the book I thought for some reason he would sit in the palm of my hand. But I was wrong.

I asked Isabelle to hold him so I could get a picture of his size.

She thought throwing him up and down was a better idea.

Project Notes
Pattern: 23 from isbn-10: 452904114x (isbn-13: 978-4529041140)
Fabric: linen

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I last posted. The time just got away from me. The last few days I’ve been working on that dress. I’ve been sewing so much that I’m actually sick of looking at my sewing machine. I didn’t think such a thing was possible!

And before that I was distracted hand sewing this little sea turtle as a surprise for Olinda’s birthday.

I was working on him Friday night in the closet. Isabelle was sleeping and not sleeping very well. So I sat in there, close by, in the closet where there was light. Sewing away while Isabelle woke up too many times looking for me. I’d get up, get her back to sleep, and then sew some more. I had to finish him that night because on Saturday we went out to see Olinda. We met her at the Aloha festival in San Francisco where Isabelle got a little bird.

It’s not a real bird. It’s fake and it sings and moves and I’m such a sucker. I just wanted to show it to Isabelle but she liked it so much I got it for her. She has more than enough toys and I knew she wouldn’t play with it for long but I still bought it because…I AM a sucker.

And of course she’s not playing with it anymore. She played with it that whole first day, constantly asking where it was but by the next day she was done. It sings REALLY loud and Isabelle says, “no noise! Quiet bird!!” and wants me to turn it off.

Oh wait. What was I talking about? Oh yes, the sea turtle. At the festival they had a whole bunch of sea turtle toys. They made my sea turtle look all misshapen and mutated. I should have made his front arms bigger and his shell rounder and his head not so big and and and…oh well. I should have made a test one before Friday night. Then I would have had time to work all that out.

Even though he’s a little mutant, Olinda seems to like him and Isabelle does too. She’s been asking me, “where’s turtle? Make turtle? Winda giva me my turtle? Winda giva me birthday?” So I guess my little miss will be getting a turtle…because I’m a sucker. But I think I’ll machine sew a turtle for Isabelle. Probably a lot faster than hand stitching the entire thing again. How long do you think she’ll play with it?

On the weekend, when I was trying to start the reverse appliqué skirt for myself, Isabelle said, “Mama, make dinosaur!”

And I said, “Ok” and hurriedly made one.

Then Alan said, “why does it look like he’s squatting to take a poop?”

“I don’t know! But did you know I didn’t stuff his neck completely? How the hell did I manage that?!”

That’s what happens with hurried sewing.

Everyone enjoy your weekend. We’re waking up early to watch a parade! Eeerr…or I should say attempting to wake up early.

Project Notes
Pattern: Brontosaurus from Toys to Sew
Fabric: Calls for felt but I used fleece

Meet Isabelle’s new dolly, Maggie! She is inspired by Maggie and the Ferocious Beast. Remember my original idea was to use felt for the hair? Well that didn’t work out. Isabelle kept kept taking it off, calling it a hat. I don’t know what she did with it so I went the yarn route. The strands are all painstakingly sewed down. It was hard work but absolutely worth it, it’s a better fit.

I remember when I was little, I loved playing with dolls with removable clothing. So with that in mind, I made this dolly with removable clothes, using velcro.

I also did removable shoes. That might not have been the best idea. Isabelle keeps taking the shoes off saying, “oh no!! HELP! Shoooooes!” and wanting me to put them back on.

Isabelle likes her Maggie doll. But she doesn’t see it as Maggie. She just says, “dolly”.

Back to the drawing board? Ahh…forget it. Isabelle likes her fine enough to dance with her even though she doesn’t call her Maggie.

I almost didn’t draw today. I was too distracted taking pictures of Isabelle with spaghetti on her nose. And her face. And all over her hands.

And busy making her a doll.

But draw I did. I rushed this out. I think I’ll experiment with my drawings when I have more time and not at 11:30pm at night.

So I ended up cutting a pair of socks up, not the ones I took a picture of, but one of the pairs I drew. I cut them up and turned them into a sock elephant. I had a hard time taking a picture of him though, because Isabelle was running off with him. I’m going to say it again but wow it’s hard to take pictures of soft toys with a toddler around!

I did manage to finally get this picture of him by himself but it’s not quite accurate. He’s falling over so you can’t tell he’s all wonky.

His head is too small for his body. It’s not noticeable in this picture. I probably didn’t cut in the right place. And I should have stuffed his head more before I sewed it up. I didn’t notice though until after I made up his body. Then the size difference was waaaay obvious. And his ears are funny. I took such care with his arms and legs and ran out of steam with his ears. They’re not tucked in and just funky.

But Isabelle likes him and that’s all that counts.

Hee hee. My daily comic, continued from yesterday. Did everyone figure out what I was talking about yesterday? Or did you think, what a weird comic. What’s with her and the alligator?

Well, here he is, the monster.

Run away! Run away!

Oh wait, he’s not that big.

Yes Mr. Alligator isn’t very big at all. He’s the same size as the sheep. In fact, he’s made out of the same bed sheet as Mr. Sheep. I imagined a whole menagerie of bed sheet animals. But I’m actually quite tuckered out, what with all the climbing of trees to get away from the monster that is Mr. Alligator. Wink wink.

Making this alligator friend was hard. Yes hard, hard, hard. See his mouth? It’s not quite right. The mouth on the alligator from the book looks different. It’s a straight mouth but then goes down as it gets closer to the body. Whereas mine is just straight. I couldn’t figure that part of the pattern out. The pieces didn’t match in that area so I didn’t know what to do. I think I’ll have to try it again, make a Ms. Alligator. That is after I’ve recovered from Mr. Alligator. Whoo making friends is hard.

Oh almost forgot. He’s from 978-4391624205. That’s the ISBN-13 number. The ISBN-10 number, which I’ve used before is 4391624206. Why the two numbers? I just learned about this right now. I was looking at the back of my book and realized that number wasn’t the same as what I’ve shared here before. Turns out the copied and pasted ISBN-10 that I got from Amazon is an old standard. I always wondered why Amazon Japan had an ISBN-10 and an ISBN-13. So I went looking up ISBN-13 vs ISBN-10. But it’s confusing because you can’t find this book on YesAsia using the ISBN-13. It uses ISBN 10. Yeah…confusing.