Trying to take pictures of soft cuddly toys while you have a toddler in the house is ummm…HARD. This drawing doesn’t even begin to show what happened.

I put the sheep down, in the kissing position, on the ottoman for pictures. Isabelle grabbed them and ran off making kissing noises. When I finally got them back, I put them down again and kept the ottoman away from Isabelle. But she thought this was a new game. She pushed the sheep off the ottoman and pushed it away like I did. Ha ha ha! Then I tried the stool, which she pushed away. Back to the ottoman, back to the stool, back and forth again and again! Aaaah!!! Finally, with Alan’s help, I got it done…barely…

Oh and I’m trying something new with my photos. I actually quite like it but you lose the details. Click on them if you want to see them like regular without out the photoshop action.

The introduction: Mr. Sheep meets Ms. Sheep.

Ms. Sheep tries to play coy but…

It’s love at first sight.

Hee hee. Ok sewing talk. Ms. Sheep’s face came out funny. It was pointy and weird and I smooshed it down, when I embroidered her face. But it still looks funny.

I also decided to use furry flannel for the body. And you can tell it made a difference in her size. The flannel has more give so she’s bigger.

Oh and as if I didn’t bombard you with enough pictures. Here’s the final one, where my little monkey just couldn’t be kept away any longer.

Oh and almost forgot…she’s from ISBN 4391624206. So you don’t have to go searching for it.

He’s a little rebel, a little rosy cheeked rebel.

Why is he a rebel, you ask? He bucks convention! He’s different! He stands alone! (Literally, since there are no other sheep, yet). What in the world am I talking about?

His big ears are backwards, the cheeky fellow.

And Isabelle’s reaction (as a daily comic)? Because he sure doesn’t look like a rabbit now!

Ok serious talk now, or I should say sewing talk. Mr. Sheep (from 4391624206) is made out of an old, too small, ripped bed sheet. What fitting material for a toy sheep. And he is stuffed with filling from a pillow I made. I was impatient to stuff him so didn’t wait to buy stuffing. I ripped open the pillow and used the stuffing instead. So he’s totally recycled! Isn’t that awesome? So anyhoo, the sewing I was going to talk about.

I screwed up his ears, well obviously since they are on backwards. But not only that, they’re also larger than the rest of him. What happened was, for his ears, I sewed on the pattern line. Then when I started making his head, and it went wrong, I changed over to a .5 cm seam allowance. So it’s only a teensy bit too large but I can see it. So what do you think? Does he look mostly like he’s supposed to?

You know when I mentioned I was wrastling seahorses? And then the sketch I made? What was that all about? These seahorses!

Alice from futuregirl.com asked me to test out her newest pattern. I enjoyed sewing them up so much. Even though I, ahem, didn’t follow directions correctly and screwed up the baby seahorse’s tail. But I think they turned out nicely. I like Alice’s patterns so much. They are easy to follow and satisfying. It’s joyful to make something so quickly and have this beautiful completed object.

For this photo I very moronically strung them up from this light that hangs down over the front door. I had to get up on tippy toes and struggle with the invisible thread that I not so wisely decided to use. It is very hard to try to get invisible thread over a bit of light when you can barely reach it. And then to adjust it to the correct height and tie it off when you can barely see it? Aack! I wish I had the sense to do it the way Alice did.

Actually no. I haven’t taken them down and they are quite pretty hanging there. Think Alan will mind if I keep them up?

And on a different subject. I’ve solely been using Flickr for my pictures this past week. How’s that been working for everybody? No problems?

Another animal from the book Sock and Glove, this time a cat. They’re so easy to make. At least I think they are. But Alan said I worked on them for hours. Really? The time just flew by. I couldn’t have been working on them for hours…I don’t think.

I wanted his head rounder. Round and fat. But it came out long and skinny. Oh well. Isabelle knows it’s a cat. What noise does a cat make Isabelle? Meeeam, meeeam!

Oooh and some gloves soon to be some other animals. But first I’m going to wrastle a seahorse, like the way I wrastled the octopus.

I have had the book, Sock and Glove, sitting around for a while. I briefly flipped through it then set it aside. Well last night I finally made something from it, a sock dog!!

His face isn’t quite right. It doesn’t look like the one in the book. My sock dog’s face is more squarish and his ears stick up like he’s constantly surprised. (I pushed his ears down for the pictures)

But Isabelle doesn’t mind. She sees him and says, woof woof!

Here he is!! The big dangerous fellow I wrastled with. Fear him, fear him!! Ok, so I exaggerated, or you could say I like telling stories…ok I lied. I don’t go deep sea diving. I don’t catch octopi and drag them home. BUT B. U. T. T. (hee hee I wrote butt. I’m keeping it) BUT I did sew him up!! He’s a wonderful pattern from Alice at futuregirl.com. I’ve named him Ollie. Ollie, the octopus.

Oh yeah and did I mention maybe that he isn’t so big that he sits on my lap like I depicted him yesterday. He’s not that big hulking creature but a sweet little guy who likes to sit by my computer. He’s about three inches tall.

He sits there staring at me and whenever I look at him I pat his tiny little head. And he oh so enjoys it. He wiggles his tentacles in glee. That’s his favorite spot and when I pick him up he reaches his tentacles down trying to hold onto the table.

When he’s not sitting by my computer he likes sitting on heads as you can see in the picture below and also this picture.

So back to what I was saying. Alice will be selling the pattern for him on her blog. You have probably seen her Octophrost and the one and only Sigmund who I absolutely fell in love with. Well Alice asked me to test the pattern out. Her directions were so easy to follow and now I have my own little octopus!! I was telling her how happy he makes me. I’m all giddy happy and I kept saying to Alan did you see my octopus? And he’s like yes dear I already saw your octopus.

How cool is he?!?!?! And soon everyone can make their own little octopus friend.

Happy new year all! New year, new doll! Meet Daffodil, the newest nubby doll. Actually I made her a while ago. She was just naked. I finally finished up her wrap and her unmentionables yesterday.


Daffodil says hi!