Albert

Last January, at the end of the month, I made Cora a little stuffed dog, who she named Rose. Like all the stuffed animals in this house, Rose ahs had to endure the roller coaster ride that is Cora's love: played with intensely for a few weeks, forgotten for a few weeks, repeat for 12 months. Rose has been back in favor the past few weeks, but sad. She has been sad, I am told by her interpreter, because she doesn't have a friend. A boyfriend. Who is also a dog. Just like her.

Yesterday, as I was finishing up my own sewing projects, she asked again about a friend for Rose. I was feeling very good about getting things done and agreed that it was time to make Rose a friend. Once again, I wish I had thought to go get the camera to take more process pictures. I thought of it as I was stuffing the legs, but didn't want to leave my project.

As it happened, I didn't get the dog finished until nearly midnight, so Cora had only seen him in pieces. So last night, I finished him up, complete with a pair of pants, took some pictures, and set him and Rose on the table for her to find this morning. She did, she loves him, she named him Albert, and then he and Rose swapped clothes.

Then she told me that they need Halloween costumes.

Albert himself

Albert standing. The pants are not a great fit.

Albert and Rose

They seem to like each other.

Yes, I think they do like each other.

I also made this rabbit. Because I wanted to.

The eyes are a little beady, but he's still cute.

A good afternoon

This afternoon I

• finished putting a quilt top together,
• made binding for the quilt,
• made a cover for a pillow form I bought three months ago, and
• started a new stuffy for Cora, one she has been requesting for two weeks.

It felt good to make so much, and for it all to go so well. While I sewing in my little nook, Cora played with her dollhouse and watched some NickJr shows, and Chris made pizza for dinner. I'm looking forward to finishing the stuffy tomorrow, and posting a picture, and to hunting through my bins to find a backing for the quilt. It is wallhanging size, so I believe I also already have batting.

A very good afternoon, indeed!

FFF: Hugs

The Favorite Foto Friday theme this week is HUGS. And while I think a lot of people will post adorable pictures of kids hugging each other or hugging friends or hugging a parent, let's just remember who I live with.

In November we were Cabela's, and Cora caught sight of a barrel of large, long, stuffed fish. Not taxidermy (though Cabela's fuels her fascination with that, too), but stuffies. There was quite a terrible scene when it became clear we would be leaving without one of these fish.

Luckily, Old Man Santa came through and left one under the tree. This fish is fondly known as Trout and Cora loves him dearly. As you can tell.

Arts and Crafts

While I have been working on the circle quilt, Cora has been very interested in my progress. I thought it might be fun to give her a project sort of like mine. On Saturday, while Chris was running errands, I asked him to stop by the craft store and pick me up some fusible interfacing (I forgot to say "double-sided," though, so this was not quite as easy as I planned, but that's okay). I fused it to fabric scraps and cut out shapes. Then I cut squares from muslin.

Then, while I sewed my circles, Chris and Cora played with the scraps and squares. When they  had a square done, I sewed the pieces down to the muslin for them. These first two were Chris's, though he had considerable input on what he could and could not do. The pinwheel one is probably the most his.

As you can see, after the sewing down there was some additional decorating done with fabric markers.

This was Cora's first one. In some places there are four layers of fabric! She was especially thrilled with the spiral/maze stitching I did on it. While this one is fairly abstract, her next one was a scene:

Her restaurant, with a table and chair. My favorite part of the restaurant one is actually the back.

Where she drew us, labeled with our initials.

Once this cold spell breaks, I plan to get the other kind of interfacing and try this again. But this time I'll trace seam allowances on the muslin, and maybe make them larger. Like placemat size. We still have a lot of winter left, and it feels good to have some cabin-fever projects lined up!

I am finally posting some socks I made (actually, "Turkish bed socks" from a Churchmouse Classics pattern) that I finished in the first week of the new year. That makes them the first thing I made in 2011, a year that came with the resolution to "Make More"!

Finally, here is my 2011 poster. There's a make-your-own-keep-calm widget out there on the web that I used for this. I have it hanging in a prominent place, of course!

FFF: Your Choice

Nora's theme this week is "You choose!" I've been waiting all week to post this one (and then took all day to get a moment alone with the computer). Here is what you see when you casually announce that for breakfast you are making COOKIES!

Passing on the Narrative Addiction

I don't know what "playing barbies" is like in other homes. But, it is taken very seriously at our house, most especially by Cora, Master of Ceremonies, Chief Director, and Queen of the Narrative. She constantly surprises me with her storylines. For Christmas she received a vet's outfit (with cat) and a ballerina outfit for her dolls (not all are Barbies-proper; most are Disney princesses). She dressed up the dolls, assignment me the veterinarian dollie, and played the ballerina bringing her cat to the vet. When I asked if her cat was sick, she responded, "Well, yes, but really I am here to tell you that bad guys want to kill you." Oh. Well, that changes the story, doesn't it?

Last night, Chris was out at a concert. Our evening progressed normally. At bedtime Cora and I went to her room, put on jammies, and I read her several stories and sang some songs. At which point she jumped up and exclaimed that she had forgotten something! Barbie and Ken were supposed to go to a party! A ball! A Very Important Ball. She had to play with them for just a little bit. A little arguing (admittedly, my heart was not in it; I am tired of being the grumpy mommy), and we struck a deal that she could come back out to the living room and play quietly for a while if she promised to 1) let me do my own thing, and 2) be cheerful and not crabby in the morning.

The storyline, in brief: First the decorations had to be made and taped up in the ballroom (which might look like an ordinary cardboard box to you). And then there was the dressing (which involved going to the Target store, where the really pretty ball gowns are, natch). Finally, they made it to the dance, even though Ken wouldn't wear his shoes and Barbie was *really* angry at him. Then, accompanied by whispery songs the dancing started. Barbie and Ken did an awful lot of slow-dancing. Then, um, Barbie had a baby. A small polly-pocket sized doll just popped out from under her ballgown. How embarrassing. Ken is going to stay at the dance, but Barbie is taking the baby home to nurse it. Ken says he'll dance with his other wife for a while.

And that was the end of the story. Then Cora pulled her Dick & Jane anthology off the shelf, curled up next to me, and read several pages. Out loud. While I tried to continue reading my murder mystery. But, I can certainly forgive a little reading out loud.

I know what you are really wondering, though. What happened the next morning? Most weekdays, Chris and Cora get up earlier than I do. Today, as on several days, I woke up because Cora was upset about something. She wanted to play a computer game before they left for school. She was being very crabby indeed. On my way to the bathroom, I reminded her of her promise, and pointed out that she should have breakfast and get dressed and then see if there was time for games.

When I came out of the bathroom, she had stopped fussing. She went out to the kitchen, ate her breakfast, got dressed, and then asked nicely if she could play a computer game. She and I sat together and played some games on the PBS site, and then she went off the school. Cheerfully. *Whew*

FFF: Peace / Piecing

Nora's theme for yesterday was "Peace" - and she was good enough to announce it ahead of time. Despite this, it seemed to be a week without much peace in terms of my inner landscape. Denise Levertov's bleakly beautiful poem "Zeroing In" aptly describes what I am talking about.

But today has been a good day, and I've found a nicer landscape waiting for me inside. I attribute this mainly to what I have done in the kitchen today (cinnamon rolls for tomorrow! meatloaf! crazy 1907 onion soup!) and also that I was able to sit in front of my sewing machine and experiment with some ideas. Here are the photos: