Sasha, Wally, Flannery

This is Sasha. Sasha was raised by penguins in Antarctica. She finds the penguins to be quite friendly. She also believes they are persistent and nurturing parents. In Antarctica, Sasha doesn't see many colors, but she sees about a million versions of white and on a rare occasion a rainbow created by the sun. She loves the snow and how it looks different throughout the day. She draws in the snow using an icicle as a pencil. She loves incorporating snow angels into her drawings. The penguins are in awe of her talent.


Wally loves going really fast on his red scooter and feeling the wind on his face. Sometimes he ties a towel around his neck and puts a colander on his head and pretends that he is on a very important mission. He has to accomplish these missions in a very fast manner, before it's too late! He doesn't know exactly what his important missions are, but he knows he is a good guy and that he is helping other good guys who are not so fortunate to be as fast as he can be! One time, while on his scooter, a fly flew straight into his cheek, but that did not deter him from his very important mission. He has a friend, George, who is good at art and is going to draw a lightning bolt on his scooter for him.


Flannery likes unicorns. Her Aunt Bessy, who is very encouraging, signed her up for horse-back riding lessons. Flannery was grateful, but confused because horses are not unicorns. They can not fly and they don't have horns. Flannery made some cone shapes out of papier mache and glued glitter all over them. Then, she tried to attach the horn to her horse, Buttercup, but it fell to the ground, and Buttercup took this as an opportunity to have a snack. Flannery felt horribly about this. She worried that Buttercup would develop a stomach ache due to all the glitter. From then on, Flannery didn't wish Buttercup to be anything but a regular horse. She would bring two apples to her lessons each day, and she would always give the shinier apple to Buttercup.


I am sewing like a crazy person. I am just going to finish 4 more for the Bloomington Handmade Market and then I am going to call it quits. I haven't been to the gym in two weeks. We've also been eating a lot of spaghetti because it's easy and I am looking forward to getting back to more adventurous cuisines. I bought this book the other day because I love this blog. I really love how Molly writes. I don't know how I stumbled on her blog, but I never read a food blog before hers, and now I follow many. I am not a good cook, but I am getting better. I am notoriously resourceful, "We don't have any chili powder. That's okay! I'll use Cumin, they both start with 'C'." I also once used onions that looked extra green to me instead of actually using green onions. Thanks for stopping by, back to sewing I go.

Libby

Libby gets called "high-maintenance", but she prefers to call herself a "comfort-extremist". She will not let her feet touch a cold hardwood floor. She keeps her slippers on her night-stand so that she can immediately put them on when she wakes up. She only takes baths, never showers, and only with bubbles, never without. Her sheets must have no lower than a 5 digit thread count and her hot cocoa always gets topped with fresh homemade marshmallows. To counter being called a "diva", Libby has signed up to do some humanitarian work. She wants to help build houses for people. So far though, the weather hasn't been quite right for manual labor.

Bob and Carmen

Bob is a school maintenance man. He is in charge of changing light bulbs and keeping the floor shiny as well as a number of other things. Bob cares deeply about the environment which is why after he sweeps the floor, he picks up bits of paper from the trash pile and puts them in the recycling bin. But because it is better to re-use than recycle, he takes the special bits of paper, like the hand-written notes and takes them home. Then he uses very expensive scissors from Germany and clear glue to make elaborate, beautiful collages that portray his deep thoughts about the meaning of life.

Do kids still write notes on paper or is it all electronic these days? That would be a really shame if all they did were tweets instead of taking time to hand write a note. My friends and I were really big into writing notes and then folding them up in fancy ways. I remember filling side margins with flower vines and inventing fonts! It was great, but it probably would have served me better to pay a little more attention in class.



Carmen is a snow artist. She spends all summer long waiting for the leaves to turn, and when they do she is practically climbing trees and yanking off the leaves to usher in the winter. The first snowfall, for Carmen, is better than Christmas, but when they happen simultaneously she gets so excited that you can hear her heart beating from another room. When the snow completely covers the ground, she treats it like a blank canvas. She gathers all her equipment: paint brushes, squirt bottles, brooms, and powdered koolaid, and then she gets to work transforming the powdery white stuff into a masterpiece. Sometimes her neighbors commission her to transform their yards. However, she prefers to be paid in hot cocoas.

Playing Around With Faces

Friendly Car Wash Employee

Convict

Embarrassed Guy

School Maintenance Man that writes poetry on his off-hours

One of my favorite parts of softie-design is figuring out where to put the facial features. It's pretty incredible how drastically the personality of something changes with a slight rearranging of buttons and felt.
My little monkey is crawling now. He is not earning any points for form. In fact, Joseph thinks it looks like he has one leg stuck in a bear trap. He is very speedy however. And man, this kid is attracted to everything dangerous and gross: outlets, camera cords, and Albert's chew toys (the kind that you put peanut butter in!). If he had to choose between playing with a furry fake pony that dances and sings or a phone charger he would pick the charger.
I am sewing quite a bit. I have a lot to blog about this week. 10 more to go until I am ready for the Bloomington Handmade Market. This week I am working on upping the cute factor. I have a lot of middle-aged man softies finished, so it's time to work on a younger, furrier crowd.

Homer

Homer startles easily. His therapist thinks it may have to do with being the youngest of ten brothers. If someone were to tap Homer on the shoulder to ask him where the cheese shop is, Homer's heart might stop. He lives near a railroad track, and though he has the train schedule memorized, the choo-choo noise makes him scream and tear up. He has written letters to the President of the United States requesting that trains have a universally quieter toot, but the president must be quite busy because he has yet to receive a response. In the meantime he has started watching Hitchcock films in an effort to train himself to startle less. He usually is too frightened to make it past the opening credits, but is proud of his progress thus far.

It has been a great week for instant watches on Netflix! I watched Mary and Max, a claymation about an Australian girl who becomes pen-pals with a man in America who has Aspergers. There is a special place in my heart for claymation. You know so much love and time goes into those and I love that even the tiniest detail has been sculpted by human fingers. Besides the clay, the story is beautiful and sweetly funny---my favorite kind of beautiful. If you have time to watch it, have a hankie ready for the end.

Then, I put on the documentary, A Man Named Pearl, on a whim and ended up really loving it as well. Pearl lives in a teeny town in South Carolina and he taught himself the art of topiary sculpture and turned his yard into this magical garden straight out of Edward Scissorhands. His garden is so magical, and he's just this down-to-earth, regular guy. My favorite part was about how he sculpted a topiary for his local Waffle House, so they let him eat for free whenever he likes. Every morning he gets the "Pearl Special": a single scrambled egg, a spoonful of grits and one piece of buttered toast. Come on Pearl! Eat some waffles, they're free! He is incredible. My mouth hurt after watching it because my jaw dropped so many times.

Nora and Mona

Mona keeps secret like Burt keeps bees. She is so careful with them because she will not, on her watch, let anyone get stung. Everyone feels like they can confide in her and tell her dark and embarrassing confessions and Mona is happy to let people get things off their chest and lighten up their load. For creative relief, Mona takes people's secrets, changes their names, and bases elaborate screen plays off of them.

Nora has a voice that is tinier than a baby ant. People often can't hear her. It is a shame too because she is quite certain that she has solved the current economic crisis.



I have been drinking my tea out of this ridiculous mug that my brother got me for Christmas last year. Before, I was just using it as decoration, but out of desperation to not wash dishes, it became my tea mug.
The Bloomington Handmade Market is just around the corner and to reach my goal, I need to sew 14 more dolls. I also need to sew Walter's Halloween costume which puts a lot of pressure on me. Writing that is kind of hilarious. I am so grateful to only be feeling pressure for such a mild, ridiculous thing like turning my son into a Frenchman for Halloween. Although, this Frenchman costume has been my husband's dream ever since his nephews were babies, so the stakes are pretty high.
Did you see Mavis Staples on the Colbert Report? I think this song is so beautiful.

Ophelia and Thomas

Thomas is a pleasant fellow who has a thing for sugary pastries. He eats them for breakfast every morning, thinks about them most of the day, and at night he dreams up new carbohydrated-concoctions not yet out in bakeries. When he is old enough to use the oven he will make these concoctions a reality. Until then, he makes detailed sketches in his loose-leaf notebook and he colors them with scented markers. His latest involve various takes on the "whoopie pie".


Ophelia does her hair up nice and tall. She is inspired by both French and 1950's fashions. She calls this do, the double beehive. She is very modern and artistic as well. She has a teeny, tiny camera, the size of a pencil tip that she puts behind her ear. She uses it to capture people's reactions of her hairstyle as she walks the street. She then develops the film and scribbles on the photos with a black permanent marker. She is making a dark and mysterious statement that she can't articulate yet. She is pretty sure it will make her famous.


I have whoopie pies on the brain. Last Saturday the family and I went to the Farmer's Market and bought some pumpkin whoopie pies from an Amish couple. 50 cents each! The Starbuck's equivalent would be around five dollars, I'm sure. They were so delicious. I have been thinking about them all week. I have always been a little envious of the Amish, but this has taken that envy to a whole new level. Not only do they get to lead quiet, simple lives---but they have whoopie pies sent to them straight from heaven.

I am now the proud owner of a Japanese sewing book. I have been admiring the things Meg from Elsie Marley makes her children from Japanese sewing books and so I jumped on the chance to buy one from the Little Sprout shop. Otherwise I wouldn't really know where to get one, but Little Sprout's Sara blogged about getting rid of some and put them up for sale in her cute, cute shop. All the directions are in Japanese, which I am okay with because I am more of a picture learner anyway.


Just by glancing through the book I had a major revelation of the softie variety. Like a fool, I have been spending all my softie-sewing years (2) stuffing legs before sewing them on. This in general makes the entire shape of the form a teeny bit wonky. But, as pictured below, there is this genius solution to that problem: Leave a space for stuffing the legs, turn them right-side-out and then sew them into the inside-out form flat. Now I feel a little bit wiser.


The leaves are staring to turn. October is pretty great as far as months go. With Little Walter around I feel this urgent need to establish traditions. I didn't grow up with too many. In fact, my mom had a fake Christmas tree that we decorated once and then would push into a closet with a garbage bag thrown over it during the non-holiday season. When Christmas came around we would take off the garbage bag and scoot it into place. Badda-bing, Badda-boom. I guess that is sort of like a tradition in its own way. It makes me smile when I think about it, so that works. But I want to be a tradition extremist, so I need to hurry up and get my apple orchard on so that Walter beans and I can make some homemade applesauce.