Busyness, Lions and Bunnies

We've been busy around here, the beginning of the week is always that way lately, which isn't a bad thing at all. We've been looking for more ways to find out what Pixie's medical issue is. I've tried lots of internet groups and forums, even an 'ask the vet' which gave us pretty much the same answer our vet did. It's a tough case considering it isn't tetanus, or at least, it doesn't look like tetanus in any other way yet. We put her x-rays up here. We've had a few good reccommendations -- and if they pan out she might have a chance.

Second lion
It felt like I was tying wool lion mane hair for three hours!

I'm on the fourth version of the lion pattern, lions 1 and 3 didn't survive to be finished. Lion 2 was a little skinny (see above) but he is cute enough for his stuffing ;) Mark says he looks like a surfer dude: 'Like, RAWR... dude.' I'm also working on a very simple rag doll rabbit pattern to work up as a .PDF.

Three little rag doll "bunny rabbit" baby toys at the KnitOwl toy shop

These rabbits take 30 minutes to an hour each from tracing pattern to finishing faces. The hardest part is making sure their legs and arms and ears are in straight. Sometimes when you go to run them under the sewing machine, they move around! These are nice 'I can't sleep' items too, I did one of them at two in the morning last night.

We went to the flea market yesterday and found some interesting vintage finds to list on Ebay and Etsy. Mark found an Underwood typewriter for a steal that still works in most ways -- we're examining it today.

Absentmindedness: I exploded an egg on the stove this morning. Apparently I wasn't that hungry for a boiled egg. Luckily the type of pan it exploded in survived the impact so it wasn't that much of a disaster.

Pregnancy Dreams: Also have been having more and more very 'real' feeling dreams about the baby's delivery. Last night's was pretty scary, and I was glad to wake up. I don't worry about it a lot during the day, so I guess I make up for it at night. We have another doctor's appointment today.

Toy Design: Starting on paper

Everybody designs in a different way - for me, I use LOTS of paper - and start out sketchy. Then the geometry comes in - I might even get out a ruler and compass, but that is rare. I like the 'organic' human-made look and drafting can sometimes ruin that. I start making mental origami out of the paper before scissors ever touch cloth.


from the simplest happy lion sketch to
beginning of 'deconstruction'

'mental origami'sketches
begin to shape what I will cut out as actual pattern pieces

A lot gets worked out in the paper - but still things go through several stages. Sewing up a prototype pattern (a muslin, if it was a garment) isn't always as easy or as smooth as you thought it would be. Things get ripped out - pieces saved and others recut etc. etc... and hopefully by the end of the day (or two) you have a brand new, designed-by-you toy pattern with most of the major kinks worked out.

Hopefully you'll meet a cloth version of this lion soon!