Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Childhood Toys

I got a custom order recently, asking for a very specific stuffed animal.  The buyer wanted me to make this green gingham mouse for her sister, who is about to have her first baby.

Sister's favorite toy as a child was a green gingham mouse, named "Mousie."  Mousie was lost on a family vacation when she was 10, and she still talks about it, and refers to any lost item as a "Mousie incident."

Childhood toys loom large.  They really do.  I still remember a lost teddy bear named, for some reason, Blue Raspberry.  (I think it was my favorite flavor of water ice that summer).

Well, this is what I came up with.  A recommendation on Facebook sent me to a vintage pattern on Ebay.  The pattern looked very much like the original (which I suspect was handmade), so I might have actually duplicated it entirely.

It's not exact -- the original had two different gingham prints, and the eyes were felt -- but I think it's close enough for my buyer to get the Sister of the Year Award for even trying.

In other news, I got a call this morning from my temp agency asking if I wanted to work the rest of this week.  I already have a job lined up for the first week of June, but it's hard to turn down -- these are the same people who I left early last year to pick up a longer term assignment at my friend's office, so it's nice to know there are no hard feelings.

Besides, I spent a good portion of my holiday weekend doing frantic prep work for the Christmas season, so if I have this level of organization going on, I should be able to step away from the workroom for a few weeks, continuing to work in the evenings, and not get behind.

When I think about whining, or turning down an assignment, I just have to remind myself how lucky I am that I'm managing to work the way I want, and that temporary work is just that: temporary.  I'm not signing on for the long haul; the agency knows that 1-2 weeks is the maximum stretch I'm willing to serve, at least right now.

Now back into the newly reorganized sewing cave to start work on another batch of microwave bowls for this Saturday's show.  They sell out as quickly as I can make them, so I need to have at least 30 completed by Friday night.

More later!


3 comments:

Kris C. said...

Cute mouse! That sister should definitely be getting Sister of the Year award! ;)

Anonymous said...

I love the mouse. Great luck on the microware bowls. When you first posted them, I thought you had a winner. Great! Nancy

obat toxoplasma said...

nice creations :) its cute :)