Cuddly Lovey surgery

Paula has had Yayo since birth and loves that little lion with all her heart ... and teeth and arms ... There came the day when Yayo was so threadbare that he was more bare than he had threads left:



Because she wasn't my first baby, I had the good sense to buy two of the same animal and in the beginning I managed to somewhat rotate them.



Which now left me with a bit of an imposter who needed to be "adapted" to his identical twin ... and at the end of it, I had a very happy little girl ...

All in a weekend's work!

The (Lion) Emperor's New Clothes

After weeks of requesting a new outfit for her favourite little fella, I sat down and gave my girl what she wanted:



Can you see the difference in colour? Yep, that's the same fabric ...



all loved-up to within an inch of his life!



Shiney and new!

Finally: ET meets Frankenstein

Entie, the much beloved cuddly duck, has made it through surgery and is now awaiting her appointment with the Tailor to the Princesses, moi! Until such date, she must bear with her ET-(Elizabeth Taylor)-esque outfit.







In case you're wondering what Frankenstein is doing in the header of this post: her headshape is definitely frankenstein-esque. And her eyes beady.

Mending ducks and pants

Again, no time for quilting because outside of insane working hours, usually well into the evening (because my nanny is on holiday and I don't have anyone to watch the kids in the afternoons) and household chores, I have to mend our favourite duck - again! And the turn-up in my preferred dress-up pants has come undone and needs fixing before we jet of to Rome, no less, in 36 hours time.

So, after March's fruitless attempt I am at it again, this time by hand because that gave me the best results in previous successful operations in April 2007, January 2007 and once before that in 2004.



Such a sorry state, coverall loved through, runs and ladders up her throat, even one wing is threadbare. She has therefore taken up residence in a Elizabeth Taylor-esque pink silk kaftan of sorts that gets slung, wrapped and knotted in very sophisticated ways ...

Now, one may wonder why we don't just replace her. Well, that'd be like ripping the heart out of my big girl and thus myself.

Mending a certain duck - again

Currently there is no time to quilt at Casa Dot because I am mending a certain and much loved duck. ...



She is in a relatively sorry state. The terrycloth used for her cover-all survived about three decades in my grand-parents violently pink and burgundy bathroom ... until it became a duck garment and was loved to pieces in about 15 months.



The back is relatively ok still and I am quite proud of the obvious assemblage.



I found some relatively terry-clothy-feely fabric that I am hoping will hold up better. With a pencil and a very patient feathered patient I traced all the pieced I needed, cut them using a monsterously large pair of scissors ... and began sewing them together by machine ...

... only to rip it all apart again and start over ... and rip it apart again and put it away in frustration.

Done: one Lion with refurbished ears and highlights

Iaio aka Lion has successfully gone through ear reconstruction surgery and as a reward had his head of hair fixed.



He now comes with highlights ;-)



And this will hopefully be the temporary end to posts involving him.

How to fix a lion's ears:

My younger daughter loves chewing her lion's ears, which makes them disappear, which makes her cry. I have therefore been enlisted to fix them. For the second time. This lion has already had a new suit made and new ears. All that remains of said ears is the fabric I used on the front. The terry-cloth of the original ears has been chewed off. They are literally hanging by a thread.



I've been putting off this project - much as the repeat fixing of Entie, the Duck - for weeks, under much protest. Now I've settled on Anchor embroidery thread and crocheted two ears that will be affixed to the fabric from last year's surgery.



Lion also needs to have his hair fixed, which I will just mend using embroidery thread and needle. One of the bonusses of this project was that I had to hunt for my crocheting and embroidery needles that I had not seen since about three moves ago. And I found them!!!

Plastic Surgery - duckie-style

Our resident cuddly duck has received a donour beak today and is doing well.



There have been complaints about the not-so-seamless fit but the Head of Surgery decided to ignore those ;-)

Previously completed surgery:
January 2007 | December 2006

Duck Mender Extraordinaire

This is the finished result of my Christmas Holiday Project, I had meant to sew by machine but never got around to getting out said machine. So I hand-stitched it and it appears to be quite a solid job. Out of my late Grandmother's towel - they had a magenta / pink theme going in their bathroom - and incidently, this is my Nan that my daughter was named for.

Soon the beak and head will need a hood too ... Death by Cuddling!

Meanwhile my quilt is progressing nicely and the beads for it have arrived as well.

Still not quilting ...

... but fixing little cuddly ducklings instead: