I kept my sewing machine busily whirring along during my spare moments this weekend.  I'm working on a bunny and a bear from Hillary's Put-Together Book; these are going to be sent to my littlest cousins.  The pattern is very easy to follow and charmingly written with little tips and illustrations. 

I am out of stuffing and need to make a craft store run so I can fluff up the bear.  He's going to be a little boy bear, with a little felt tie.  I'm ready to put the face on the little bunny; so many possibilities- I've been rearranging the little felt bits and buttons to test out every expression.  The character of the stuffies really changes with each little facial feature placement variation. 

I really enjoy making these quick little stuffie projects- they are cute, and they spread joy to children.  What's not to like? I'm very bad about making things for myself, but if our apartment was bigger, I imagine I would have a whole menagerie of stuffed animals and little creatures.  The only stuffies I still have are genuine childhood stuffies: the little Ernie doll I carried around the year I was Ernie for Halloween (I was 2), and of course, my beloved Huggy, made by my great-grandmother:

Huggy has seen better days, it's true.  In high school, I pinned some linen over the bottom of his face, which had worn clear through and was dumping stuffing all over (Rhea used thinly sliced nylon stockings as stuffing).  I couldn't bear to stitch it up... at the time, I was very disturbed at having to sew on Huggy's face... I suppose I've always been overly sensitive, especially when it comes to Huggy. 

Every August as a kid, my brothers and I used to spend the month at our grandparents' home in West Virginia. 

We would run around their beautiful backyard, get mosquito bites, capture frogs and turtles, help feed the chickens and the pigs, help with the cooking and the canning, ride on the back of the tractor, play spit on the porch... it was about a five hour drive, and one summer- I think I was about 10- I realized, halfway there, that I had left Huggy back home on my bed in his spot on the pillow.  We couldn't turn around, of course, and what with it being the 80's and all... remember the Dire Straits, Money for Nothing?  The chorus, "I want my... I want my... I want my MTV?"  It must have come on the radio, because I tearfully started singing, "I want my... I want my... I want my Hu-ggy..."  Such a dramatic kid. Huggy was fine, though. He just hung out with Gentle Heart Lamb.