Taa Daa! Three Cosmonaut Devils

I've called them Leonid (Blue), Ivan (Red) and Uri (Green). Each has a different personality (and expression). They took about an hour and half each to cut out sew up and stuff. Their little hands are the hardest to get the stuffing to stay into while you stuff the rest! One wonders how they scratch themselves.
The cosmonaut pattern came from the book Softies.
I have 7 nephews and nieces and two more on the way, the Cosmonaut Devils are for one of my gorgeous nephews, LilB. I wrote him a space adventure story to go with them. It is making me laugh as I illustrate it today, I hope he likes it!
It is however taking ages as I'm using Adobe Illustrator and it's all a bit slow on the Macbook I have. The Macbook...He's lovely for carrying around school! I have him plugged into the monitor at home for working without eye damage, but I hope the lovely big 27" iMac comes soon with all it's power and enormous screen! He's on order, but he won't make it here by Christmas. He'll be a new year present instead!

Attempts at a handmade Christmas...mostly!

Well this year, I decided to make Christmas Presents. In recent times I had made some things for Mirabel that turned out well, I'd bought a brand new sewing machine, Converted the spare room into Sewing World - (where men fear to tread) my head was exploding with ideas and I had a massive fabric stash, Why not!? I said! I bought the extra supplies I needed and many many other things I didn't, but..who can resist anything in those fabric stores.
But...even as I was setting back towards home...Doubts crept in...What if the stuff I think is cute/cool/good really isn't. What if they think handmade is stingy? What if my stitching isn't perfect. Will they notice if I make a mistake!? What will I do if it doesn't work out!?
Making things for other people takes a whole lot of effort and a whole lot of time and a whole lot of weird apprehension. When it's for yourself you don't feel nervous about it, but for other people it brings on anxiety!
I had waited until the last day of work for the school year (Yesterday) before starting to sew for Christmas. The theory was then I could work on each one uninterrupted...was this a mistake!? Should I have started weeks ago...Probably! That only leaves me..hmmm 9 days! But hell, 9 days of sewing, with no work sounds like pure heaven at this point in the year! Wouldn't it be easier just to go buy some stuff someone said.... When I looked at the mall and all the thousands of people I'd have to fight and/or wait in line with just to buy stuff I still wouldn't be sure anyone actually wanted for 10 times the price it should be...I heard a big resounding NO! leap from my mouth...And besides...it just wouldn't be as fun.

Wow Where did all the time go!

Well I sent some Softies off to Meet Me At Mike's to help with the toy drive for Mirabel. In the big rush, I forgot to take photos before I sent them. Here are some photos someone else has taken in the shop window that I pieced together showing some of the ones I made.

Go take a look at some of the fabulous Softies created by very talented and wonderful people and donated to Mirabel: http://www.flickr.com/groups/softiesformirabel/pool/