Katy Kitty for a Little Kiwi

It feels like it's been forever since I actually sat down and made something.  Simple mending, sure (I became my son's hero when I patched his jeans a few weeks ago), but actual sewing had come to a veritable stand-still.  I dismantled my beautiful cutting island before Christmas and gave the dresser half to my girls who are now sharing a room, and the desk half to my eldest who is an art-making machine and was sorely lacking a proper workspace.  My worktop was pushed under the loveseat in my living room and there it sat for the better part of 3 months.

Yes, it was totally sad.

I'm sure I could have overcome this obstacle in and of itself, but the other more pressing issue was all of the storage I lost by removing the island.  11 DRAWERS LOST.  And I was totally haphazard with the way I removed all of the stuff.  My new sewing room (new to you because I've never really blogged about it, but kinda old to me at this point) has a closet which was swiftly jammed with all kinds of crafterphernalia in no sort of real order.  Honestly, I just didn't even want to deal with it, and I kinda lost my sew-jo over it.

Thankfully, I was able to construct a new cutting table recently (more on that in another post), I got *some* of the stuff re-organized, and I started to feel the creative juices flowing again.

Allllllllll this to say, I'm back.  I made something.  And it feels good.

Kiwi's birthday is coming up soon-ish, so I decided to make her a stuffed friend to love.  (I'm actually way on top of things this year, and I've got plenty of time to spare.  Mr. Skooks chuckled a bit when I showed him my completed project.  "Not going to wait until the night before?"  Cheeky.)

In a completely unsurprising move, I selected an mmmcrafts pattern written by my pal, Larissa.  Her patterns are top of the heap, excellent quality, easy to understand, and stinkin' adorable.  I've completed 6 of her patterns now and I just cannot say enough good things about them.  I had toyed with the idea of making another Molly Monkey this time around, but I always like to try something new, so I finally found my reason to purchase and make Katy Kitty.

I was so excited to begin that despite it being late at night with terrible lighting I snapped this little in progress shot to mark the occassion:

Eeeeeee!!

I actually took Kiwi with me to the fabric store.  She charmed the pants off the old ladies discussing quilt sashing at the cutting counter when she slipped a spool of Gutterman thread over her finger and yelled, "OOOH!" while I wandered around looking for an appropriate body fabric.  The pattern calls for corduroy, but I was wanting something much more soft.  (There are probably some soft-ish corduroys available somewhere, but the shop I was in was not one of those places.)  I landed on something in the suede section in a dusty turquoise.  I think it was called "satin backed suedecloth" or something.

Anyway, it's nice and soft.

I had plenty of fabric sitting in my stash to finish this project off, but of course, I found a little something while I was wandering.  :)  Kate Spain's Daydreams Arcadia in Scarlet became the centerpiece for Katy's clothing.  I picked up a little bit of the same line (Memory in Persimmon) for the sleeves.  I had a small chunk of Nicey Jane laying around (Slim Dandy in Pink) which I ended up using for her fabulous stripey socks.  An assortment of prints from Happy Zombie's Happy Mochi Yum Yum and Deb Strain's Fresh Flowers with a Michael Miller Ta Dot thrown in for good measure rounded out the collage and all appear in her patchwork skirt.

Larissa always includes such sweet details in her patterns.  I adore the little wingtips:

I may or may not have let Kiwi peek at the doll earlier today.  OOPS.  She gave her a big hug after an appropriate shriek of delight, but I took the kitty back to hide away until her actual birthday.

At least I know that it was love at first sight.  :)