Lion

I am trying to say to myself that no project is too difficult to tackle. Sometimes I will have an idea and will start to think, "Well, how could I make that." And as I think about it, and it starts to get complicated in my mind, I say forget it.  There is a good possibility that it will take a long time to figure out how to do it and then in the end I won't like it and it will be a waste of all that precious time.

When you are a mom of two little children time is truly precious. In fact, I think that is one of the biggest blessings of having children – learning to value each moment, especially each moment we have to ourselves.  Even if I spend my time at a coffee shop eating a muffin and reading the paper, I savor that little outing like I never would have as my former, kids-free self.

When I do have time to myself, though, I use almost all of it for sewing. And when I explore something that takes hours and hours to figure out (which means days and days of work for me since I only have an hour or two a day) and then in the end I can't figure it out it is a struggle not to say it was a waste of time.

But I have seen through all these years that eventually I will figure it out.  It just means I need to develop my skills more. I will revisit that idea that I can't make happen right now in a year or two and I will be able to make it then and I will marvel at what I have learned.

All of this is to say that I made a lion and finished him today and that it was complicated and took a while to figure out, but I love him and I'm so glad I decided to try.

This illustration was my guide as I drafted the pattern.

I find illustrations very useful when designing soft toys. The illustrator has already taken the essential elements of the animal and laid them all out, usually exaggerating a bit the parts that really evoke that particular animal. To go from there to sketching a pattern is not too hard.

Anyway, I hope that you will join me in diving in and taking the risk that it might not work in the end. Because it is true, it might flop completely, but we will certainly learn from each project and we might just make something good in the process.