Monday, December 23, 2013

Bah Humbug.

It’s the evening of December the 23rd and right now, at this moment , my holiday spirit is pretty much a solid Bah-Humbug.  I have a new niece (Mr Tabubil’s sister's baby) and she is charming and precocious and clearly miles ahead of every other baby anywhere and I am making her a stuffed elephant for Christmas.  Every time I make a stuffed animal I buy the pattern off of Etsy - Why support some multinational corporation like Butterick or Simplicity when you can support a creative individual?  That's how the thinking goes, anyway - and every single time I do this, after I cut out the pattern pieces and have used up all my fabric, I remember that the reason one supports multinational corporations is because they have a history of actually testing the patterns.  One doesn't have to redesign the whole flaming animal on the fly. The picture on the pattern I picked out was pretty cute, so I gave the elephant a very long name, and even wrote a little story about why elephants have such long names, and how my Valentina Euphrasia Trumpet-toes McGonagall got hers -
            This blamed elephant only has four legs, but as of this evening I've sewn on seven feet and redesigned a trunk and a purple elephant posterior.  Mr Tabubil, my dear husband and helpmeet, thinks the situation’s hysterical.  I’ve no comment.  But my story has a brand new chapter.  It's called "Valentina the Elephant visits the La Brea Tar Pits."  It's very short and extremely educational.


2 comments:

  1. Lol. I feel compelled to speak up for simplicity - my mother in law designs patterns for them, and the royalties from her renaissance costume patterns put my husband through college!! Merry Christmas and good luck with your elephant. - Valentine

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  2. And I know that she tests and tests and tests her patterns! How fantastic for your husband! I've nothing against the Big 3 - the patterns are good ones - but i always feel it's worth trying etsy first for toys and stuffed animals. Having said that, I here vow that the next time I'm in the US, I'm stocking up on Big 3 animal patterns! And now - back to those blasted feet. A foot is a circle attached to a cylinder. Simple geometry. How can it possibly go so badly so many times in a darned row?

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