A Final Farewell to Sew a Softie 2017

Just wanted to share a story with everyone as a last hurrah to Sew a Softie 2017.

About a fortnight ago my mum, who’s 85, was out walking. Where we live, the local council organizes a collection of whatever people want to get rid of a few times a year. You just dump your unwanted possessions in front of your house and they send round a truck to cart it away, so there are piles of old furniture, books, new or broken toys, pictures, kitchenware, just tons of all different stuff all over the place.

Anyway, there’s my mum walking along and poking around in these piles of fascinating stuff and she finds an old tin and inside were some discarded, and I guess once much-loved, “treasures”. There was a tiny picture notebook with nothing written in it, some plastic toy figurines and a this odd little softie made by some budding designer from an old scrap of T-shirt fabric. Our anonymous designer was obviously very young: the softie had two eyes made from buttons, one quite big and one small, (which gave it a really quirky look), no nose and a smiley mouth drawn on with a felt-tip pen.

My mum gave me the tin and its occupants, so I took them home. My daughter Yiscah (the last of my 4 children who is still at home) didn’t really take a shine to the little softie. “He looks like a voodoo doll” was her considered opinion. But I liked him or her, I couldn’t figure out which the softie was. He/she had something and I put the little orphan on a shelf where I could see him/her and let him or her inspire me. After a few days of subjecting myself to his/her magical influences, I whipped up the following little amoeba softies. They don’t look that much like their magical ancestor but their personalities are very similar. At least in my eyes. Yiscah still thinks he/she looks like a voodoo doll.

I’m looking forward to Sew a Softie 2018!

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