Good mail day yesterday.

The winter Interweave Knits came (nothing that jumped right out at me and said "You must knit me! Now!" but there were some nice patterns - I liked the charcoal-colored sweater with the triangles on it, and there was a pretty pair of cabled boot socks, and there was an article on thumb gussets in mittens and one on gloves that I saved to read later). The new "Soft Dolls and Animals" came, nothing so great in this issue.

The real prize this month for me, though, was the new Piecework.

On the cover, it said "Needlework Toys" and I thought, ho-hum, more etuis and fancy needle-cases and carved ebony measuring-tape holders.

I was wrong. They literally meant "toys," as in, "things intended for children to play with." There were several short articles of the "testimonial" sort that Piecework does, describing favorite sewn or crocheted toys from people's childhoods, or toys they made for their children. There was a particularly winsome crocheted dog, with that "velveteen rabbit soul" quality that well-loved handmade toys develop.

There was also a wonderful crochet pattern - modified from the old Weldon's Needlework - for a toy cat. I plan on obtaining some Imagine and making this cat. (I also think I'm going to dig out the "Cisne" hiding in the back of my stash and see if I can crochet a cat of that).

In the same issue, there's a pattern for a fancywork ball (borders on ho-hum for me; it's the animal toys or dolls that I love) and a Nancy Bush pattern for some Estonian-style toy sheep. The sheep are quite nice, but they look more complex, and for some reason, the cat is what really grabbed my attention of "I want to make this!".

I think I've talked before here about my childhood toys; many of them were ones I actually made myself. I've always had a knack for making up my own patterns, sometimes literally making them up as I go along, cutting bits of fabric, testing if they fit, and recutting if I have to. I still have a number of my childhood toys. The earliest one I remember making is a toy duck - made, anomalously, out of some dark-blue curly fake fur (it was what we had around the house). I have a small mouse (for whom I designed the pattern) that I named Hector. Keeping with the fondness-for-odd-male-names trend, I have a rag doll - probably the object I treasure most because of the fact that he is the symbol of so many childhood memories for me - named Conrad. (Conrad is the single item I would make an effort to grab and take with me if the house were on fire).

The thing about handmade toys is, their imperfection and individuality seems to give them souls. I remember being given a Barbie doll as a child and looking at it in disbelief, wondering how I was supposed to play with it. And I happily turned back to my rabbit "family" (including "Grandma" and "Grandpa", who just happened to be toy rabbits my mother had had as a girl and had passed on to me, so they really WERE older than the rest of the "family") and spent the rest of the afternoon happily playing.

it's funny. I refer to the Barbie doll as an "it" but I cannot bring myself to refer to Conrad or Hector-the-Mouse as anything but "he".

I still have a soft spot for "critters," even mass-produced, store-bought "critters" to this day. I think it's because some of my happiest childhood memories stem from the times that I made small houses for them (under the dining room table, in the back of my closet, on the bookshelves in my bedroom) and moved them through elaborate stories of my own invention. It was by far my favorite way to play when I was a child.