One completed thing

One of the things I did today was quickly sew up one of those cut-and-sew toys I bought from Spoonflower.

This is Ludovic:



He was designed by Hazel Fisher - you can get him on Spoonflower (or I suppose, yours might be a her) in several different colors but the teal was my favorite.

These kinds of toys were a big thing when I was a kid - every fabric shop had them, and I had a bunch (my favorite was a giraffe named George, but I also had a bear and a cat and a couple of others, and the "freebee" toys that some advertisers sent out were like this - I had a Tony the Tiger that I was deeply fond of when I was about four, and also a Jolly Green Giant).

When I got a little older, I kind of lost my love of these - they were simple, they weren't posable, the limbs weren't even separate! But I've come back around to liking them again, because of the fact that they are kind of like pillows, and I do like the simplicity of the designs.

Also, dragons: when I was a kid, I had a copy of Norman Bridwell's The Witch's Catalog. This was one of those "Scholastic Book Club Books" - how I loved that as a kid, the little newsprint catalogs with the long narrow order forms, and then the day the books arrived...

 Even though I was old enough (I was 8 or so) to know it was all fantasy, oh, how I wanted my own tiny pet dragon like the one shown in the book. I actually made (I could sew, as a kid, and I sometimes even designed my own toys) several dragon toys but of course it wasn't the same as a REAL one would have been....

But yeah. Ludovic is kind of a memory of that. And if nothing else, he'll look cute sitting on my sofa.


Edited to add: Google Image Search can be a great thing. Here are (in panel form) the three ones I remember from childhood:

George:

The cat, which I called Charlie (That may have been his "official" name):

And the bear, which I don't remember as having a name. (I was less fond of him):

I should probably retrieve George from my parents' house some time when I visit; I kind of want to keep him.




Also, here's the update on Celestarium:



You can see I moved it to the short circular.