Holiday Wrap Up Day 4

One of my favorite projects this holiday season was the toy I made for my nephew Craig. He is the youngest of the set of children my sister has. I decided on a pelican project and went to work on it. I loved working on this. It had so many great little details to it. I also learned through the project how top stitching can so dynamically change the look of things. Here the pelican is right before he received his wings:



Once I got the wings and feet on the pelican, I put his eyes on. I found that the eyes on this bird really did look sly. I placed him under our tree and kept thinking that the bird must be up to something. Dan agreed that he had a sly look about him. I guess the reason he looks so sly is his secret beak. The pouch under his beak is a nice little holding area for a color and number learning set of fish. It zippers closed so the fish cannot escape and get lost when the pelican is not being played with. Here he is eating fish number ten:



I also did not sew the eyelid of the pelican in an upright position. I like to let some things be loose for kids to explore and play with. I decided that the ability to make the bird awake or asleep should be up to the person playing with him. Here he is after a large meal of fish taking a nap:



Just like this was my favorite toy to make this year, it was one of the favorite things I made this year with the adults. I have already been told by Kathy that one needs to be made for Jozef when he is old enough. Jozef's present will be tomorrow's little show and tell.

Today on the slate I have my first day back tutoring at 826 Valencia after the holiday break. It will be good to get back to working with the kids and getting to brush up on my 5th grade math further! :) I am also going to work on my knitting on the train and try to get some parts of the tutorial photographed today. We will see how much gets done before I head out. I also have this dream of making cannoli for dessert tonight. Time will be the judge of these things.