Whenever anyone asks Adelaide what she'd like for a holiday or birthday gift, the answer is always (and always has been) one kind of live animal or another. A horse. A cat. A rabbit. A duck. Really, she'd take anything, I think, excepting spiders. (they're not very cozy, she says.) Hard pressed for a second choice after realizing another real animal won't be given, she'll tell you 'a stuffed animal, then'.
For her handmade Solstice gift this year, I made her a Mama Cat and her Skirt Dwelling Kittens, a pattern by Dorie of Tumbling Blocks blog. It was such a fun little project! The fabric on Mama cat is from Anna Maria's new collection. And the embroidered trim with beets - Adelaide's favorite vegetable - is from here. You can't quite tell from any of these photographs, but the kittens all tuck into the Mama's skirt through an opening in the back.
She named the Mama cat and her kittens just as I knew she would - after her own Mama cat, Piper and the four kittens as Adelaide had named them while they were with us - Cloud, Rainbow, Sally and Billy Blunt. Though we sadly lost miss Sally cat last spring, Adelaide still gets updates on the other three from time to time. Always checking up on 'her' kitties, this one - embroidered, stuffed, and most certainly the real ones that find their way to her, wherever she may be.
