…you work, and work, and work on something, and then you get it almost completely finished and realize that you’ve made it a little bit too big? Not someplace easy to take off, either (like the part you just did), but a little too much of the beginning section. Or it’s a little too wide. And it’s far enough off that it will drive you crazy if you don’t fix it, but you would have to undo and redo so much work that it makes you want to pass out somewhere with a cold compress and a fudge sundae, and then you start to wonder desperately if you could just sort of cut off the stitches you don’t need and then sew the edge up so that it doesn’t unravel?
Yeah. That totally works. And I’m never, never, ever telling how I know.
I made Max a pony for Christmas in 2005 (I got the pattern here, it’s well worth making…). Over time it’s gotten buried at the bottom of the toy bucket, but today the boys and I were playing upstairs and Max rediscovered it. He was really excited about it, too. From the day I gave it to him, he’s been upset that it’s not sturdy enough to stay up when he sits on it, but today after a few tries he realized that if he used the ears as handles he could keep it with him in approximately the right position as he ran around, horse dragging between his legs like a fat, floppy tail. Once he figured that out, he dragged it with him everywhere until we came down for lunch.
Then, of course, he brought Horsie down with him. Max said that Horsie needed food. I told him to get up to the table, and I steamed some carrots in the microwave while we talked about how horses liked to eat carrots, and apples, and broccoli. (Hey, I need all the help I can get on that one.) Max suggested bananas – I asked him about it and he confirmed: Max’s Horsie likes bananas. I brought the carrots over and saw that Max had put the horsie very carefully in its own chair with its chin propped up on the tabletop for balance. He was sitting in the next chair (around the corner), waiting for carrots. Too. Freaking. Cute. I moved them together at the side of the table so they could share a plate:
