The pattern made me do it. Or the graphics. Secondhand patterns cost so little, I'll buy just about anything. Each pattern envelope promises delicious possibilities. I've almost given up trying to understand why I buy some of them, but nostalgia, desire to make the pattern, and whimsy play a role.
Here's one I very much wanted to sew from the eighties. I love the tweed body and black velveteen feet. But making fifteen and eighteen inch sheep requires commitment, tweed and dowels, and finding dowels was not easy in Manhattan. It's much easier in Ohio, but I've lost momentum. This pattern should belong to someone who will make sheep.
Shari Lewis enlivened many a dead Saturday morning when I was a kid. Lamb Chop made a guest appearance in March 1956 on
Captain Kangaroo, and had her own show by September, with her friends Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy. By 1960,
The Shari Lewis Show had replaced
Howdy Doody. In the 1986 Simplicity printed Shari's Lamb Chop pattern. For awhile I thought I'd be making this puppet, but the pattern is just another bit of paper ephemera for me.
Can you say FAD? Butterick, long the poor woman's version of impossible fashions, took a stab at being plebian in the 80s and came out with patterns for Cabbage Patch Preemies and Troll clothes. I found these in 2nd hand shops, unused and possibly unloved. I sewed up a few Miss Martha versions of the soft sculpture dolls, and sewed up a few Cabbage Patch kids for Xavier Roberts' booklet for Plaid, but apparently was never called on to provide clothing for a cabbage patch Preemie. I dodged the bullet there, and with the Norfins. The only trolls I ever owned where the ones that came from coin operated machines in Woolworth. They were small enough for Barbie dolls to play with.
All of these treasures are for sale in
my etsy shop.
