Adding a bit of sewing

First off, we are very sad in our house. Our lovely Bodhi finally succumbed to senile dementia, limited vision and hearing, and arthritis. He was put to sleep on Wednesday evening. We are missing him enormously, and Atos is quite lost.

This has added to the stress I am already feeling about getting Christmas presents finished. So last night, I had a stern word with myself, to remind me that knitting and crochet are fun. So I put down the 'have to' pieces and worked on a 'want to' project.

As you know, all my bears are dressed in knitted clothes but 

I have been fiddling around with the idea of incorporating something sewn. I am not the world's best sewer, but I do neat hand sewing and can do basic machine sewing.

I have quite a bit of fabric hidden away, so I brought that out. After trial and error, I worked that a strip the width of a fat quarter was just about right. I then did all the seams by hand, threaded some ribbon through, and it was done. This is the rabbit with my first skirt, in red polka dots:

I made a green moss stitch cardi with a spotty red button and put little red buttons on her shoes. I managed to find exactly the right shade of green thread to sew on the buttons. This is not because

I have masses of thread, but because I have this very elderly emergency sewing kit given to me years ago by Ma, who is the most organised and efficient lady you could ever meet:

Now if I get into this sewing lark, I will have to develop an appropriate fabric and thread stash. My lovely cyber friend Avril will commiserate with me as neither of us enjoy going shopping for supplies!

So I put all the bits and pieces together and was not satisfied with the skirt. I used my sewing machine to do a line of top stitches to define the ribbon casing and it all looked much better:

So this is DOTTIE. I have not yet decided whether to sell her online or through the craft shop. I do know though that I have loved making her. So much so that I have started another rabbit. This time, because of the buttons, I am going for a nautical theme. Any ideas for a suitable name?