Henry's sweet face (and the rest of him/her*)

*(Because my daughter uses the name "Henry" with the masculine pronoun about 50% of the time and the feminine pronoun the other 50%. Clearly, her conception of gender is not very advanced. Or perhaps it IS very advanced. Hmmm.)

So here is what I have done on the cat doll so far. Using one of the Henry books as a guide (this is "Henry the Sailor Cat") I sketched out some lines on the pattern where I wanted his markings to be. I wanted each limb to be different so I made two different lines on the legs and the arms.

Then I traced these shapes onto this nice pattern making material. I'm not sure exactly what it's called--it's kind of like interfacing. I really love this stuff--sturdy, yet transparent enough to see through for easy tracing.

I traced the pattern pieces as written too. It's an extra step, but I really prefer to do this for PDF patterns that I print out. The pattern making material is so much less stiff and easier to work with than copy paper, especially for small, curved pattern pieces.

Then I cut everything out (hint: cut on a double layer of fabric so that your front and back paw pieces will match up). I used fusible web to attach the darker markings to the lighter body. I'll zigzag over any boundaries that won't be encased in seams.

Big pile of legs! So cute!

Here's that sweet face I mentioned.

And everything else.

Here's how I plan to put it together.

Actual kitty supervises the proceedings. (She's supervising the writing of this post too, FYI.)

Meanwhile, my mom sent another one of the dolls I made when I was a kid. So funny!

So I'm about ready to try to sew this one together. I think I can do it. I'm a little nervous about the human doll, though. Especially the yarn hair. Yeesh.