Happy Fuzzy Birthday, Charlotte!

Dear Charlotte,

Happy fourth birthday! Remember when we went to visit my friend Nancy and see her wonderful goats and chickens and sheep?  This year for your birthday, I made you a special, small sheep blanket. It could lie on your bed as a special place for you to sit and read books. Or it could fold over the back of the chair in your room to create a snuggly place to think and read.

A long, long time ago, when people needed to be extra warm in their beds, and they didn’t have warm quilts like you have on your bed now, what would they use?  A warm, wooly sheepskin. They would put the fuzzy side next to their bodies and they would be very warm, even when their houses were very cold. Doesn’t this look like a big warm blanket?

But that looks bigger than one sheep, doesn’t it? That blanket might be the fleeces from six sheep, and they are all sewn together. Your sitting pad is not as big as a whole bed, and was made from the skins of two small sheep. Buzzy LOVES sheepskins and every time I was working on this present, he would get in my way.

To make the sheep pad I sewed two skins together.

In the olden days people would usually sew another piece of leather (the skin without and fuzzy fleece on it) around the edges.  I decided to sew bright red wool around the edge. It wan’t easy when Buzzy keep coming  to lie on it when I was trying to sew.

Over the seam where the two fleeces come together, I sewed a red band–with your name on it.

There is some printing the smooth side, made with some wooden blocks from Norway.  This is when I was deciding where to put the designs.

Here it is, all done.

But you will probably sit on the soft fuzzy side when snuggling with a book, a special sheep pad for a special girl.  See you soon!