Scotty ornaments & sewing with kids

Three years ago on Christmas Eve my adorable grandfather passed away.  He was 3 months shy of 100 years old so it wasn’t a sudden thing but it made it a poignant Christmas that year.  The same day that he passed away, my parent’s 16 year-old dog, Rosie, went missing.   We never saw her again. She was old and frail as well, so our assumption is that she passed away also.  Since that time other people have told us about dogs “going away” to die. I really like to think that she knew my grandpa had gone (they had a special affinity for each other) and that she went with him.

So when I saw the adorable scotty pattern at Allsorts, I thought it would be perfect to make a little scotty ornament to give to my family members on Christmas Eve in memory of that day that we last saw Rosie and Grandpa.  And I thought it would be a fun project to do with my girls.

The girls loved the idea but I was surprised as we started working on them how interested my little boys became. They insisted on helping.  At that moment, I will admit I wasn’t super enthusiastic about doing it with them too – mainly because I figured they would need more supervision and it would take a lot longer. But they were awesome – maybe slightly more careful and excited about it than the girls even. It was so much fun.  Good lesson for mom.  


We used felted (washed and dried) wool-felt which is great to work with – very forgiving – and matching thread. The felt hides so many flaws.  I need to do more stuff like this with both my girls AND my boys.

Hope you are enjoying the week after Christmas. I think this is one of my favorite weeks of the year.  All the busy-ness of pre-Christmas preparations is through and it’s time to just play and relax with the family, but still enjoy the lights and the music and the movies and the FOOD. And to make it especially awesome – no barfy kids this week. Bonus!