Penguins...

Have I ever told you, Gentle Readers, that there is a small penguin fixation in our house?  Mr Golightly was once part of a small, fierce and noble band of weekend warriors who travelled from ale-house to ale-house, testing their products for quality, allaying the fears of delicate travellers such as myself, and slaying any beastly T-bone steak that might have come between the band and its quest for ale-y perfection?

No, I'm sure I haven't.  Anyway, on one such occasion, it was observed by one of the brighter band members that they had all (inadvertently) arrayed themselves in shirts of a similar brand, with a similar logo, a flightless bird, mostly black and white but with occasional bits of yellow...  And at this same occasion, it was observed that they were all, with one notable exception, unencumbered by life-companions of the soft, squishy, washed and nicely-smelling kind.  This event was marked by the creation of an acronym that fitted into 'black and white flightless bird with occasional bits of yellow' - I'm pretty sure you can see where I'm going with this. PENGUIN.  

Anyway, Mr Golightly, himself having been the shyest of all the noble band, was the last of the Penguins to find himself that soft, squishy, washed and nicely-smelling life-companion (that would be me), and so, it was deemed fitting that our wedding cake should be the sacrificial Penguin.  

Of course it fell to me to ring the giant multinational which owns the logo copyright and check if they had any objections to us using their logo for our wedding cake.  I think they thought I was insane, and I think the wedding cake makers (a fantastic company called 'Sweet Art') did too, but they didn't bat an eyelid:

 

Anyway, I'm sure you've all been mightily entertained by this amazing tale of days gone by, but I digress.  My lovely friend Ms Blue Lambb wanted a penguin softie for a friend who's going off to have a baby, and given the history of this house, how could I say no?

I found a pattern here, but it's got issewes, man.  I don't like patterns where you have to sew things on afterwards, because to me, that's just an invitation for some snotty three year old to pull them off (can you tell I have no children?  Soooo much empathy...)... and they won't stand up.  I've made two now, and I haven't been able to get either of them to stand on their own two (flat and floppy) feet.  So, in the interests of getting it right, I'm going to make a small change to the pattern, to incorporate a technique I learnt here - which is, to slice off a piece, add seam allowances to the big piece and the small sliced off piece, insert the 'whatever' between the two sliced off bits, and bam!  Feet inside body.  

Here's a pic of Mr First:

And here's a pic of Mr Second:

No, he's not dead.  He's just fallen over.  Bloody feet.

Ciao!