Cowboy + Cowgirl + Granddaughter

I have made a similar pair of these cowboy and cowgirl dolls before and given them to my Southern California grandchildren. The design is by Stacy Iest Hsu and each panel comes with the doll, his/her attire, a blanket, a pillow, and a hobby horse. I included photos of the source fabric panels and an outline of the dolls' assembly in my post dated 12/21/17.

In this post I am making another set for my 6 year old granddaughter and my nearly 4 year old grandson who live in Oklahoma. I pre-made the dolls to take out there with me when I visit this month. I also made and stuffed the hobby horses. Here the horse heads are inverted and held in place by glasses while I added glue to help the dowels stay in place. The glasses also kept them in that upside down orientation while the glue dried.

For this set of dolls, I left the flat accessories cut out only and waiting to be finished so the kids could help me sew them. In my suitcase I took out with me the blankets, batting, and backing all trimmed to size so the kids, with the help of me or their mom, would just need to sew around and turn the "quilt" right side out. The pillows they could sew around, turn right side out, and stuff and then I would stitch up the opening.

I was noticing that the cowgirl's blanket is somewhat smaller than the cowboy's. I think that is because there was also a skirt and a belt to be made out of the panel.

The pillows are the same size though.

Taking the quilts and pillows out to Oklahoma, my 6 year old granddaughter and I spent part of Sunday afternoon, Father's Day in a sewing lesson. Autumn has been exposed to sewing before by her mom. She made a skirt documented for posterity on my daughter's RobinLovesQuilting blog post dated 4/23/19.

"I [her mom] handled all the ironing and cutting, but she [Autumn] helped put the pins in, and she managed the fabric (with help) as it went through the machine. Her main job was to pull the pins out as we sewed, and by the end it was a job she performed with gusto."

Here I explained a bit more about machine features, having her operate the needle-up and needle-down function and having her practice lowering – not dropping – the pressure foot.

She was a serious listener and we started on sewing the pillow first – right sides together and leaving an opening. "Why?" she asked. "So we can turn the right sides out," I say. "You'll see."

She was pleased when she saw how it all worked.

Then we did the quilt for the girl doll. I showed her how I layered the top and bottom, right sides together, and added a layer of batting. She was thrilled to sew through all that.

She concentrated very hard to turn the quilted layers right sides out and was dedicated to getting those corners poked out just so.

She was proud of her accomplishment and I told her she was not finished until it was quilted. She said, "You do it Grandma. I don't want to mess it up." I said, "Oh, no! You are not going to do what I did, being afraid to quilt a quilts for fear of ruining it. If you mess it up, we will just take it out and do it again." I wish I had been that firm with myself.  My fear lasted months and still lingers a bit to this day. I wanted to start her off right. Autumn sewed straight lines on the printed borders between the checks and did just great. I pretty much let her do it herself although I nervously hovered my hands closely over her hands, not wanting a stray finger to slip beneath the needle.

Like all us quilters do, she is taking time to admire her handiwork.

Those lines on the cowgirl's quilt were pretty darn straight, too, I might point out proudly. She stuffed both pillows, but I completed the cowboy's quilt with the curvy lines.

Mission accomplished, although I think she confiscated her little brother's doll in the process. Isaiah did not mind at all. He liked his two sided robot pillow just fine (post dated 6/9/19).

That night her doll was posed on her bed. Autumn had updated the fashion a bit. The skirt came off and that bandana became a sarong tied over a fuzzy pair of shorts beneath.

According to the designer, Stacy Hsu, the cowboy's name is Westly and the cowgirl's name is Madeline. Autumn had other ideas. Earlier in the day I had been reading her a chapter from a book titled My Father's Dragon. In one chapter, six little monkeys used magnifying glasses to locate and remove fleas from a gorilla. They were named Rosie, Rhoda, Rachel, Ruthie, Ruby, and Roberta.

That night in bed Autumn asked me if I remembered the names of the six monkeys and did I know which name was her favorite? I said I could not be sure so would she tell me. She unequivocally stated it was Rosie and therefore she was going to name her cowgirl doll Rosie. "Besides," she told me, "it matches the roses on her quilt!"

I had a crush on sewing with my granddaughter during our visit, so to share the love, I am linking up with MCM #158 at Cooking Up Quilts.