Jesse, a Stuffed Bear, and Roots

Whenever I have no ideas, I draw Jesse.  More and more I'm enjoying finding one line that sums up his action or pose.  Each of these drawings took less than a minute.  At top left he's playing with one of his old favorite mousies and almost falling over backwards in his excitement.  In the middle he's sitting in my studio doorway watching me.  And on the right he has assumed a perfect cat sleeping pose.

One more Jesse sleeping pose, paw curled sweetly, a little slower than the others, maybe three minutes.

And then on the right is a bear that Maya and I made last night for Maya's cousin Nate, whom I am going to visit this weekend in New Jersey.  Maya spent the night here last night.  At 7:00, after we had finished sewing a tuxedo jacket for a bear we had made for her using a pattern that our friend Shirley had sent us,  she said "Let's make a bear for Nate out of his favorite color, yellow ochre."  So we searched through our bag of material and found some yellow ochre felt.  Almost all of the stuffed dolls and animals we've made have been out of fake fur with silky, slippery backing-- all but impossible for us to sew with since we're not really very experienced with sewing.  I really didn't think we would be able to finish the bear by her theoretical 8:30 bedtime, but we decided to see how far we got.  The felt was so easy to sew that we got the entire bear finished by, okay, 9:30, but that wasn't too bad.  We even needle-felted a little heart for his chest, and Maya embroidered his eyes.  Thanks, Shirley!  We love your pattern!

It started snowing this morning, and by mid-afternoon everything was covered and so beautiful.  I had stopped by the grocery at noon and bought a bunch of root vegetables and some Italian sausage to cook up for dinner tonight, and here they are.