Lessons I Learned from building BIG the Ostrich

              Courtney's new book The Lies About Truth launches on November 3, 2015. 

 

This story, her "sophomore" book, was a traumatic author experience for Courtney, involving blood, sweat and many tears. A pivotal plot line in the story involves a  blue stuffed toy ostrich (ugly!). The main character names him BIG. So naturally, Court and I thought she should have a visual to accompany her on school visits after the book comes out! 

The search began.

Court was excited when Carla found this picture online. Here was Big. She said it was her perfect vision from the book. But it was a dog toy, only a few inches tall. Made in China.

 

So the search continued. Courtney ordered a stuffed ostrich from a toy company. It came in its own crate. It was adorable. But it wasn't blue. And it wasn't big. 

It wasn't BIG.

Finally, came the inevitable conclusion - this was last year - that I would have to make one. It shouldn't be too hard. I mean, look at that ugly blue thing above. Simple, right?! 

Riiiight.

I really did look EVERYWHERE for patterns. The only patterns I found were for crochet. I can't crochet well enough to alter patterns for the size we wanted.

I looked at pictures of real ostriches.

You have to admit they are so ugly, they're cute. Just like Big. But  that didn't help me much with a pattern.

I came to the conclusion that I'd just have to gut it out and do it myself (Little Red Hen-ish). For close to a year, I thought about it, looked for inspiration online and thought about it some more. I went to countless fabric shops and found several pieces of "fuzzy animal" material that would work. But they weren't in blue. Or not the right color of blue. I couldn't seem to get serious about the pattern until I found the material. Looking online, I eventually checked Jo-Ann's Fabrics and found what I needed. In July, on a trip through Nashville, we drove to Cool Springs where one is located, and I bought the material. YAY!

"Channel Your Brave" Time

I used newspaper to draw - after some starts and stops - a pattern of sorts. I cut it out of scrap material and even basted it together. I sort of sang (in my head) "I think she's got it; By George, I think she's got it." 

That was so premature and way too overly optimistic. Such is the stuff of dreamers.

To say the least.

After I basted together the scrap material, I was still afraid to cut out the "fuzzy animal" material. I took the day off.

The next day I cut out the fuzzy stuff. Sort of. My scissors didn't want to cut a straight line through the stuff. (I had conveniently forgotten how much trouble the cutter at the fabric store had had when cutting it off the bolt). That day - that WHOLE day - I worked on the head. And made the tail, the topknot and the legs. And I thought Wow, this is going really well. I only have the body to make tomorrow, and it will be finished!

Hahaha. Premature celebration.

The body. Oh, man. Here's where my inability to visualize 3-D pieces kicked my tail. I will spare you my pain, but let's just say that I cut, re-cut, re-sewed, adjusted, altered, re-sewed, changed my idea of how it would look ... mucho times. All day. At three o'clock I got out of my pjs and ate lunch. 

That fuzzy fabric changed several things. It would not DO what I needed it to do. Thank the Good Lord for felt. And Velcro. 

At 6:30, I put on the finishing touches and texted Court this picture:

 

And this one:

 

He is BIG.

Court's reaction made all the effort worth while! Let me say that again: HER reaction made me forget (almost) the sewing drama. She loved him.

Big is finished! 

*crawls off to the couch with wine*

Top Ten LESSONS LEARNED

1.  Just because one can draw doesn’t mean one developed the skill set (ever) to look at a one dimensional picture and envision how to make a 3-D replica. In fabric. In this century.
2.  Find a pattern. DO NOT EVEN THINK about making a stuffed animal where none exists.
3. Blue stuffed toy ostriches are – apparently - NOT in high demand. 
4. “Fuzzy Animal” material in UK blue (as per the author’s vision in The Lies About Truth) is darn near impossible to find.
5. Do not try to cut out “fuzzy animal” material. EVER. It is EVIL. (and it frays like Satan - that's Satan, not satin).
6. Do not try to sew up “fuzzy animal” material. (see above)
7. The truths about revision for an author are also true for the sewer when making a stuffed ostrich without a pattern … envision, re-vision, rework, edit, re-vision, rework. Repeat. And Repeat.
8. No matter how a homemade pattern APPEARS to work on the practice fabric, it will not actually look  the same after it is stuffed. (See #6.)
9. I repeat: SEE #2.
10. In the aftermath of extreme sewing trauma (I now suffer from PTSD - that is post tramatic sewing disorder - there is a ridiculous sense of accomplishment (i.e. this list), but that in no way means one should even think about repeating the process with any subsequent book characters that Courtney C. Stevens dreams up!

        If you want to read more about Big (you do!) then pre-order Courtney's book at Parnassus Books in Nashville, or pre-order from Barnes & Noble or Amazon. Or buy it when it comes out on November 3rd this year! 

Reviews:

"As she did in her beloved debut, Faking Normal, Courtney Stevens does a spectacular job of chronicling a smart seventeen-year-old girl's discovery of her own inner resources to overcome the aftermath of a tragic car accident involving her five best friends.  First she must forgive her friends, then she must forgive herself.  No one writes better about resilience and ‘channeling your brave’ than Stevens does." --Cammie McGovern, author of Say What You Will

In Courtney Stevens’ The Lies About Truth, Courtney writes beautiful and flawed characters that contain raw emotions. The Lies About Truth touched my soul.-- Katie McGarry, bestselling author of Pushing the Limits (.)

“This realistic YA novel explores the weight of the past, the value of the truth, and the meaning and process of forgiveness, which teen readers will identify with. A great addition to any YA collection” (School Library Journal)

At the levels of sentence, character, story, and soul, Courtney C. Stevens’s sophomore effort, The Lies About Truth, is staggeringly good. Sadie Kingston is struggling to heal after a tragic accident claimed her boyfriend’s life and left her irreparably scarred. With help from some unexpected places, she’s finally beginning to put the pieces of her life—and her heart—back together. This one is quietly wonderful.

–Stephanie Appell, Parnassus Books

"Stevens keeps the focus on Sadie's turbulent emotions in this heartfelt examination of the consequences of disfigurement." (Kirkus Reviews)

Snow 2015

Ode to Snow?

“Snow – Snow- Snow- I want to wash my hands, my face and hair in SNOW …”

Not so much.

With all due respect to Rosemary, Bing, Vera and Danny, and Irving Berlin, I’m over Snow.

At least for this season.

On February 16, I was in Tennessee, visiting my mother. We had two inches of sleet  there.

And that was bad enough, but back home in Kentucky, more than ten inches of snow fell at our house, followed by three more inches a few days later. And COLD. Both Tennessee and Kentucky had some overnight subzero temps, and it stayed continuously below freezing during the day with little or no sun. The snow lingered. It thawed a tiny little bit during the day IF the sun shone, but refroze every night. By the time I came home over a week later, the shiniest, slickest coating of thick ice (that I’ve ever seen) topped the still deep snow. And though our awesome Ballard County road department plowed and cleared (mostly) the main roads, our secondary roads and driveways and parking lots remained a problem. It looked and felt like an ice skating rink! Treacherous!

And it lingered. How many times have I heard this old saying? “If the snow hangs around, it’s waiting around for another snow storm.”

 

Look at the icy sheen on the snow!

 

Monster icicles!

Well, there’s a reason that sayings become adages.

On March 3^rd, we drove to Nashville for the day, leaving behind clear roads, but yards still covered in snow.

 

 Heavy rains set in on our drive home, and by the next morning, most of our snow had disappeared. 

In this process, I learned a new phrase: Ice Damming. The heavy snow piled on our upstairs deck had nowhere to go when the rains came, except inside. We currently have a big water stain on our living room ceiling. But it, at least, is paint-able. A friend of ours was not so fortunate. Her roof collapsed and water came pouring into her house, causing thousands of dollars’ in damage. The national news posted similar events all over the storm affected country.

Here, the joke became … if there’s still snow on the ground the weekend we Spring Forward for DST, at least we’ll be able to see the snow after six p.m.!

A couple days later with the snow gone and the rain finally ending, it felt like Winter MIGHT be drawing to a close. Come on SPRING!

But no.

On Monday, March 9 (MARCH, for heaven’s sake), Kentucky caught another Winter Storm. Overnight, it dumped a foot of snow on my house! A FOOT OF SNOW. IN MARCH. (Some communities got 16 inches, some got 25 inches!). As a retired teacher, I empathize with the school systems who must cope with make up days, testing schedules, and children who have missed nearly two weeks of school!

 

We haven’t had this much snow in several years. At least not in one storm. It was a wet snow, unlike the first one, and good snowman-making material. We never make one, but I enjoyed all the amazing pictures posted on FB. My favorite was the re-staging - ‘Snowman style’ - of raising the flag at Iwo Jima! Folks never fail to amaze me with their creativity. 

 (FB)

We shoveled the deck this time (Yep, we learned our lesson!).  And this snow was followed by sun and slightly warmer temps. It didn’t last nearly as long. 

We've had more snow than we're used to in Kentucky, but we are mighty thankful we don't live in Boston. Much of New England had one big snowstorm after another - a true Snow-pocalypse - with nearly five or six feet of the white stuff on the ground at a time. The cyber pictures were interesting! 

 (FB)

 (FB)

In the interval between the end of the snow and some drying up of the yard, I cleaned and straightened my screened-in porch (can NOT wait). I scouted the yard for emerging bulbs (and found them) and picked up fallen limbs from the storm. Definite A-N-T-I-C-I-P-A-T-I-O-N of warmer weather to come! Our local weatherman blogger says we’re not out of the woods yet; there’s more cold to come. BUT I think I see a spring light at the end of the winter tunnel!

Come on, Mother Nature! We’re SO ready for SPRING!

What a Year!

2014.
Christmas Eve.

Drinking my early morning coffee, just before beginning the last minute rush to get ready, pack the car and do the road trip toward Family ...

It's been a year of change, but then, aren't they all. And Blessings. Many blessings.

My mom lost her voice during one of those freaky illnesses where it looked like one thing and turned out to be something else. Two surgeries, 40 fewer lbs., and some therapy later, she can make words louder than a whisper. But as the doctor said, "Don't think about getting on stage at the Opry." Thankful that she has remained healthy through out. On the upside - shopping and a new wardrobe! Ron's mom spent a week in the hospital, a traumatic experience for a sweet lady who loves sleeping in her own bed at night. Thankful that she made the best of it, that it turned out as well as it could have, and that she's back home again, none the worse for the experience.

Our son and his family FINALLY got out of the FLOOD House ... the courts are slow to move, but the case was settled at long last, and they were able to move into a beautiful new home far away from creeks and low places. Thankful for this fine son of ours and his family.

Faking Normal. THE book. Debut! Dreams do come true. Courtney C. Stevens launched at Parnassus Books in Nashville on February 25th and Barnes & Noble in Bowling Green and the Grille in Mt. Pleasant. And people CAME and they bought. It's been a great year for Courtney ... learning how to sell herself and her book, book tours, school visits and writing workshops, library visits, book festivals, panels, writing retreats. In the midst she "channeled her brave" and wrote a second book; and sold more future books and taught her collegiate classes and learned how to BE. An exciting year. A difficult year. But in the end, she forged a new future for herself. Thankful.

Multiple trips to the beach ... it's our Happy Place. Just us. Immediate family. Extended family. Beach friends. Thankful for our love of a place and for the beauty and peace it brings to all of us.

Our beach is where Courtney set Book Two ... The Lies About Truth. It launches in October of 2015. Thankful for this girl-child of ours and her talent and kindness and wisdom. Thankful for the role she allows me to share in her dreams.

Our moms. We've both lost our dads in past years, the strong backbones of our childhoods. But we have our beautiful moms. There are health challenges for each, but they remain faithful and loving, always making the best of whatever IS. Thankful.

The two of us. The TWO of us! Forty-four years and we're like the Energizer Bunny ... still going! The road to aging can be a bumpy one, but we persevere.  There's a hand to hold and love to share, and we're sticking together, no matter what comes. Thankful. Very thankful.

Friends. This year has brought a re-connection with old friends and the addition of new ones, and I'm grateful. Facebook has its little evils, but it also allows for connections, and for that I'm thankful. Also for the continued blessing of the friends who surround us daily; the ones who have our backs through the good times and the bad times. Thankful.

Church, also a year of change and growth within our close-knit church family. What would we do without our support group! Thankful!

And there's change with this holiday season, too. For the first time, we're going to my sister's for Christmas Day. It's either been at Mom's or at our house for the family for all of my life. Circumstances - the fact that our son has to work on Christmas Day (fireman) and that Mom is 92 - dictate a change. So this year, I'm not cooking or preparing the house for multiple guests and multiple days of meals. I shopped early, wrapped gifts early, decorated the house and sent Christmas cards and enjoyed watching the hustle and bustle from afar. The least stressful Christmas in recent memory. Thankful!

Today we will celebrate communion with our daughter at her church. We'll visit with family and add our gifts beneath a tree that isn't ours. Tonight we'll sleep in a bed that isn't our own. And in the morning, Christmas Day, we'll arise to share a meal and open presents and visit in a home,that belongs to other beloved family members. We'll share the day with extended family, including beautiful children who are full of wide-eyed Christmas excitement. And we'll be grateful and thankful for Jesus' birth and the many, many ways 2014 blessed our family. We'll put away whatever sad thoughts we had about this past year - its disappointments and failures and struggles - and we'll begin to embrace the new. We'll "channel our brave" and look forward with added strength to the start of another year with family and friends.

Thankful.