Totoro Totoro...

It's stinking hot at the moment. Stinking! We have airconditioning upstairs but not down, where most of the action takes place. I've moved my computer up to Poppet's bedroom to enjoy the cool air while she's at camp. This week she has photography lessons every morning and cooking every afternoon, and a break for lunch with me. The cafe where camp is happening is just at the end of our street, and I wrote about it here.

She seemed pretty excited when I dropped her off. 

I've been busy tidying up my Pinterest boards. If you aren't familiar with Pinterest, it's a way of collating all the images/posts on the internet which you admire and pinning them all to virtual boards for reference. You can follow other people's boards and they yours. It's incredibly addictive and lovely, and also a great form of networking. If you would like an invite to Pinterest, just put your email address in the comments section below, or send me an email. No problemo.

Whilst pinning yesterday, I stumbled across a great little tutorial by Cheek and Stitch and knew we'd just have to make it at once! We have a Totoro passion in this house. I first saw the film when I was pregnant with Poppet and we've shown it to her on the small and big screen since. There's something about the way Miyazaki captures children and their vivid imaginations which melts my heart.

There are some cute Totoro plush on the market, but who wouldn't rather make one themselves! And this was a good opportunity to work on Poppet's stitching technique, or lack thereof. Bad Mummy.

I won't bore you with the technical details, that's available over at Cheek and Stitch via the great patterns and tutorial available there.Totoro took us about a day to complete, with me doing the bulk of the cutting and stitching to expedite things. Poppet loved contributing to the project and is so happy with the result.

The neighbour's cat, Theo, came to the window to see what was happening. He visits us daily, it is soooo tempting to let him in.

And then it was time for Totoro cuddles. There have been plenty of them since.

Apologies for the general fuzziness of the shots. A combination of not charging my camera battery, an overcast day and being too hot and cranky to do them again.

Maybe Poppet could do a better job when she gets home...