Double Dutch Bobwhites

A wonderful fringe benefit of growing up in a foreign country is that it's people's native costumes can be worn as everyday clothes without anyone looking askance at you. This would test friendship to the limit one overly wet summer vacation trapped side by side in a much too small cabin.

The year of my tenth birthday, my mother had the honor of traveling with her Girl Scout Cadets to several countries, including Germany. The highlight of the trip was a tour of the hideaway home of Anne Frank and to meet her surviving father and publisher of her diary.  She promised gifts would be brought home for my brother and myself. (Wonderful art of Nancy, My Crafty Little Page

We couldn't have been happier to receive upon her return the most colorful and interesting clothes we had ever seen. Lederhosen with leather suspenders for my brother, a red jumper sprinkled with tiny bright blue flowers with matching apron for me. Hunter green felted hats for us both, plumes of white feathers always in motion with the currents of the air.

I would beg to wear my special dress every Sunday to church. My brother wore his iron clad britches and cowboy boots every single day. Clothes the first year that were much too big, fit us for years to come as we grew taller and thinner. I was still wearing my Drindle in the seventh grade when it's threads finally gave way.

My mother knowing how much the dress had meant to me, found an all brown polyester dress in the same style. Ric-rack edging, white laces across the bodice, Perfectly Perfect in every way. I wore this dress well into HIGH SCHOOL! (Here I will embarrass myself even more so by telling you I braided my long blonde hair and looped it at my ears, fat white yarn ties completing the "look" each time I wore this dress.)

Well, of course, when Only Child Girl asked me to summer with her in Maine, I brought along my beloved dress as her parents said, "Bring a dress for eating dinner out."  HOW WAS I TO KNOW WE WOULD BE EATING OUT EVERY NIGHT FOR TWO MONTHS?  By the second week Danielle grabbed me by my laces and shouted that if she had to see me in that dress one more time, she was going to throw me into the Atlantic Ocean! I believed her, I never wore it again!

INSTRUCTIONS:
Head: Tack facial features in place, baste ears in place. Button Stitch face front and back, stuffing with fiberfill before closing. Cut 6 1/8"x6" strips, tack 3 tog and braid, tie w/ribbon. BS side of hair back to face back catch hair bangs as you go along. TS along bottom back of hair catching braids.
Hat: Cut 2 hat brims using face pattern, cut slit lengthwise down middle to accommodate head, BS around brim. BS hat crown catching hanging thread as you go, leave bottom open, slightly stuff. TS on top of hat brim on either side of opening, stitches will be covered by hat band glued in place. TS feather onto pinked felt circle.