A few years ago a dear friend and I discovered that we both loved this wonderful book by Kate Dicamillo - The Tale of Despereaux. At the time I was needle felting mice and this friend was shortly to become a grandmother - for the first time. My friend said she looked forward to the day when she could read this great book to her grandchild. In my mind this was 'simple math' and the answer was that I should make a needle felted version of Despereaux - the main character - as a gift for her and her grandchild. For some reason I initially thought my version of Despereaux should be the size of a stuffed animal toy. If you are not familiar with the main character please note here that his most notable identifying physical characteristics are that he is tiny and he has relatively big ears.
As I felted what I will call Despereaux #1 my interest started to wain, something didn't seem quite right. My evolving #1 did not feel like the wonderful illustrations by Timothy Basil Ering, and so #1 got shelved for a while, okay it was actually a few years. In the meantime I became a grandmother and found myself trying to explain to a two year old what the creature on my shelf was and this was a rather impossible thing to do. Fast forward to November of this year when my friend and I were to meet for a lovely little hike on Mackworth Island - sort a mid point between our homes in Maine. For a lark I decided to bring along Despereaux #1 and confess my never-completed-project to her. I left #1 in the car. We hiked. While hiking my friend mentioned that her grandchild was coming for the holidays and she thought that the time had come to read Kate DiCamillo's book to him. I of course said 'Well, I have someTHING to show you back in my car!' It was a bit embarrassing to share my big floppy #1 - but at the moment I did I realized there needed to be a #2 and he would be very tiny.
Despereaux #2 turned out very sweet and was the perfect size. He arrived at my friend's home before her grandchild did and he came with a needle, red thread, and a tiny tissue - all the right accessories!
If you haven't yet enjoyed this Kate DiCamillo book, I highly recommend it.
And THAT is my little end of year story.
See you in 2022!
