Who's Cuter? Gretel or Bunny?

While I worked my fingers to the bone on the Big-Footed Bunny, Gretel alternated between laying on the porch in the sun, and cooling off on the carpet. She doesn't care how stupid it looks, she wants maximum carpet-to-belly contact.

I've been spending a lot of time on the Brother Socks, and a little time on the Bee Fields shawl, but have no interesting photos to share. However, the big-footed bunny is now officially a bunny carcass:

The pieces came together pretty quickly, although I missed a step or two and had to backtrack a couple of times. I'm fighting off a cold, so I'm a little foggy and skipped over whole sentences!

The toughest instruction in the pattern is to turn under 1/4" of the face frame and press, so that the raw edges are underneath. I'm terrible with this kind of thing, especially when a curve is involved, and that's what kept me from starting to sew right after cutting.

Mom to the rescue--she reminded me that we'd seen a great technique on one of the PBS sewing shows that would work perfectly.

Step 1: Cut out another face frame, and sew with right sides together to the first frame. Use a long stitch, or a basting stitch. Clip seams around curves:

Step 2: Turn right-side out and iron it good. Ignore wonky right side--you're going for a hand-made look, right?:

Step 3: Rip out the seams and separate (p.s. ignore the water stains on the ironing board cover, please):

Two frames, perfectly folded under. No burnt fingers! Note on the blue frame that this is where I skipped over a whole step--I topstitched the edges, but I was supposed to stitch it to the face rather than to nothing. Duh.

Next I need to clip more seams, I think, and press them and poke out the corners before stuffing. I have a fair amount of experience with this (thanks, Harry Barker!), and it's a tedious process but it makes a difference in the finished product. I think I'll sew the face on before I stuff the bunny, although the instructions might say to do that after it's stuffed--again, I'm not at my sharpest right now, I should wait until I'm not so foggy!