36 Stitches . . .: Jaden's 1st Birthday

My friends, Jim and Yeni, have the most adorable and chubby child, Jaden. He's a total sweetheart because the first sound that came out of his mouth after I asked him how was my cooking? Jaden at nine months old with his mouth full and a big happy grin said "MMMMM -MMMMMM". Right there and then I knew he belonged in my foodie circle.

Jaden is celebrating his first birthday tomorrow and his mother asked me to make some traditional Korean items for his dol, doljanchi or tol, toljiabee, where his mother will put several different objects and he will choose one of these items up, and supposedly it will predict the child's future profession in life:

a large spool of thread = long life

book & pencil = good scholar

computer mouse = computer programmer aka Microsoft, because his father works there

stethoscope = doctor

gravel = lawyer/judge

I had a lot of help from my friend Evelyn who I sew with every Friday, and we were able to construct everything in one day. Jaden's birthday theme color is blue and yellow, thus all the toys were made with blue and yellow felt. We even had some blue and yellow polka dot felt that we incorporate into the plush toys.

Luckily it was one of those rare warm and sunny days in Seattle and I was able to shoot these photos.

Here is spool and thread with a lucky knot and his initial, J

His little book

Stethoscope, my friend Chara, came up with this great way to make the stethoscope more obvious. She said to embroider "Dr. J" on it and now it looks more doctorly, don't you think?

With the gravel, I kept it simple and ended up embroidering the polka dots to give it more texture.

Pencil with "No. 1" to celebrate his first birthday

Here's his pencil and book with the first page having the number one to celebrate his first birthday. I think next year I will make a number "2" page to add to his book and so forth, and hopefully he will have a cute number book where he can learn his numbers later on.