Emilie the Pillow Monster

This Lady was a custom order for a girl named Erin.  She wrote me out this description and gave me creative liberty to do as I please.  Her only condition was that Emilie's hair look like a helmut because that is what her mother, Emilie's hair looks like and as a result, all her kids refer to her as "Dark Helmut".  I find that really funny because Dark Helmut sounds like some kind of villain in a super hero comic, but then from her description, she is anything but.  Here is what she wrote to me:

Emilie is the former home-coming queen - 1962- of a very small northern Michigan town.  She is the daughter of a butcher - always has been drawn to the ocean and outdoors (fishing, kayaking, and just being out in the woods).  She hates for people to see her ears.  She has as strange sense of humor, as she is always singing.  She calls her head a basketball and her children don't really tell her she is incorrect.  She was a teacher.  She runs away and causes a scene whenever there is a camera.  She is a good Catholic and is quite disappointed that most of her children are recovering from Catholicism.  She can do just about anything--is an incredible artist, calligrapher, takes care of things about the house, fixes things, makes things, turns trash into treasure.  She used to go about the neighborhood  and trim peoples trees---from way up at the crown.  She is perhaps too selfless, likes things to be just so.  She is thin and athletic,  She is up before anyone and a voracious reader.  She loves Lake Michigan.  

She also likes frogs, which is why she has a frog hood on.  

Isn't that fun?  I wish I had Emilie as a neighbor.  

Joseph is getting really into my project.  I think maybe it is because he is an MFA student, and he spends nearly all of his time doing very serious paintings and reading things that artists he admire say about color and light.  Then, he comes home and I get to show him "Billy Bob the Pillow Monster", and he explodes with ideas and suggestions.  He is obsessed with ACCESSORIES.  For example, the crown was his idea, and he also thought I should make a felt book of some sort since Emilie likes to read.  He thought I could use several pieces of felt and do zig-zag lines with the sewing machine to look like words.  But, I get too impatient for that!