We have not made any plans, as yet, for a gift for the baby. Suppose we make him a great, fluffy worsted ball. Among your mother's odds and ends of worsted you will find plenty of gay colours that will be exactly what you want. Then you will need some thin cardboard, or bristol board. On this mark two circles, five inches in diameter, and at the centre of each of these, two smaller circles an inch and a quarter in diameter. Cut out the two large circles and the small holes within them. You will then have two circular pieces of cardboard with a round hole in the centre of each, making it look like a cookie. Take a strong but slender piece of string about a foot long and lay it around the hole in the centre of one of the pieces of cardboard, with the ends coming together below the outer edge (see Fig. 81). Lay the other piece of cardboard directly over the first one and hold them firmly together (see Fig. 82) while with a needle threaded with worsted you sew around and around the cardboard rings, bringing the needle each time through the hole in the centre and around the outer edge of both rings. When a needleful of worsted is finished leave the end hanging and start another. Keep on until the hole in the middle is quite filled up and the whole thing looks like a puffy cushion. Now take a sharp pair of scissors and cut the layers of worsted at the outer edge of the pasteboard rings all the way around. Do this carefully but quickly, and be sure not to cut the two ends of string, for now is the time to use them. They are tied together just as tightly as possible, and as close to the centre. The cardboard rings are then slipped out, leaving a soft, fluffy ball of many colours. Clip off the uneven ends of worsted here and there, and the ball will be complete. [Illustration: FIG. 81] [Illustration: FIG. 82] Raffia sewed in the same way over tiny cardboard rings, then tied and cut, makes fascinating little pompons for a doll's hat. Paper Flowers and Toys CHAPTER IX PAPER FLOWERS AND TOYS [Illustration: FIG. 83] It sometimes seems, on a rainy day, as if there was nothing to do because you have not the materials that are needed for certain occupations--but there is always paper. You may not, of course, have all the things that are used in making tissue-paper flowers, unless you have been so thrifty as to buy them, looking forward to just such a time as this. But if you cannot make the flowers at once, you can decide which ones you wish to do and plan a list of the materials you will need. Then there are numbers of things that you can fashion from watercolour paper, or even heavy note paper and cardboard; so let us get out pencil and paper, paste and scissors, and begin.