L is for Lizzie

Lizzie Borden, to be exact!

If you don't know about Miss Lizzie Borden - here's a link for you!

Lizzie was the prime (and only) suspect in the axe murders of her father and stepmother in 1892.  She was tried and acquitted but no one else was ever charged and the case is considered closed, unlike every other murder case where there has been no conviction.

Lizzie's case is fascinating and there have been movies, books, documentaries, so many things about it!  (Even that weird, hugely inaccurate thing with Christina Ricci).

People are obsessed with Lizzie Borden and her story - the house where the murders were committed is a B&B and museum.  I really, really want to go someday!  Except no way am I sleeping there.  I don't even like sleeping in a house where someone has died a natural death.  Brrrrrr!

Anyway, I have in mind (someday) having a little display in my library of my collection of Lizzie Borden books, and I want to make two amigurumis to go with it.  The pattern I'm going to use is by WonderAnn on etsy and she looks like this:

I love the way WonderAnn does 'crazy eyes' with one big and one little safety eye XD

So, what I plan to do is make this ami with a few changes - the subject of which dress Lizzie was wearing on the day of the murders is pretty pivotal - if she was wearing the one she says, then she probably didn't do it.  If she was wearing the one the prosecution says she was wearing, she probably did.  The dresses are mirror opposites - both are two piece blouse and skirt sets, with a small train, a ruffled front, and a flounced hem.  The 'innocent' dress was silk, dark blue with a small, pale blue design similar to polka-dots.  The 'guilty' dress was cotton, light blue with a small, dark blue design in tiny diamonds.

So I plan to make her in each dress, with this expression for the 'guilty' dress, and with no axe and a sweet expression for the 'innocent' dress.

 

I've done her as a DorkStitch sprite in her guilty dress, but I haven't stitched her innocent version yet.  I will, though!  And then I'll frame them and put them next to my books, too.

I'll have to gather up all my books - my dad likes to borrow and read them, so they tend to get scattered - and show you guys the basics of the idea for my slightly macabre little display XD

Happy Stitching!

Tama