Eggs!

This is one of the best amateur patterns ever: Egg Babies.

This was my first attempt:
Not too good. I did not have any felt for the faces at the time, so I crocheted a circle out of some yarn I did have. I did a crappy job of embroidering the face too.

About the only useful thing about my first attempt--other than verifying that the pattern does indeed produce an egg-sized and -shaped baby--is that I came up with the idea of swaddling it in a little granny-square blanket.

Back to the drawing board.

The next day, I bought felt. Got lucky, & scored some "light peach" felt at the craft store for nine cents a sheet. Armed with a pen, a nickel, the felt, and all my previous equipment, I came up with this:
Much nicer, and much closer to the look of the original pattern, but still some problems. Poor placement of the face. Since I couldn't figure how to place my stitches on the opposite side of where I'd traced the nickel, I had to embroider it on the same side, & didn't do a great job of cutting it out, so you can see (barely) the ink I used to trace it with. And the face is kinda iffy still.

Hmm. How to address the issues?

First off, get rid of the nickel. Too small. What else did I have laying around the house that was small--but not as small--and round and rigid? A quarter! Yes, I know a quarter isn't that much larger than a nickel, but that little bit made all the difference. I didn't get perfect circles, because my determination to avoid the trace lines (coupled with my lack of money for a disappearing-ink pen) meant I had to hold the quarter tight against the felt & cut around. But it actually turned out well.

I also decided not to embroider any more noses. It's much cuter without. And I placed the face--and tacked it down--before reducing from 15sts to 12sts, instead of before reducing from 18sts to 15sts. Small changes, huge difference:

They're still not perfect--I suck at spacing my embroidery stitches evenly--but they're pretty good. Good enough to make me happy.

Good enough to make the girls happy, though actually they all were. There are now stuffed eggs scattered about the house. Much better than real eggs scattered about, I suppose, and nowhere near as stinky, at least.

Even Esther loves them.

The yarn, by the way is Red Heart Super Saver. It was also on sale. Off-white, if memory serves. The blankets are made out of Baby Econo, which I think is also Red Heart. It's lovely yarn, but I wouldn't use it for a real baby. Too scratchy.