Chapter 143: Small And Fierce
After covering the outer layer sheet sewn from white-headed sheep hide over the laid-out cotton, Su Ran took out the bone needle and began the final sewing.
She first densely sewed all four edges of the felt mat shut, and after sewing it, she took the bone needle and pierced it from one side of the felt mat.
The bone needle pierced through the animal hide, stabbing into the cotton underneath, sewing the inner cotton and the animal hide together, then emerging from the animal hide again.
This way, it could prevent the cotton inside the felt mat from shifting.
Making this cotton felt mat took Su Ran nearly five days.
And nearly two-thirds of that time was spent on sewing.
So much so that when the felt mat was finally finished, Su Ran’s fingers still hurt for two or three days.
But this bit of pain was nothing compared to the soft and comfortable feeling of lying on the felt mat.
Su Ran lay on the thick cotton felt mat, feeling the clean touch of white-headed sheep wool under her palms, fine, soft, and smooth.
The fur on the white-headed sheep’s body was mostly black, with only the area from the neck to the head being white.
And after Su Ran’s trimming of the entire white-headed sheep hide, only a strip of white fur less than one finger wide remained along one edge.
And after sewing together several white-headed sheep hides each with such a strip of short white fur.
The final large animal hide sheet had several similarly shaped white stripes interspersed in the black center.
Black and white interspersed, like having patterns. In the indoor space with half-open window and insufficient light, the dark felt mat surface also appeared much more vivid and lively.
Ao wu really liked this newly made felt mat.
Just like the first time lying on the heated brick bed, he rolled several times on the soft thick felt mat, and after finally lying flat, he suddenly looked at the roof and let out a long breath.
“Ao wu~~~”
“Ao wu likes Ran Ran very much, very much! Ran Ran is very good, very good, very amazing!”
He held Su Ran’s hand as she sat beside him, and in the dim light, his light green eyes became clear and bright: “On the mountain, Ao wu liked Ran Ran! Small and fierce, likes woo~”
Su Ran listened to his childlike confession with her head lowered, her lips curving slightly.
What Ao wu was talking about was probably the first time they met on that mountain, when she almost hit him.
At that time, she was both shocked and scared, swinging that engineer shovel with all twelve parts of strength from her whole body.
The expression on her face at the time probably looked quite ferocious in Ao wu’s eyes too.
After the cotton felt mat was done, Su Ran rolled up the entire felt mat from the head of the heated brick bed all the way to the foot, placing it right against the wall.
The weather now wasn’t cold yet, and the cotton felt mat was indeed warm; warm Ao wu lying on it would be too hot to sleep.
After finishing the cotton felt mat, Su Ran made two sets of double-person large bedding. Then she made a few pillows with cotton as inner cores, and also a few large and small cushions and small pads.
After making this whole set of things, the cotton she had picked before was left with only two large bags, which wasn’t quite enough for making clothes.
So she had Ao wu pick a bit more cotton back.
In just half a month, the temperature dropped rapidly.
It was okay at noon, but morning and evening every day, even wearing long-sleeved animal hide clothes, the cool air made people feel a bit cold.
Su Ran felt that the daily temperature now was very similar to when she first arrived in this world.
Both had hot noons and cold mornings and evenings, with huge daily temperature differences.
She used sheep wool yarn spun from white-headed sheep wool to knit two sets of sweaters and sweater pants for herself and Ao wu.
But Su Ran didn’t know how to knit from top to bottom, so for each piece of clothing, she knitted the various parts separately and then sewed those parts together with needle and thread.
For the two sets of clothes, Su Ran planned to make one set as single sweaters, and one set with cotton sandwiched inside the sweaters.
Hers were easier to make; just knit the shapes of the various parts and sew them on.
But for Ao wu’s two sets of clothes, she needed to leave openings for the wings and tail.
His pants were fine.
Just like his previous shorts, leave a hole at the tail, and he could just pull the tail out through the hole then.
But the tops were tricky.
Because those two large wings had feathers growing almost as long as Ao wu’s upper body.
If she also left two holes to pull the wings out from inside the clothes like the tail, those two holes would expose nearly half of Ao wu’s back.
Then wearing the clothes or not wouldn’t make much difference!
Su Ran stared at the wings behind Ao wu worriedly for a long time, until finally Ao wu seemed scared by her gaze, and when Su Ran took the wooden ruler to measure the wing size by touching it, he couldn’t help but tremble violently.
“Ran Ran, wings woo? Wings how?”
“It’s nothing, making clothes for you.”
Su Ran patted Ao wu’s half-turned body back.
In the end, she decided to make Ao wu’s clothes in a style that fastened with buttons at the back.
That is, the back was divided into three pieces of fabric: left, right, and center.
When putting it on, slip the top over the head, then wrap the left and right pieces around the base edges of the wings and fasten them to the center piece with buttons.
This solved the problem of needing large openings for the wings to fit through.
And no need to worry about the feathers on the wings getting worn bald from always pulling them out from inside the clothes!
For those two sets of sweaters she wanted to add cotton to, each piece needed to be sewn into two layers, then lay cotton between the two layers of sweater fabric like making the felt mat and sew it shut.
Su Ran originally wanted to use red-skinned pig hide sewn for the outer layer of the sweaters. But later she felt that clothes worn inside should still use sheep wool yarn for more softness.
Moreover, the sheep wool yarn she spun was actually very fine, so the knitted clothes wouldn’t feel thick and bulky like those made from coarse wool yarn.
For the sweater pants, Su Ran made only two sets each for herself and Ao wu, one thick set and one thin set.
Because there wasn’t much time now, and they still had to busy with food storage, they could only make these few clothes for the time being.
But these two sets definitely weren’t enough to wear.
First, she and Ao wu didn’t even have spare clothes to change into, and the outer coats and winter shoes weren’t made yet either.
But these could wait for now; once food storage was mostly done, they could slowly make them in time.
Moreover, with these two sets of cotton sweaters, she and Ao wu could hold out for a few days in winter first.
