Beside her, a battered stuffed critter she called Skuddbutt—patched ears, one button eye missing, a seam cracked along its hip—sat propped against a jar of pencils. Gwen had found it in a thrift-store bin the winter she’d started making things again, and the toy had become an unofficial studio mascot: ridiculous, stubborn, endearingly broken. She smiled without meaning to, brushing a fingertip over the split seam. Fixing Skuddbutt had been on her list for months. So had finishing the dozen-half-baked designs scattered on the bench.