All a bit poo

Life has thrown a few curve balls at me this year and it has been quite a while since I have really had time to sit in an evening and have some me time, or to have blocks of time in a day to find a crafting head space.

I have needed friends more than craft in many ways, and I have discovered even more than I already knew how many wonderful friends I have.

There have been moments of creativity though and these little folk sum up quite well what I think of 2016 so far. I know some others going through a tough time too and they have all appreciated the funny side of having a smiling poo sitting on the desk!

Hopeful though, and believe that maybe this will all be a bit like manure, and better things will come from all the crap 2016 has delivered thus far!!

Crazy Monkey Softie

It has been an awfully long time between posts. A great family holiday, Christmas and a computer breakdown all have come in between doing & uploading. Because there has been quite a bit of doing. So here comes a whole lot of pictures of what has been happening in the last 6 months.

Another creature created from the Sew Cute to Cuddle book by Mariska Vos-Bolman. This one for a new addition to the family. Another cousin for the Little Imp.

Little Imp in the Button Room - an Owl Softie is created

My lovely sister in law gifted me a Sew Cute to Cuddle book by Mariska Vos-Bolman this weekend and Little Imp was taken very much by 'Wooksy the Owl'. By the time we got home she was determined to get going on the 'Whooskie' project.

I really wasn't sure how long the enthusiasm would last, but I provided some sheets of tracing paper and she started tracing the shapes from the back of the book, a few bull dog clips helped keep the paper still for little hands. Before dinner she had traced & cut out most of the pieces we needed. A few wobbly lines and cuts here and there, but on the whole Whooskie looked good on paper!

The first call the following morning was to "keep going with Whoosky". I traced around each of her template pieces & little Imp cut out most of the fabric herself

I restrained myself and let the jagged cutting go for the most part, but again she did such a great job anyway. Here is Whoosky ready for stitching.

I did all the sewing this time around, Little Imp sat on my lap with the roles of snipping, pressing the right buttons and helping with thread selection and threading. We had fun!

I did do the feet - I free formed stitched directly onto the traced lines, then Little Imp cut around the stitching before I turned right side out & stiffed those tricky little claws.

A bit of wing stuffing happening here.

I generally attach softie limbs/appendages with a quick straight stitch to one side of the body before stitching front & back body pieces together - I find this makes sure they get stitched in in the right spot.

A bit of graffiti on Whooskie's bottom so that there can be no mistaking who owns the Owl.

Love at first sight! There was a period of reassurance required as I covered up all of Whooskie's front body with the right side of the back of the body to sew front & back together & Little Imp had to wait for me to turn Whooskie right side out. "Don't cover up Whooskie mummy, you can't put her feet inside her body! Don't!"

Does three constitute a herd?

This pattern is just too easy to pass up when needing to make a few softies in a short time.

I added rattles into these ones again - a small plastic canister partially filled with some beads stuffed in amidst all the polyester stuffing.

As these ones were all going to baby babies I also went with felt eyes - & added these on with free motion embroidery before sewing the elephant body together. Super quick & easy!

Addition - last night I saw some of these elephants made from the EXACT SAME pattern for sale...for $44!! Wow.....

Some more elephant softies

I made a felt elephant recently for Little Imp's cousin....  

...and then, perhaps against my better judgement (given the excessive number of soft toys Little Imp already has) I agreed to make her one for Christmas too.  Given she is a bit older now I thought a cotton print fabric for the body would be more fun. And I think I was right! 

Given how much I liked how that one had tuned out I figured I may as well make her other cousin one too.

So now I have 3 elephants waiting to meet their owners.

I have made elephants for friends before from this Woman's Weekly pattern, but this time I also worked out a great way to add a 'jingle'. I've found in the past that when I insert the little metal bells into softies that the bell becomes far too muffled by all of the fibre fill. My solution in this instance was to do away with the bell altogether & instead I put some beads into a small plastic canister about 4cm high x 2cm diameter. The elephant is fat enough that I could stuff the canister into the middle of it's body still not really don't notice it among all the stuffing. Super Jingly too!

A link to some other elephant softies I've made in the past

Another crinkly tag toy....and an elephant!

OneLittleImp has a new cousin! So what have I made for her for Christmas?

A few little things...

First up the tag toy. I think this is the best version I have made, this time in flannel. My felt version was probably a little simpler, but this one does look neater and a bit more 'finished'.  The elephant is an old pattern from a Woman's Weekly, made mostly of felt, and a little bit of left over flannel for the ears.

Tag Toy

Basic Tutorial:

• cut 2x approx 7 inch squares of a flannel fabric
• cut 2x 6.75 inch squares of batting
• cut a 6.5 inch cello square
• cut ribbon of various lengths (between 4 - 12inches)

Fold over approx 1/2 inch along all four edges and iron to crease once square of flannel fabric. I spent a few moments hand stitching each of the four corners so they looked nice and neat. Trim the excess fabric at the corners before you do this if you need. 

Tuck one piece of the  batting the 'frame' that you have now created. Then repeat all of these steps for the second piece of flannel and batting.

 Place both squares together, batting on the inside and iron on a warm (not hot) setting to flatten and ensure their edges match pretty closely.

 Take apart and place the piece of cello on one of the squares.

Close back up to form a sandwich - flannel, batting, cello, batting, flannel - and pin temporarily to hold edges neatly together with a few extra pins in the centre to keep the cello in place. Then start to insert the pieces of ribbon.

Fold most of the ribbon pieces in half and then slip in between each half of the flannel/batting sandwich, with a good inch or so within the sandwich and pin in place. This will ensure the ribbon is well picked up by your finishing edge stitches and less likely to unravel in time. I also doubled over the thinner (teal) ribbon in a few spots for a bit more interest.  Make sure your corners and edges are still aligned before the next step.

• Using a straight stitch, machine stitch the fabric squares together about 1/4inch from the edge,  removing pins as you go & ensuring you catch all the ribbons. Then stitch another line all the way around, close to the first.

Finally stitch a square in the middle (to help hold the cello in place) and you are done!

The Softie Elephant King

It was a little busy in the lead up to heading to Tasmania last year, but I did get some time in the evenings to have a go making another critter from the Softies book I was given a while back.  'George the Elephant King' was my pick.  I do like making things on a small scale, so I decided not to enlarge the pattern, essentially making George half the recommended size (about 20cm high).

This was my favourite Softie in the book and I was more than happy with how the elephants turned out.  However, regardless of whether my elephants were made with green swirls & spots, or out-and-out floral fabric, it seems that I  instead created Georgina the Elephant Queen...
...or could that be George the Elephant King Queen (!)

I've made a whole herd now, if 7 elephants constitute a herd that is.  Some even with bells in their belly for jingle shaking kiddie fun.  Birthday gifts for little ones in 2012 me thinks.

A long time between posts...

Time for hand craft has been limited lately.  Having an extension built, doing some renovating ourselves and working almost full time in the last few months doesn't leave much time for anything else.  But we are almost there.  Weeks of reheated dinners eaten on our laps in our bedroom, the only real safe haven from the dust are behind us and it is has definitely all been worth it.  Not only do we have a larger, light filled living area, but I now have a room just for all my craftiness!  I'll share that another time, but going back a few months now before the renovating began in earnest and we still had a couch to sit on I made my brother's little one a felt gift.

The inspiration for this came from two sources. One - my brother who is an amazing artist and drew a tree titled 'Grow' while waiting for his baby to arrive, and two - a book of Softies a hootchie gave me that had a tree softie (as well as a poo softie!).  This is my version for my little niece.

The Basic Gist

2 bits of orange felt for the tree top, with cut out felt circles/swirls, bird and heart hand sewn on with embroidery floss (given felt doesn't have a 'wrong' and 'right' side, beware the rookie mistake of sewing these embellishments onto both 'front' sides of the tree - doesn't work when you go to sew the pieces together!! A few 'bugger, bugger bugger's may have been muttered). Once you have added the swirls etc, machine sew the tree tops wrong sides together with blanket stitch, leaving a gap for squishing in some stuffing.

Cut out the felt tree trunk with the base of the trunk on the fold. Hand embroider a face on one side. Fold right sides together and stitch each side seam. Turn right side out and stuff.Insert the trunk into the tree top, adding a bit more stuffing if you need to and then complete the blanket stitches by hand to attach the tree top to trunk.