A magnificent stash

I attempted to organize my fabric stash the other day, with little success. I really need a dedicated piece of furniture that I can store it in, instead of just rubbermaid containers.

The alarming part about organizing the fabric was realizing just how much I have happened to collect in the 8 or so months I have been sewing – not even including what I’ve used in actual projects.

Matt, if you’re reading this – now is the time to look away. 🙂

In 8 months, the remaining stash not including ones sewn into quilts or other projects, is:

136 fat quarters (34 yards of fabric)

42 pieces of fabric from 1/2 yard – 3 yards of fabric, general

40 pieces of kid fabric, from 1/2 yard – 3 yards of fabric

Plus, two drawers full of felt and felt scraps, and one drawer full of fabric scraps.

Approximate total yards of entire collection: 120 yards

Oooof. Better lay off on going fabric shopping until I’ve made many more projects.

The amazing part? It all fits here.

How do you keep your fabric stashes under control?

Another owl – sensing a theme?

Oh, the powers of social media. I made a stuffed owl for my baby cousin, and her mom posted an adorable pic of the sweet baby and the owl. One of her friends saw my owl, and requested one herself! So fun, and so amazing that someone in Missouri can make something for someone in Iowa and someone in North Carolina sees the post and orders one. Small world. 🙂 I really hope she loves him – I think he turned out really cute!

An owl softie for Cameron

I have made some improvements over my last owl. I love the bright, springy, girlie but not icky fabric. And the sewing has improved drastically since the last effort, if I may say so myself.

This owl, along with some baby blocks, was a gift to my cousin Cameron for her first birthday. She was giving the owl hugs before we left, so, I am hoping that’s a good sign!

Tiny project – no idea what to do with it

I had a bit of leftover felt the other day and decided to try and make an owl inside of a tree. The idea was to make a puppet, though it ended up too small for a hand puppet and too large for a finger puppet. So now it’s cute, but I have no idea what to do with it. Add to a pillow? A blanket? A larger puppet/stuffed animal/softie?

Any ideas, dear readers?

Tiny owl

Some day, I will really learn how to embroider

Until then, I will pretend I know how. I had a bit of leftover cream-colored felt, and lots of embroidery floss.

I freehand drew a bird onto the felt and hand-stitched over the top. I thought it turned out pretty cute. Then I sewed on a colorful fabric back and a little piece of ribbon on top, and stuffed. It can be an ornament, a plushy toy, or sit happily on a shelf.

I need to learn proper embroidery stitches, and want to explore more of this art form. Quilting is expensive – I need to include cheap projects like this to satisfy my creative itch, too. 🙂

Another gift for Riley

I mentioned my cousin’s upcoming fourth birthday and the first part of his present here. The other half, I completed Sunday night.

Riley is the quintessential boy’s boy – he loves trucks, cars, anything with wheels. And recently, he’s fallen in love with fire trucks.

When trying to decide what to get him to go with the aforementioned monster mittens, I wanted to get something fireman/fire truck related but didn’t want to accidentally get him something he already had/would get for his birthday. So, after much deliberation, I decided to try my hand at creating a fireman puppet.

To the rescue

If I were to do it again, I might make a few changes. The hat isn’t quite right, and I would have sewn a separate jacket and sewed it on top of a puppet base. Nevertheless, I think it turned out pretty cute and I think a 4-year-old’s imagination might overcome my pattern’s shortcomings.

One of our dogs was certainly fascinated with the creation, though:

Mmm ... firefighter puppet ...

Whoo-too: How to owl softie

I would make some changes to this softie the second time around, but this is a really simple, quick, simple softie project that requires only a few items that you probably already have.

1 fat quarter

random scraps of felt

thread

sewing machine or handsewn

Ignore the top - yours won't have the same mistake 🙂

Take your fat quarter and fold in half. This should create fabric that’s 18 X 10.5 inches. Cut a shape similar to a gummy drop with the folded part uncut at the bottom. Pick one side of the folded piece of fabric to be the front of your owl. Cut two wings out of felt and sew onto the edge of the body. Then cut a giant  triangle to serve as a beak, sew on. Then, cut two large white  circles for eyes, and sew so they slightly overlap onto the beak. Sew on two smaller black circles to create the pupils for the eyes. Then, sew two little feather-shaped felt cutouts to the top of the face.

Now that your face and wings are done, fold fabric the other way so that right sides are facing in. Sew around the open edges of your shape (be careful to keep the top feathers sticking out), leaving about 1.5 inches to turn the fabric right side out, then fill with polyfill, sew the remaining hole closed, and you’re done!

The mistake I made in this that I would not make again is choosing to have the hole to flip the owl inside out at the top of his head. This made for an awkward seam. It would have been much better to the hole along the bottom edge. Next time I will do it this way.

For variations, add glasses or even little felt feet.

Another dose of (softie) inspiration

One day I was looking for inspiration for a new softie project to make for home decorating, when I stumbled upon LucyKate Crafts. I seriously love her blog – so many beautiful projects, great pictures … it’s a great blog to spend an hour perusing.

I fell in love with her fox softies, and was inspired to create my own fox. It didn’t turn out as adorable as hers (she is a professional, after all), but still pretty cute.

Oh foxy, foxy

I have a soft spot for foxes, too, because our Cairn, Netta, reminds me of a fox.

Cairn Terrier

Actual fox

Handsewn puppet

I absolutely love making cute little projects out of felt. It’s a cheap, quick material to craft with. Total cost for creating this puppet was less than $1.

It’s part of the beginning of a series of admirable career-based toys. Coming up with this pattern, cutting everything out and sewing took a total of 1.5 hours, or about the length of one movie that you 1/2 pay attention to.

The doctor is in

Materials – white, off-white, black, chocolate brown felt. Several colors of embroidery floss.

Softies gone wild

For those not acquainted, a softie is a homemade stuffed animal that can be made a variety of ways. Whether made with cotton fabric, felt, felting, knitting or crochet, they are adorable, quirky creatures that can be made in as little as a few hours. They also make perfect gifts for little kids or even grown up kids.

I’m not one to follow patterns much (or recipes), so most of mine have been inspired by others seen online or just dreamed up one day.

Several have been made so far, though I find felt to be one of the easiest materials to work with. After I made a few, my husband requested a penguin softie. He has something of a thing for penguins, and I couldn’t even begin to tell you the origin of this. As a result, he has numerous penguin stuffed animals, tshirts, a sweat shirt and artwork. These were so fun to make, and quick too.

For each, the technique was relatively the same. I first cut out two generic body shapes from felt. I freehand drew the shapes, keeping in mind that once sewn, the dimensions would shrink. This means you need to make the head much larger than you want the final version to appear.

Then, I cut out a contrasting color to use for the body. I sewed this on the top piece of body felt. From there, I cut out beaks and chose buttons for eyes, attaching these. On the black penguin, I also cut out a bowtie out of red felt and sewed on. Once you have completed the body as desired, face right sides together and sew all but about two inches on the bottom of the penguin. Use this space to flip the penguin body right side out. Stuff

A gift for Matt

with fiber fill, sew closed. For the black penguin, I sewed little yellow feet out of felt and stuffed them, and sewed them to the edge of the body. For the blue penguin, I cross-stitched feet and then sewed to the bottom. I also stitched a little scarf.

My favorite thing about softie projects is that anything goes. You can use a pattern, but don’t have to. And even better – it’s one of the cheapest crafts you can make.

Keep checking back for many more examples to come!