Tag Archives: Toys

Christmas prep

Hello, Christmas makes!!  To be honest though my output is quite modest this year, I haven’t gone overboard with the making of Christmas gifts unlike previous years.   Just a few little things…

I’d mostly made this black felt bunny a few years ago, using the Luna Lapin pattern book.  He was kinda my first test of the pattern before making a camel brown bunny for Arthur, blogged here, but I didn’t do too bad a job if I say so myself.  So this year I decided to complete him as a present for Gilbert.

I made his outfit using various bits and pieces as usual; the shirt and buttons were an old shirt of Tim’s… and I used the same buttons for his eyes, the chinos are a nice piece of cotton twill that I plan to use for a pair for myself sometime… hopefully I didn’t cut too large a chunk for that to happen! and his little waistcoat was from a small scrap of fabric that I discovered in a bag of leftovers given to me by my mother-in-law.

I also made Arthur’s bunny a new outfit.  I didn’t have his here to model it so Gilbert’s bunny has been roped in for the job.  It’s a summer outfit; comprising a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts.

I had to include this picture of the shirt-making burrito!  the instructions don’t have this but I figured why not make it as neat as possible.  I used sew-in press studs for the shirt in lieu of buttons; they’re just easier and you don’t have to worry about ruining your tiny little shirt with a bad buttonhole.  The fabric is leftover from my first Myosotis dress.  The board shorts are white linen and blue linen that I dyed myself using a natural indigo  dye bath.  Actually, the leftovers from my recently made Mestre shirt.

 

Every year my family always exchanges some sort of homemade food treat too… my effort this year is gingerbread star biscuits to be dunked into tea or coffee.  I made a little more that 160ish gingerbread stars and pondered how to decorate them, finally deciding upon an easy option of polka dots.  Yes, I’m super into polka dots at the moment for some reason.  Oh, and did I say “easy”? haha. For some reason this very simple concept took an entire afternoon and I’ve still got a numb spot on my finger from the pressure of operating the icing contraption thingie.  I’m low key disappointed that so much work resulted in actually quite ordinary results,  hmff.  They are sadly not at all spectacular, but are definitely very yummy and I hope everyone likes them!

In other making news, not related to Christmas pressies; remember this dress?  I made it using our own Karijini pattern and a doona cover.  yes I still love it in principal, but had tired a little of its soft inoffensive colourway and last month subjected it to the unforgiving depths of the dye pot.  It now looks a bit more eye-catching, ahem.  I actually love it, and it feels like a new dress in my wardrobe, which is nice.

 

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a fabulous Mr Fox

Hello !  I’ve just finished making this cute little fox for Theo. And he has a nice little outfit too.  A reversible waistcoat and a pair of smart trousers, no less.   Quite dapper little chappy, no?

 

I was recently the lucky winner of the James Fox pattern from a giveaway run over on instagram by his designer Lisa of A Sewing Life, along with the patterns for his trousers and waistcoat.  So I thought since I made a bunny for Arthur not that long ago, I should make some sort of an animal for Theo too.

I couldn’t find any appropriately coloured felt in the shops here, so I ordered some.  I ended up getting some hand-dyed wool felt from Indigo Inspirations; this is the Rust colourway, and I ordered some plain white from the same shop at the same time, for his chest and the other white detailing.  His gloves and boots are dark chocolate brown cotton corduroy, leftover from my recently made brown skirt, originally from Tessuti, in Melbourne? I think?  It was a gift from Cassie..  Buttons are old stash.

I redid his nose several times until I was totally happy.  Faces can be tricky and I’m very happy with how his turned out in the end!

His trousers have POCKETS… oh my gosh how gorgeous is that?!  Of course I had to pose him with his paws shoved insouciantly down into them.  He looks exceptionally debonair like  so, in my humble opinion…

hide and seek…

He has fully articulated limbs, which make it lots of fun to pose him.  He doesn’t really stand up by himself very well; in fact he topples over at the drop of a hat.  I’m not sure if I overstuffed his head, making it too heavy? but I do know from experience that you have to stuff a doll’s head very firmly in order for it to look any good at all.  So I don’t know how the instability could be avoided?  Anyway, he props against a wall very well.

“paint me like one of your French girls…”

Achieving the aforementioned articulation was a little fiddly, because of the difficulty of manipulating a needle through two buttons inside half-stuffed arms and body, but it turned out ok in the end, I think.  My first go at stitching up the backs of his fully stuffed arms wasn’t very neat, and it’s an area that’s really on show on the finished fox. Before giving him away, I unpicked my previous stitching and carefully redid it to be a lot neater.

All his clothes are made from some of Craig’s old shirts; which I always keep for the buttons as well as for the (usually) beautiful quality fabrics.

I hope Theo enjoys his new fox, and I can’t wait to see him played with!  I wonder what his name will be?

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