Something crafty

Here is my first attempt at a stuffed toy.  And what do you know I chose a cat. I was thinking of a baby gift idea for one of my friends and thought I'd give this a try.  The material is quilting fabric from Lincraft. I found a decent looking template on the interweb and based my kitty shape on that.  I have buttons-o-plenty so just had to decide on which colour/type to use.  The whiskers were just done with a regular cotton thread with a double hand stitch.  Surprisingly stuffing the wadding into the toy took a longer time than I expected. I figured if the kiddy doesn't like it it should look nice from a decorative perspective. 



This is one of those occasions where it was hard to capture the colour of the fabric in the photo.

 

I know what you're thinking the resemblance is uncanny

 

I seem to be, in my middle age, surrounded by chums having babies, or simply breeders as I usually refer to them.  And this does actually impact on my sewing as I am making lots of clothes, that aren't getting as much wear as my social life is a little on the spare side with all these friends in the throws of parenthood. Now I always like a new sewing challenge and a few years ago with the baby births imminent it got me thinking of gift ideas.  It started with putting a felt cat face on a onesey for one of my friends and then I moved on to mobiles.  Steeling the idea from Etsy I found some terrific felt mobiles.  My first was for my friend Steph who lives on a property just north of Brisbane. Inspired by her chickens and cow Bessie I made this farm themed mobile.  

 

  

 

Mobile no. 2 was for a good friend who is a dog lover.   

The mobiles certainly aren't on par with the ones people do make and sell on Etsy but I think friends do appreciate the effort. And thanks to my dad for whipping up the centre pieces for me.

 

Now I am shortly to become an actual aunty for the first time this year so I guess I'll have to come up with another idea.  Taking inspiration from my stuffed toy, I might try something smaller with a rattle inside. Not sure if I feel like tackling a mobile again. It is certainly very time consuming work hand sewing all the details onto the felt.  But always glad to give it a crack.