While She Naps

Baby Bear and Blankie Set

It's so easy to collect fabric. It's beautiful and it feels good to the touch. It's not all that expensive for a small cut, and when you see something you love it's hard to know if you'll be able to find it again.

In December I began keeping weekly financial records for my business. Looking at the numbers eye-to-eye each week has made me think very carefully before I spend money on new materials and I've cut way back.

So, when I license designs to a company that pays for the cost of materials it's a truly special treat.

On Friday I went to Fabric Place Basement in Natick, MA, with just such a treat in hand. I went to buy some supplies to sew fresh samples of the Beastie Bags to send to Simplicity. The Beastie Bags will be out as my second a Simplicity pattern envelope early spring 2014. Fabric Place Basement is a family owned fabric store, or warehouse really, and their customer service is terrific. They'd put all the fleece in storage for the summer, but let me go look through the bolts in the back. They've got an amazing selection.

I bought some light brown velour. Many commercially made stuffed animals are sewn from velour and I've wanted to give it a try. I made this Baby Bear and Blankie with it and I think the results are really excellent.

The blankie is double-sided: velour on one side and flannel on the other. I lined the bear's ears with the same flannel to make it a nicely matched set. I used a plastic nose and some blue safety eyes from 6060 on Etsy. This bear is incredibly soft and snuggly.

I'm giving this set to my sister who will be having her first baby, a girl, in the fall. I hope she likes it.

Make a Baby Bear and Blankie Set yourself. Get the pattern here.

A Go-To Baby Gift

I remember so clearly opening the pink and yellow blankie my aunt crocheted for Stella, our middle daughter, when she was born. Knowing how much work went into selecting the yarn and stitching that blanket made us feel so loved.

Babies end up getting tons of gifts in their first year and it can end up being kind of a blur, but those handmade presents stand out and fill us with love even years later. We would never give them away. They get packed up to be saved for grandchildren.

I try to create sewing patterns to make these kinds of gifts. Nothing is better than that pattern you pull out to make as your go-to baby gift. I like a pattern that comes together easily, but includes enough variations that you can make a custom version for each new arrival.

I designed the Lovey Dovey patterns (the first and second sets) and the Animal Rattles (the first and second sets) to fit this description. A rattle and a lovey together makes a really nice pair. I recently made a gift that included one of each for a little baby boy named Garrett.
I like to add one of these nifty rattle inserts inside the Animal Rattles' heads. The rattles are machine washable and they make a really pleasing sound. The toy becomes interactive for the baby this way and a little more fun for mom and dad, too.

If you'd like to have all the materials on hand to whip up a rattle on an afternoon, I've put together kits to make super soft ducky rattles. The fabrics are super soft cuddle fleece! 

I love that people are using the patterns to create special gifts for new babies. Here are some beautiful Lovey Dovies made recently by:

1. Jody's Crafty Creations

2. Bright Life Toys

3. Stitch/Craft

4. Lots of Pink Here

Make something special for your next baby shower. A handmade baby gift is infused with your love and that means so much to family who receives it. All of these patterns, and the inserts, are available in my shop on Etsy.

How to Design Cut-and-Sew Softies and Dolls on Spoonflower

 

 

A few weeks ago I got in touch with the folks at Spoonflower, the print on demand fabric company, to see about getting some cut-and-sew softie and doll fabrics to play with. I thrilled when they agreed to send me a few fat quarters and today I’m ready to show you what I’ve made and give you some tips for designing these fabrics.

Spoonflower allows anyone to design and print their own, custom fabrics. For creative people this means endless awesome possibilities and for doll and softie designers it means you can have pattern pieces and sewing instructions printed right on the fabric for an easy cut-and-sew project. I’ve had my eye on cut-and-sew softie fabrics since August of 2011 when they were the focus of Spoonflower’s weekly design contest.

I did a search on Spoonflower's website for "plush" and browsed through so many great fabrics. In the end I went with:

• Kawaii Kitchen and Mister Zombie by Bora
• Zakka Ice Cream Cones by Katarina Dragutinovic Roccella
• Amelia and her Kittens by Stacy Iest Hsu.

Each of these designers has several (or dozens) of gorgeous Spoonflower designs, including multiple cut-and-sew softies. I had so much fun looking through them all!

I’ve never designed a cut-and-sew softie or doll so after I chose a few fat quarters to try out, I contacted two of the designers to find out more about their process. One of them is Stacy Iest Hsu. Stacy is actually a trained textile designer. She says she isn’t much of a sewist beyond 4-H as a child, but her dolls are adorable. I also talked to Katarina (Nina) Dragutinovic Roccella who designs prolifically on Spoonflower and has lots of doll and softies among her fabrics.

Stacy and Nina shared some valuable tips with me for designing this specific type of fabric. Here is what they said:

Getting Started

Nina often starts with a drawing of the doll on paper. She’ll then cut out pattern pieces and sew a prototype to get the shape right, before scanning and playing with the colors and patterns in Photoshop. Nina shared this collage of her process with me:

 

Stacy recommends designing the doll with a fairly simple silhouette to keep the sewing simple and Nina agrees. Nina says, “Try to avoid narrow small spaces within the design especially at the neck. The first boy doll I created looked like a giraffe! Try to avoid acute angles because these can be tricky to sew.”

Considering the Front and the Back

Stacy says creating a front and back for the doll makes it come to life, as opposed to just putting a print on the back or leaving it solid. Nina does this by duplicating the front, flipping it and then deleting the face details.

Adding Special Elements

Both designers recommend adding a place somewhere on the doll for the customer to personalize it. Usually these dolls are made as gifts so this gives the customer the opportunity to add their own touches and makes them feel they had a part in the design process

Use some of the extra space on the fat quarter to make a label with your brand name, website or blog that can then be attached someplace on the doll. As Stacy says, “These dolls are your best tool for advertising and they will probably go to many places where other moms will see them.”

Natalie Doll by Stacy Iest Hsu on Spoonflower

Look at how Stacy added to her doll. She says, “Think of ways to allow customers to embellish the doll or toy with embroidery or ribbon.”

Write Up the Sewing Instructions

Stacy points out that you should make your sewing instructions simple and easy to follow. Use the same language used in conventional sewing patterns and proofread them well! And Nina says to be sure to indicate that the curves and corners should be clipped  before turning and stuffing because beginners may not know this.

Remember to add a ¼ inch seam allowance. Stacy likes the front and back of the doll to meet without any white showing at the seam lines once the doll is sewn up.

What's it Like to Sew These Toys?

Here's what I made!

 

As a customer I appreciated clear, well-written and thorough sewing instructions. Be sure not to skip any steps, such  as stuffing the arms and legs. It helps to have someone else read your instructions, too, given that once they’re printed you can’t go back and edit them!

I really loved the little extra graphic bits some of the designers added in the white space. These would be great to applique on a t-shirt or a tote bag to accompany the finished doll. And I appreciated that these designs were all on just a fat quarter of fabric. This made the project affordable and quick! One of these fat quarters would be a great gift for my 9-year-old who just learned to use the sewing machine.

 

Other Cut-and-Sew Softies from Spoonflower

Choosing just a few fat quarters from the thousands of cut-and-sew softies and dolls available on Spoonflower was hard. Here are some more of my favorites:

• This owl

• This turtle

• Super pig!

• Hank (in a bowtie!)

• Funky Retro Robots

• Incredible Super Sheep

And there are so many more. I must say that this was one of the most fun blog posts I’ve written!

I really hope the design tips from Nina and Stacy are helpful to you if you are interested in designing some cut-and-sew softies or dolls using Spoonflower. Both of them are happy to answer your questions in the comments so please don’t hesitate to ask!

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Pepper the Penguin, the sew and crochet pattern I designed in collaboration with Stacey Trock of FreshStitches, is being released today! This is such a cool 2-in-1 pattern and we hope you love sewing AND crocheting Pepper. Read more about our collaboration here and get the pattern now in my shop on Etsy!

Elephant Softie from Six Months of Softies

Happy weekend to you!  I just finished sewing the first pattern from Six Months of Softies and I had to show it to you! This is Polly. The baby is in love with her...

...has made off with her...

...and refuses to give her back.

I can't say I blame her!  Wendi has done an outstanding job with this design. He's big and squishy, like a pillow.

This pattern is the first of six brand new designs from six indie softie designers. I'm finding it incredibly enjoyable to sew these one by one, and I've already learned a smart trick for neatly attaching footpads from Wendi's pattern.

Join Six Months of Softies. You'll get the pattern to make Polly (or Napoleon if you'd like to make a gentleman elephant) right away, and a new pattern in your inbox each month. So cool.

Pattern Review: Polar Bears by Betz White

One of the best ways to learn to design your own sewing patterns is to sew from other people's patterns. The more patterns you use, the more you learn. Sometimes I go long stretches just doing my own design work and forget that this is true.

Last week Betz White sent me a copy of one of her new Wildlife With Love patterns, Flurry and Fluff Polar Bears. Betz is an expert designer and I knew that sewing from her pattern would be a learning experience for me and I wasn't wrong. It's like professional development.

Over the summer Betz and I talked back and forth about her new series of softies. I knew she was working on them and was really eager for their release.

Before even tracing the templates or choosing the fabrics a few things jumped out at me when the pattern arrived. First, I love that the toys are shown in children's hands so that you can really envision how they'll look when the child you give them to is playing with them. And second, I love that Betz chose a diverse set of models for the pattern covers.These are real kids and they're not all white.

Okay, now a bit about choosing fabrics for these toys. Betz is well-known for her work with felt and she designed these toys to be sewn from felt. I love felt, too, but I also love fleece for making really cuddly, soft stuffed animals so I chose to sew these bears from fleece. I felt pretty confident that the pattern would still work and I was right.

Mama and baby polar bears I made using a Wildlife With Love pattern by Betz White.

These bears come together in a very clever way. Typically toy patterns are designed to have you sew the body, sew the head, and then attach the two. Here, the center seam in the body and center seam along the bottom of the head are left unsewn. The head and body are attached and then the center seam is closed. Interesting! Doing things in this order allows you to have more space to maneuver parts under the machine needle and makes sewing a small toy, like the baby bear, much less fussy. I love it!

The backs of two polar bears I made using a Wildlife With Love pattern by Betz White.

I found the instructions clear and easy to follow and the diagrams in this pattern are helpful right when you need it. The pattern pieces print full-size so you can get to work right away.

Sewing with fleece instead of felt meant that I had to make a double layer ear. The pattern calls for a single layer felt ear, but a single layer fleece ear wasn't going to look finished. And I had to be sure I was placing the pattern pieces on grain to reduce the stretchiness of the fleece. Otherwise, I had no trouble sewing Flurry and Fluff in fleece. I say go for it.

Mama and baby polar bears I made using a Wildlife With Love pattern by Betz White.

These guys don't have tails. You could take the ear pattern piece, trim down the sides a bit, and use that to make a tail if you'd like. Just insert it into the seam on the behind before sewing the body together.

I made my bears scarves using Betz's free tutorial. Who can resist a mama bear and a baby bear in scarves? Seriously cute.

The rest of the Wildlife With Love series includes a set of penguins and a set of seals as well as a series of felt applique patterns featuring the same animals. You could create really nice matching sets as holiday gifts. Applique a polar bear on a tote bag and then tuck the stuffed animal polar bear inside. So sweet.

Get Flurry and Fluff right here and check out all of the Wildlife With Love patterns and read more about them on Betz's blog.

Disclaimer: Betz White sent me a free review copy of the Flurry and Fluff Polar Bears pattern, but you know I always tell it like it see it when it comes to reviews.

More Topsy Turvy Goodness

I needed a little respite at the end of last week and was looking for something fun to sew. I decided to make another Tess and Trixie Topsy Turvy Doll.

This time I chose yellow and red and I gave Trixie a very stern, downturned mouth and Tess very perky, upturned pigtails.

Here are two sweet Tess's:

and hiding under their skirts are two evil Trixies:

Flipping these dolls around is terrific fun, I must say. They have big, full skirts that really hide the fact that someone is underneath. When you sew them you have this bizarre two-headed, four-armed creature on your desk for a while, perfect for freaking your husband out right before bedtime :)

The pattern for Tess and Trixie: Topsy Turvy doll is in my shop.

 

Beautiful Toys Made By You!

1. Bunny Lovey made by lots of pink here

2. Bear Lovey made by stitch-craft

3. Elephant Lovey made by courtney darling

4. Pig Lovey made by casa di donna

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Of all of my patterns, the Lovey Dovey continues to be the most popular. It has been totally thrilling to see lovies popping up on craft blogs and knowing that they are currently being snuggled by babies in different parts of the country and even the world.

I've started a Pinterest board featuring toys people have made from my patterns. Each pin contains a direct link back to the blog or website from which it came. And I also regularly feature customer work on my Facebook page (I also post about new pattern releases to Facebook friends first if you'd like to be in the know before everyone else).

I think what makes the Lovey Dovey a good pattern is the following:

1. It's easy and quick to sew.

2. It comes with four varieties so you can sew different lovies for different babies.

3. It allows you to make a special gift for very little money (see this post in which I did a full cost analysis of buying a lovey versus making one yourself).

These are all factors I take into account when brainstorming new pattern ideas. I love variations on a theme and it really is fun to take one idea and expand it into three or four motifs.

I've got lots more pattern ideas on my list for the fall, including some more tween and baby toy patterns, but I'm totally open to your ideas, too. Please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email if you have an idea for me!

You can find the original Lovey Dovey pattern here and the Lovey Dovey 2nd Edition pattern here. And join me on Facebook right here! Thank you so much for your enthusiastic sewing and support!

Handmade Gifts to Sew for Tweens: Animal Neck Pillows

I was just at the toy store with my two younger daugthers. I noticed they have a whole section devoted to tween girls now. Lots of tie dye, cute erasers, temporary tattoos, pencil pouches, and...neck pillows!

I have a bunch of really fun patterns for babies, like the Lovey Dovies and the Baby Bear and Blankie Set, but I've been wanting to explore creating some patterns for fun gifts for girls ages 8-12. Is an 8-year-old a tween? Maybe 10?

I've got several ideas in the works and today the first one is ready! Introducing...Animal Neck Pillows! This pattern includes four different designs: a piggie, a puppy, an elephant, and a bear. They are super soft sewn in either fleece or minky and are a perfect handmade gift for that special tween's birthday!

The pattern is suitable for advanced beginners. Nothing too fancy, but a few cool tricks that make these pillows come together with no hand sewing. You'll need a 1/2 yard of fabric for the body of the pillow, some fiberfill, and then some fleece scraps for lining the ears. You can get the pattern in my Etsy shop here for $6.50.

More tween fun is coming. My oldest daughter is 8 now and she's got all kinds of good ideas for me.

Scooter the Turtle: A Softie Pattern In the Making

Earlier this week I was talking about looking backward as a way to move forward. I seriously do this all the time and it works like a charm. At the heart of things, the initial spark of excitement about an idea is still there, even if I wasn't able to perfect the finished result when I first tried.

This week I revisited my turtle pattern and documented it's transformation from the old to the new. When I pulled the pattern envelope out of my huge stack of patterns it was for a turtle that looked like this one, originally made on November 19, 2006.

I was really proud of this pattern at the time that I made it. I sold several of these turtles at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society's gift shop at Elm Bank in Natick, Massachusetts (They ended up closing the shop and stealing all the merchandise, but that's another story.)

I made this turtle many more times, with the most recent one in November of 2010, four years after I originally created it.

I had gotten really into sewing softies from wool felt and went to town on the shell.

But there were always things that bugged me about this turtle. First, his legs were so hard to sew because they had to be individually hand stitched in place. It's hard to get your fingers in there to do a neat job of it! Second, his head was coming out of his shell. I knew that was a bit weird, but I didn't know what to do about it. And finally, I wanted a ridge around the edges of his shell, like real turtles have, but I couldn't seem to easily achieve this either.

On Monday, nearly six years after designing this pattern, I pulled it out for another look and immediately I knew how to solve all of those problems. It's amazing what sewing softies every day for six years can do for you!

I liked the overall shape of  the shell and the tail, but everything else needed to be changed dramatically. The new turtle would have a little body hidden underneath his shell. I started by making a prototype for the body.

I sew all my prototypes from old bed sheets. Then I write on them with a pencil. Head too stumpy and arms too pointy.

Next I sewed one with the shell, too.

So much better already! I know this awesome trick that allows you to easily machine sew the shell onto the body, something that totally boggled my mind six years ago. The shell seemed too tall here (Thank you to the 8-year-old for the too honest feedback. "That turtle is HORRIBLE. Why is his shell so TALL?".)

This launched me into several hours of trying to make a shell based on hexagons. Then octagons. Then I rememberd that I really can't do math. It was enough having to calculate the circumference of the shell, much less throwing in all these geometric shapes. Call me in six more years and mabye I'll be there.

I edited the shell down and busted out the green fleece to make what I hoped would be a final turtle. Alas, the shell is too small and the top-stitching too narrow. And I ran out of the dark green fleece for his body so I had to go to the fabric store for more fleece.

While I was there I couldn't resist some new pretty shell fabric, too. I sewed this guy up and was getting hopeful, but then realized that the shell was sort of buckling between wedges. The wedges were too wide. Time to redraw again.

And finally, a finished turtle I am happy with. This guy comes together in under an hour (he is made from four pattern pieces) with no hand sewing besides closing the stuffing opening.

I took him over to the pond today for a little photo shoot.

And now, six years after the original spark of an idea for a turtle softie occurred to me, Scooter the Turtle is a pattern in my shop. He was a long time in coming.

Baby Bear in Quilting Cotton

I decided to sew the Baby Bear from my Baby Bear and Blankie Set in quilting cotton to see how he would look. Lots of people have asked whether or not this project was suitable for cottons so I was curious to give it a try. Works great! I say go for it.