I made this bear today and I thought you might like to make him, too. Meet Pete the Bear! He's my favorite kind of softie to make: easy and quick to sew and you can make him from scrap materials.
Ready to get started? Get the free pattern download right here. Enjoy!
Love,
Abby
P.S. Why didn't the teddy bear eat his lunch? Because he was stuffed!
Leave me bear joke, okay? I'll give you a bear hug :)
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Today is the Jewish holiday of Purim. We spent the morning making these: hamentaschen.
Hamentaschen are the traditional cookie of Purim because they are shaped with three-corners to represent the three-cornered hat worn by Haman, the villain of the Purim story. Filled with something sweet and sticky, such as poppyseed, prune, apricot or raspberry jam, hamentaschen are a highlight of this fun Jewish holiday.
While we were shaping the dough
and pinching the corners
it occurred to me that we could also make a set of felt hamentaschen to play with! So, of course, I got right to work.
To make felt hamentaschen you'll need:
Squeeze some glue onto the center of the circle.
Press the pompom on top of the glue.
Now draw a little inverted triangle of glue on one area of the circle.
Pinch the felt together and hold. If you are using craft glue, use a paperclip to hold the felt together until the glue dries.
Repeat twice more, pinching each time, to create the distinctive three-cornered shape of hamentaschen. And serve! I mean play!
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I had so much fun over the weekend revisiting this goldfish pattern. By playing with different circle sizes I made some new, bigger eyes and a pair of fat fish lips! I also sewed him from fleece so he's squishy and soft, but I kept the shimmery organza tail.
This fish was the first pattern I self-published back in March of 2010. It used to live on the sidebar of my blog, and it's always been free. When I created a pattern shop on Craftsy last year I moved him over there and that's where you can find him now.
I get a lot of emails asking for this pattern's new whereabouts. Here's why I moved him:
While you're there, I really encourage you to take a free video class. I've taken several and they are really impressive. If you aren't sure you're excited about online learning this is an opportunity to experiment at no cost. I'm pretty convinced that the future of craft publishing lies in high-qaulity video instruction. Take a peek if you haven't already. I'd be curious to know what you think.
I recommend:
And come join the 100+ students in my Humpty Dumpty workshop. Learn to make a toy with tabbed button joints! We are having a great time.
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This clever pretzel is actually a pincushion with white pinheads for salt! It's easy to make and is a fun addition to any sewing room. Let's get started.
Fold the strip lengthwise. Using a 1/4 inch seam allowance, stitch down the long side, leaving a 2 inch opening halfway down.
Stitch the short sides, curving them to give the pretzel curved ends. Trim the seam allowance close to the stitching line.
Turn the pretzel right side out through the opening.
Stuff it firmly and close the opening using a ladder stitch. Fold it like a pretzel.
Tack the ends down with a few stitches to hold them in place.
Push pins into the pretzel at random intervals to look like sprinkled salt.
Now go make another! These are so fun and so quick.
Enjoy!
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If you like this tutorial, come see all of my other sewing patterns. There are more than 20 to choose from and I always include step-by-step photos and clear instructions just like this one. Thank you!
*****
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Today I I have two great little tips for you that will make sewing softies from plush fabrics easier.
Have you ever sat down at the sewing machine with a softie piece pinned and ready to sew only to find that you can hardly fit it under the presser foot? I love to use faux fur, felted wool, and fleece when I make softies and I had this problem all the time until I discovered that you can actually raise the presser foot even higher than it's normal height to accomodate thick fabrics. Here's how:
Simply push up on the presser foot bar! It will raise the foot just high enough to fit your layers of thick fabric underneath. I do this every time I sew a softie, but for a long time I had no idea that it was possible to push the presser foot bar up higher.
And I'll bet you've had this experience, too. You sit down to sew two layers of thick fabric such as fleece or faux fur, insert the needle, lower the presser foot, and start stitching only to find that the stitches are having trouble getting started. The machine needle goes up and down, but the fabric doesn't move forward. Argh!
To get the stitches started, take both the top thread and the bobbin thread and wrap them around you pointer finger on your left hand. Then, as you begin to sew, give the threads a gentle tug to help the fabric engage with the feed dogs and begin to move. It works like a charm! No more getting stuck right when you are getting started.
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I have a new pattern in my shop today: Jeremy Giraffe. To make this guy you'll need a 1/2 yard of giraffe print fleece and a 1/4 yard of light brown fleece.
He's quick and straightforward to sew. My pattern includes step-by-step photos and lots more great tips including the best way to safely put poly pellets into a softie for weight. I have a full resource list in the pattern instructions if you aren't sure where to find giraffe print fleece or pellets.
You can get the Jeremy Giraffe pattern in my Etsy shop and my Craftsy pattern shop.
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Today is National Pickle Day so it seemed only fitting that I give you a free pattern for a Christmas pickle ornament. Why a Christmas pickle? It seems to be based on some sort of German legend that has perhaps been debunked. I don't really know. But what I do know is Christmas pickles are hilarious and adorable and I needed to make one as soon as I found out about them.
This pattern is very quick and easy. Just three pieces and a bunch of french knots. Need help making french knots? Here's a 20-second video that explains it perfectly. Or skip the french knots and use seed beads or dots of fabric paint to add bumps to your pickle. Whatever you do, you must sew a pickle as soon as possible.
Also, a pickle in a Santa hat is pretty irresistable.
Get your free pattern as a PDF download right here.
Love,
Abby
P.S. What do you call a frozen pickle hanging from the roof?
An Icepickle!
Leave me a pickle joke, okay? It's really no big dill.
*****
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And check out my Etsy shop for lots of easy-to-sew softie patterns!
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I picked up this craft booklet, circa 1966, a few months ago at a church rummage sale and got inspired to update one of its projects. The yarn octopus has long been a classic toy to make for children, and I've transformed it into an even easier, and perhaps more cuddly, no-sew fleece octopus!
According to my 8-year-old, her fleece octopus is "the cutest thing ever."
You'll need:
-16" x 16" piece of fleece
-styrofoam ball 3" in diameter
-3/4" wide ribbon
- felt scraps in white, gray, and black
-embroidery floss
-8" x 8" piece of quilting cotton for the bandana
-string (not pictured)
1. Place the foam ball in the center of the fleece square and wrap it. Get a sense of how long the fringe in the legs will be. Unwrap the ball and set it aside.
2. Cut away a roughly 5" x 5" square from each corner of the fleece (this doesn't have to be perfect). Cut 6 snips along the remainng edges. The snips are about 5" in length, but don't have to be very neat or very exact, don't worry!
3. Place the ball back in the center of the fleece and wrap it up. Tie it tightly in a double knot at the neck with some string. Pull the fleece taught to smooth out the wrinkles.
4. To make a leg, braid three fringes together and tie off the end with a ribbon tied in a bow. (We held the head between our feet while we braided!) Continue until you have 8 legs.
5. Trim the ends of each leg so that they are neat and even.
6. Cut circles from the white felt for eyes. Cut slightly smaller circles from grey felt, and even smaller circles from black felt. Layer the eyes and glue them to one another, and then to the head.
7. Embroider a mouth with split stitch.
8. Optional: Hem an 8" x 8" square of matching fabric to make a bandana.
Put the octopus on your head and smile!
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And check out my Etsy shop for lots of easy-to-sew softie patterns!
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I am over at SewMamaSew today with a pattern I designed for this Baby Butterfly.
This butterfly is made to be a stroller toy (or you could attach it to your diaper bag) to entertain your baby when your out and about. Long line at the coffee shop? Stuck in traffic? Give the butterfly a little shake and hear him rattle (there is a jingle bell sewn into a little muslin bag inside the stuffing so she makes a nice sound) and squeeze his wings to hear him crinkle (a piece of a pretzel bag is sewn inside her wings!).
A quick, easy project, this sweet butterfly comes together with just a few pretty scraps and some ribbon from your stash.
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Releasing this free pattern has caused me to reflect a little on what I've learned from these first three months of selling digital sewing patterns.
I began selling downloadable sewing patterns in March, both in my pattern shop on Craftsy and my shop on Etsy. All of the patterns are $6.50 and allow you to sell the toys you make with credit to me as the designer. The patterns contain step-by-step photos, clear written instructions, and full-sized templates to easily download and print out again and again. The Craftsy patterns are an instant download and the Etsy patterns I email out within 24 hours, but usually very quickly. Patterns sell just about equally well on both platforms.
The whole experience of selling digital patterns has been fantastic. After writing two books I feel very comfortable writing pattern instructions at a professional level and I am confident that I know what steps benefit most from a photo illustration. And most importantly I enjoy every part of the process of creating new patterns.
The best part of selling digital downloads, though, has been the feedback from watching what sells best. Looking at the sales numbers on a per pattern basis is incredibly informative. The biggest takeaway has been that patterns for baby toys are very popular. It would have taken me a long time to figure this out on my own without hard data to back it up. I love to sew baby gifts and clearly I'm not alone in this.
I still think patterns bundled together in a book offer value in providing a body of work that builds on itself over the course of a longer text, but these unbundled patterns allow me to release new designs much more quickly and to get immediate feedback in terms of sales numbers which is incredibly valuable.
Of the nine patterns I've released, the top three sellers are:
The Lovey Dovey: Kitty, Bear, Bunny, and Puppy (on Etsy and Craftsy)
The Chick and Egg Reversible Toy (on Etsy and Craftsy)
The Baby Bear and Blankie Set (on Etsy and Craftsy)
A few months ago I talked about how I signed a licensing contract with Simplicity to design toys for their crafts division. A few weeks ago I gave the Design Director at Simplicity access to all nine patterns so that she could choose three for their spring 2013 catalogue. (One of the great thing about the licensing arrangement is that I can still sell the patterns individually online.) Without knowing anything about the sales numbers, she chose these same three patterns! Fascinating.
Clearly these toys have broad appeal and I can see why. They are clever, cute, and not too intimidating. If you sew one and bring it to a baby shower, people are going to be impressed and you're going to feel great that you gave a unique, handmade gift. I'm right there with you!
The struggle, of course, is to allow the numbers to inform what I design next without letting sales statistics choose my creative path. I have to love what I'm working on in order for the design work to be successful AND I want to produce patterns that will sell well. So now the challenge is to create new patterns that fit both bills.
*****
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I posted a tutorial to make this little felt bird in flight a year ago today.
With just a few scraps of felt and a bit of time you can make one of these little birds, or maybe a few. I used double-sided fusible web to add some scraps of vintage quilting cotton to this bird's wings just to make it fancy.
The tutorial gives you step-by-step instructions illustrated with photos, along with a free pdf of the pattern templates. I thought it was worth posting the project again when I saw that Karissa Kloss had made a bunch of these birds to create a mobile for a friend's baby. This bird mobile will be so cheerful hanging over the crib. Look how pretty!
Thank you for sharing this with me, Karissa! Happy bird making everyone!
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