Baby Toys and Diapers

A couple of my friends had or are having babies this summer, so I have been making many gifts and helping out sewing reusable diapers. For baby shower gifts I sewed these two stuffed animals I made patterns for. They were both pretty big, and I hope that the little ones will be able to play with them for a long time. One of them is a spotted doggie and the other a cute elephant with shirt and pants. I am moving towards trying to make patterns from my designs, and after I have enough done, I hope to make a whole book out of it. Kathy Mack from Pink Chalk Studio recommended a helpful book for me to read- Publish Your Own Patterns by Nancy Restuccia. I hope to get some info on how and where to publish the actual pattern since it needs to be the right size and printed hopefully on large sheets of paper. I look forwards to receiving the book in the mail! If you are interested in ordering baby gifts, please convo me through my etsy store.

One of my friends also wanted to make some reusable diapers. Having no kids or any experience babysitting, I had no idea even where to begin with sewing one. The crafty person as I am, I googled it and found a host of websites with more information I could handle. I was drawn to a few websites where the materials and types of diapers were the most clearly explained, so I could figure out what supplies to buy for a diaper making session. As it turns out, many of the the materials are hard to find in the fabric stores around town, so I ended up ordering everything online from Celtic Cloths. I have to recommend them to everyone. Jamie Karutz has put together a great resource explaining the different fabrics available, tips, patterns, and tutorials. Ordering the fabrics also ended up being a last minute thing, and Jamie responded to my emails fast and was able to get my fabric to me before I flew to Finland. I also scoured a gaggle of other websites and tried sewing three different patterns. Here are some of the resources I found most helpful:
Zany Zebra had a great list of tutorials and patterns. There was a link to a visual tutorial and they also sell materials.
Fern and Faerie was nice because it explained different kinds of reusable diapers and how to use them.
The best pattern that worked for us, to make all in one diapers was the Ottobre Design pattern. It was the best size and fit the best around the legs of the baby. It was also closest to the diapers that my friend already had store bought. Ottobre Design is a luscious Finnish sewing and craft magazine with patterns for children and teens. I have flipped through it several times at the store and oo-ed over the beautiful layout and designs in the magazine.
If you are unsure, of how to sew one, I would suggest to sew one out of some scrap fabrics before cutting into the more expensive materials. This is how our first diaper out of the "real" material turned out. I got the foldable elastic from Celtic Cloths that could be sewn on the top of the seam on the outside of the diaper edge. My friend ended up deciding she wanted to have a soaker pad that was just velcroed on top of the diaper instead of putting one inside the diaper.


Here are some other baby inspired gifts and ideas from Etsy:
On the top is a hand screenprinted piece by Strawberry Luna. You can buy a whole set of alphabet prints from her store. The adorable green shoes are from Heather's Hobbies.
In the middle row is a cute baby Mai Tai from My Blessed Baby and a pattern for a cute baby hat from McHat. If you are unsure of your sewing skills, you can convo them through Etsy and have one made for you. I thought the Ouch Pouch from Pillow Sew Cute was an ingenious idea and would make a great baby shower gift. Pair it with a cute sensory toy owl from Cafe Crinkle.
For the green conscious baby, the reusbale Wrap-n-mats now have snack pouches as well. I use one for my lunch sandwiches and am totally in love with it. Etsy also has many stores that sell reusable snack pouches etc.

If you are not familiar with Instructables.com, definitely go check it out. They have great tutorials for just about anything you could ever imagine. Here are just a few picks for our baby themed post: Baby sling by Momma+boys, and a blanket and donkey baby gift set. I posted this one a long time ago for an etsy competition... Hope you enjoyed the article If you are into Jane Austen, I have a super post for you coming up!

March winner!

Congratulations! The give-away winner for the kitty earrings for March was Aminyitray! See the older post for details.

I was able to post a new hedgehog on Etsy and have some owls ready to go. Now I just need the time to get them posted...

New Patterns

I visited a friend a couple of weeks ago and she borrowed a whole bunch of cute Japanese craft books to me. I loved flipping through everything and drooling over all the cute little critters.

I drew some of the patterns out, and in my enthusiasm was able to put them into practice. I started out with two owls and a hedge hog. I had seen the owls in so many places before, and it was nice to make some myself. I got so excited that I cut a whole bunch of fabric out and started 12 more. I had to go to a conference so I could not finish them all right away, but here is where I got so far.
Harry the hedgehog was fun to make. He is very small though, so it took a lot of effort to sew and turn the arms inside out. On such a small scale the corduroy was pretty stiff to maneuver. When finished he ended up turning out just as cute as the hedgehogs. I cut another hedgehog out, but haven’t had time to sew it together yet. It is fun to work on this miniature scale for a change. IT takes just as long to make as bigger stuffed animals, but smaller is always cuter.

The watercolor class I talked about earlier is also a lot of fun. I am learning some new tips, but mostly I enjoy just getting back into making drawings again. After the first week, the assignment was to work on basic watercolor techniques. I am not a very good student, since you can tell I never finished my exercises… I guess I should work on this again.

The next week we were working on shading, and had to bring in a round object. I had chosen a garlic, but had to use 5 cloves of it the night before for cooking, so it ended up being a half a garlic. We were just painting with a gray color to practice lights and darks.

Last week we had to bring an artichoke in and draw that with graphite. Tomorrow we are going to bring the completed drawings in and paint over them with watercolors. I am excited to do that, since I have done a lot of drawing and my prints are predominantly black and white, but don’t really know the intricacies of color in plant life. Listening to the teacher there seems to be a lot of things I never noticed. Apparently on a green leaf the highlights always have yellow undertones and highlights have blues. I would have thought opposite. So after my great attempt at painting this artichoke tomorrow I’ll post it here.

On a completely different note, if you have seen those pretty letter pressed cards in gift shops and wonder how they are made, I will soon post a video from a printmaking conference I just came home from.

Owlets

I finished a set of five owlies for the Shiny Squirrel Boutique (see link on sidebar)yesterday. It was a fun pattern to come up with, and a fairly easy one to sew.
I used some brown courdroy and a wool tweed for the front. The little creases on the bottom give the impression of a little tail in the back. Here are some of the little ones ready to be stuffed, put their eyes in and sewn together.

It took me 5 tries to figure out the pattern this time. You can see the practice ones in the front. The first one is on the left and then progressively to the right. You can see that I tried a completely different pattern for the last one. The funny thing is that I ended up liking the first one the best with just a tiny tweak.

Here they are, ready to be shipped to their new homes!

Dogbert got friends

I had a fun time making Dog-Bert some friends last night and today. I made two more little felted things- a little elf and cat- and three floppy stuffed animals. They will be posted little by little in my etsy store. I hope sunday afternoon I finally get to try my new tunic pattern.

From on of the articles I ran into today, I found this shop for huggable fleece monster dolls. They remind me of the Uglydolls that have been around for a while. The Monster Factory also has pretty funny videos posted on Youtube under the name of Ponymath.

Being on the subject of cute stuffed animals and plushies, I want to also mention two more talented designers:

Florence Forrest and her Flying Star Toy Shop. Oh, I want to have one of each! I like the way she mixes different fabrics. You can find more pictures from her flickr photostream also.

Sandra Monat at Herzenart. She also has a very nice website and store. Many of her creations pull from Nordic mythology and traditions- check out the vikings, women in aprons and knights on horses. If you are inspired she also keeps a blog here.

Wee Dog-Bert

I made the little fella last night. It was so cute, I had to make a little dwelling for it. The puppy itself is needle felted, with beads for the eyes and yarn embroidered nose. At first I thought about making the house out of felt, and failed miserably, it was a very wobbly and mis-shapen.

The next try worked out much better. I used 2 ply matboard cut out into the shape of the grassy patch and dog house, and then covered them in elmers glue one by one, and glued fabric pieces on them. As it was drying I trimmed off the excess, and glued the house on the grassy patch. The roof in loose, so that you can put little Bertie in his house when he gets tired. I added little tufts of felt - grass around the doghouse for an extra touch. Maybe I can add some detailed instructions on how to make one in the near future if any one is interested? Bert is up for adoprion at my etsy site www.mirkah.etsy.com.

Giraffn' Around

Today a bunch of giraffes were born. I was trying to use up the last bit of yellow courdroy that I had lying around, and ended up cutting 7 of the little buggars out of it. Like with the critters yesterday, I wanted to keep some to put up in my shop and give some to my friends store, which I think I'll go visit next weekend. Here's some pics of the little guys, left: seven skins, middle: three done, right: done!

New critters!

Today was a combined art day and craft day. I had some time to do prints, that are still undone, and on top of that I put together a whole bunch of little doggies and one kitty. I love these critters, they all end up having such a personality of their own. I posted one on etsy for now. Three are reserved for a friend to put in her shop next month. I am so proud of her, she has her own store front about an hour from our house, and is selling antiques with art, and more modern things. I am dying to go visit her new boutique. I'll post some pictures when I go down there.

Also in the works are a new design for a plushie for Jessica at the Shiny Squirrel Boutique, but not sure what that will be yet. I have ideas for an owl and a ferrett. I guess it will be a mystery until it is unveiled...

Sewing day

I had the day off from work, so I decided to dedicate it to sewing. Here's what I made.

The elephants on the left side are still waiting for eyes and ears. Here we go...

I also sewed another tunic altered from the A. Butler Anna pattern, but this one is a little more fitted and has a lace to tie around the waist. I used this awesome vintage cotton printed fabric for it. The fabric used to be curtains before. I just love the fabric! The leftovers made for some plush animals for the store. I also received the weekender bag, and Lotus patterns from A Butler today!!! I can't wait to try them out. Maybe next week...