Month: January 2011

I love this Retro Robot Plushie pattern by Gulf Coast Cottage. The first time I made it was last spring, as a gift for my son when he had his tonsils out. That time, I enlarged the pattern a bit, and used different colors of felt to make striped arms and legs. This time, I made it for a colleague who is having a baby boy soon. With a baby/toddler in mind, I made it all out of fleece instead of felt, and made it so all the seams are on the inside (the original is handsewn on the outside). I also machine stitched all the decorations on instead of hand-stitching. I actually didn’t like how it looked right up until I attached the arms, and then I thought he looked pretty cute! Predictably, when Parker saw it, he asked me to make him one. When I reminded him that I already had, he quizzed me on each feature. “Does mine have this button? This dial?” So we fished his out from the pile of stuffed animals in his room and he finally was satisfied.

I actually had intended to make the “Katie Kitty” stuffed animal from the new “Wee Wonderfuls” book, and was planning on making it a boy cat instead of a girl. But I could not for the life of me figure out how to sew the head pieces together. I did it twice and both times ended up with very odd shaped heads. After looking at the Flickr group for help, I think I’ve figured out what I was doing wrong. I’ll have to try it again!

I still need to deliver this little outfit for another friend’s new baby girl. I used patterns from Making Baby’s Clothes by Robert Merrett. I love the little top, which was suprisingly easy to make. I altered the pants a bit to make them reversible, and a bit warmer. The outside is a dark denim, and the inside is the same hippo print (from IKEA).

On my to-do list: three slipcovers for my newly-painted living room, a duffel bag to hold my son’s karate sparring equipment and a gift for a friend’s baby due in a few weeks. So what am I working on instead? A quilt. A CHRISTMAS quilt.
Every year I see all the new Christmas prints and think about making myself a quilt. But I never do it, and I never have time in November or December. So when I saw the Postage Stamp Quilt-a-long at P.S. I Quilt, I decided to jump in. She offered a discount at an online fabric store, and there just happened to be a jelly roll of the “12 Days of Christmas” fabric by Kate Spain already on sale as well. So I took that as a sign that I should just do it, even though part of my New Year’s resolution was to use fabric I already have for as many projects as possible.
Here’s my progress so far:

The only downside to finishing a Christmas quilt this early is that I will have to put it away for so long before next Christmas!

Another Christmas gift post! I realized I mentioned but neglected to share photos of the stuffed penguin I made for my son for Christmas. He has a small one (that cost a small fortune) from the New England Aquarium, so this one is “Penguiny’s Mommy.” (pronounced Pen-GWEEN-ee in case you were wondering).
The pattern is McCall’s 5780, which only has two pattern pieces. That didn’t mean it was simple, however. Most of my trouble was due to the very soft but sheds-like-crazy fabric I used.

Christmas morning:

The other bird I made was for a friend of mine who is obsessed with playing Angry Birds on his iPad. I’ve never played it, but when I saw this tutorial at Obsessively Stitching, I knew I had to make one of the birds for my friend. It was a big hit. Within hours, he had changed his Facebook profile picture to a photo showing the bird sitting on his shoulder. Something was wrong with my camera the day I took this picture, so please check out the link above for better pictures!