Friday, June 25, 2010

Still having fun sewing and playing!

Phew! Since my last blog post I've made a lot of mermaids! My next challenge is a beautiful dress-up rag doll I found in a fabulous book called "Stitched Toys" by Kate Haxell.

Before I start that one, though, I thought I'd share a few other little bits and pieces I've made recently.
This is a doll I've made to send to an organisation in Africa which then gives them to local children. It's an amazing organisation called The Uthando Project, and you can find out all about them and the amazing work they do at their WEBSITE.


One of my first projects was to make these teensy felt fairies and then make them little houses. My daughter plays with these for hours on end, and has demanded more fairies, an elf, a gnome and a village shop to go with them, so it looks like I'll be hitting the felt shops soon!


I just love this next one - I have a thing for elephants! This is a rice and lavender filled heat pack I made for my mum for her birthday a few weeks ago.



Below is another one of my early creations, made from a free pattern by Mimi Kirchner at the wonderful Purl Bee, and it can be found HERE if you'd like to give it a go. As I said, it's one of my earlier efforts, when I was still seriously struggling with faces, hence her rather sneering face, but I loved making her anyway!


So there you have it, a few of the little things that have been keeping me out of trouble (mostly) recently. Thanks for having a look!

STxxx

Friday, June 11, 2010

Mermaid Mayhem!

Well, it's official. I've gone sewing mad!

My wonderful mother bought me a sewing machine recently, and this has turned my penchant for handstitching tiny toys into a flood of softie and dollmaking activity!

I posted a photo of the first mermaid doll I made on Facebook and promptly got orders for 9 more, so that's keeping me nice and busy these days! I just love mermaids - give me mythological beings over humans any day, lol! I think I'll be trying some faeries and elves very soon as well.

This is Samara, named after the little girl she was made for. She is very colourful, very happy and very squishy and cuddly as well! She is also toddler safe, with no dangerous little bits to come off!



This sparkly lady is named Bella after her new mummy. I was given the brief of pink and purple, sequins, blonde hair and blue eyes, so I think we've covered the lot!




I am enjoying this sewing and crafting so much that I can't wait to start on each new project. I've put a few of the dolls up on the MADE IT online marketplace, which is quite exciting and new for me, so we'll just see how it goes.

Next on the cards are the rice-filled heat packs requested by my sons to take to bed on these cold winter nights! B has ordered one in Fremantle Dockers' colours, and M just wants a pleasing blend of blue fabrics in different shades and textures (yup, I'm serious).

STxx