Mr. Ted Tutorial

I mentioned in the last post that I’d been playing and I think my play may have paid off.

Here’s a free little teddy tutorial and plush pattern that I made for the boys. They loved it. So much, in fact,  that Mr. Teds were bestowed the ultimate honor of super hero capes. And here was I thinking that the 5 year old was a bit old for softies! Bah! I made a few of these last week but the grey linen and wool felt I absolutely fell in love with. Perhaps it’s the Southern Hemisphere winter or the need for a tiny break from my usual vibrant colour. Either way, I couldn’t get enough of this combination,

Material List:

• Fabric – 30 x 60cm fabric for body (I used linen)
• Light Brown Felt – 10 x 10cm felt for snout
• Black felt – 10 x 10cm felt for nose and eyes
• Embroidery perle or floss – Black and light grey
• Stuffing – I used polyfibre toy fill
• Matching cotton thread, needle and scissors

PDF Pattern Pieces: 

Step 1:
Cut out all of your pieces using the attached Mr Ted Pattern Pieces (click here for PDF pattern). Print this at 100% (no scaling or fit to page)

Step 2:
Attach the nose to the snout using running stitch. Mark in pencil or chalk your mouth then embroider using backstitch. You can see my YouTube video demonstration of backstitch here. If you really want to cheat (and I’m all for a shortcut!!) you could just use a permanent marker to draw the mouth on.

Step 3:
Pin in place and attach the finished snout to the front of the the Ted using running stitch.
See a video demonstration of Running Stitch here on YouTube.

Step 4:
Stitch the eyes in place and, if desired, place a couple of little embroidery stitches at the top in the light grey floss/perle for eye effect.

Step 5:
Place the front and back pieces of Mr Ted. right sides together. Sew an 8mm (1/4 inch) seam all the way around leaving a 5cm (2 inch) gap at the base for stuffing.

Step 6:
Clip the corners of the curves by cutting out notches like this.

Step 7:
Turn the ted right way out and start stuffing. Get him nice and plup with stuffing all the way up in the ears, arms and legs, massaging to smooth out any lumps and bumps.

Step 8:
Hand stitch the stuffing opening closed using needle and regular thread.

You’re done! Hand it to the nearest kiddlet, keep it to snuggle up to yourself or go all out for a Random Act of Craft and drop Mr Ted for the fantastic Toy Society. 

Happy Crafting!

Helloooo Sock Flamingo!

She’s been a while coming – like all women, her outfit had to be just right before making an appearance. Well helloooo sock flamingo.

Never one to be decisive, I played around with the legs. I’m torn between baby style legs and the saucy little numbers pictured above. Like all good women I changed my mind several times on this and then realised… hang on…. I can just design the pattern to include both options and then you lovely makers can decide. Which do you prefer? 

So now that she’s ready… anyone up for testing the pattern? Leave a comment here or contact me claire@craftschmaft.com The pattern will be ready to go out on Thursday and testing needs to be complete by the 18th of May ( so you’d have two weekends in there to work on it).

P.S. Thanks so much to everyone who downloaded the Hot Air Balloon Tutorial App … wow… what a week!

Penguin ornament tutorial

Christmas comes early at Craft Schmaft. Here’s a free tutorial for all of you wonderful readers and fans to make little penguin ornaments from a stray black glove, some felt, thread and stuffing.

Material List (makes 5 penguins)

• One black glove
• 20cm square of white felt
• 10cm black felt
• Black & yellow embroidery floss
• Embroidery floss or perle for hanging
• Matching black and white cotton thread

1. Cut Glove
Start by cutting the glove fingers off, approximately 5cm or 2″ down from the top.

2. Stuff
Fill each of the fingertips with toy stuffing (polyfibre fill, eco fill or recycled PET fill) until each penguin nice and plump, the key here is to make them fat! Finish by massaging out any lumps.

3. Close
To close the Penguin, thread a needle with black cotton and put a knot in the end. Fold over the raw edge of the glove and begin drawing opposite sides in together, gathering and stitching in each of the edges as you go (see diagram). Secure the thread, trim and set aside.

4. Create face
Cut out your little white felt pieces for the body and face using the Penguin Face Pattern provided. Print at 100% and cut to fit your penguins – they’ll all be slightly different sizes so the face pattern is graded for you. Using chalk, mark the position of the eyes and beak onto the felt. Satin stitch, with embroidery floss, the little eyes and beak. Alternatively you can use a black and yellow fabric marker to draw these onto the felt.

5. Assemble
Pin the felt faces onto the black bodies of the penguins. Take your needle, threaded with matching white cotton, and begin a row of tiny stitches right around the felt to secure.

6. Hang

To create a loop for hanging the penguin, take a 15cm (5 inch) length of your embroidery perle (or floss), threaded into a needle with a knot in the end. Take the needle through the base of the penguin straight up and out the top of his head. Tug to make sure the knot is secure. Take the needle back down throught the penguin and out of the base. Adjust unit you have the desired loop length and tie off with a knot at the base.

7. Add wings & feet
Cut little wing pieces and triangle feet out of the black felt. Position and stitch these onto the sides and base of each penguin using whip stitch.

Done!

Penguin in a glass bauble? Carefully remove the top of your glass bauble, Squeeze him in like Santa down a chimney and feed the hanging loop through the top. Replace the top of the bauble and you’re done.

 

Hope you enjoy making little penguins, I’d love to see some pics of your creations and feature them here on the blog!

Happy Holiday Making.

Pin-to-win Hot Air Balloons

The Craft Schmaft store is stocked with Hot Air Balloon Mobile Kits, Balloon Fabric Panels and patterns all ready for the holidays. Woot Woot! I had such a ball designing the fabric for these and have been overwhelmed with the positive response at markets. 

I promised, as part of SEWVEMBER, that I’d be hosting a little giveaway and here it is – I hope you won’t mind helping me spread the word about the new wares along the way. All you have to do is pin the Hot Air Balloon images below to pinterest. There are 3 complete Air Balloon Kits and three Fabric Panels to win (one in each colour).  Each pin equals one entry. Pin as many as you like.  Entries will close at 1pm on Monday (AEDT)  and will be drawn randomly (using random.org).

To enter:  Pin one of the images below with the hashtag #CraftSchmaftBalloons

 

P.S. If you don’t have a pinterest account you can get one here: http://www.pinterest.com

Rudolph the pull-along sock Reindeer

He’s been a big hit at markets recently and the small child around here is obsessed with him. Rudolph the pull-along sock Reindeer pattern is now up in the Craft Schmaft Store.

 

Don’t forget that patterns are 30% off with the code SEWVEMBER in the Craft Schmaft store, today is the last day so snap him up while you can!

 

Vampire Sock Owl – Cape Tutorial

The 4 year old and I spent yesterday afternoon making our own vampire owl together for halloween. He insisted on getting the shape of the coat and wings just right, drawing for me EXACTLY how the collar should sit. I love a good collaboration. After much discussion on instagram and Facebook there was an overwhelming vote for fangs… so they got added too.

 

 Vampire Owl Cape Tutorial

I thought I’d put together a little tutorial for all of you who have the owl pattern already (Sock owl pattern available here). In addition to your sock and white felt you will need:

• 20 x 30cm black felt
• 20 x 30cm red fabric (cotton, pinwhale cord, velvet)
• Red embroidery perle or floss

Making your owl exactly as the pattern says until you get to the wings. Instead of the wing template use the Vampire coat pattern (download it here), cut out a layer of black felt and red fabric.

 

You can either hand stitch (running stitch) or machine stitch the red fabric directly onto the black felt.

Next wrap the coat around your owl, pin it into position and then hand stitch (running stitch) right around the back and down the sides of the wings to secure it to the owl’s body.

Eyes are as per the pattern, add in a couple of fangs and you’re done!

Now I can’t take credit for this idea (neither can the 4 year old!) last Halloween the very talented Bel from Ooh Look Craft sent me some amazing pics of her baby vampire owls. How cool is Boo?? I love the little trim that goes across the coat. Thanks so much Bel!

Meet Rudolf the sock Reindeer

It’s already Christmas at Craft Schmaft! Rudolf has been stitchety stitched and my munchkins adore him… which is wonderful but does have it’s drawbacks when they cuddle and kiss Rudie with toothpaste mouths and peanut butter hands before I’ve had a chance to photograph him.

In better news he’s available as a PDF pattern and a kit in the Craft Schmaft store… hooray! So now you can make a pull-along reindeer in plenty of time for Old Saint Nick’s visit.

Photo a day October

I’ve been playing along with FatMumSlim’s Photo a day for October on instagram (@craftschmaft). It’s been kind of like a visual journal of everyday happenings for me which is a bit of a change from just madly snapping crafty pics. Here’s what I’ve been up to…

Day 1. Where I stood |  Day 2. Lunchtime

 
(OK… I admit I didn’t make this lunch… my mum did!)

Day 3. This happened today | Day 4. What I read

 
(Choosing perle thread from colour charts and getting very excited about combining neon with vintage Macrame patterns!)

Day 5. Shadow | Day 6. I’m thankful for…

 
(Need I say more?)
Day 7. Angle | Day 8. Red

 
(Cookie cutter getting stuck into gingerbread and Rudolf the pull-along-reindeer.)

Funny Tummy sock Bunny now in the store

It’s been quite some time coming but I’m proud to say that the Funny Tummy sock Bunny PDF pattern is now for sale in the Craft Schmaft Store. 

A very big thank you has to go out to Team Bunny – all of you here on this blog, facebook, instagram and all over the interweb who have helped create this pattern. Your generosity and talents are so appreciated. A mention has to go out to Cass, Kylie, Hetty, Amy, Alice, Amy, Nomi, Alisa, Megan, Melissa, Jane and Laura who tested the pattern for me and provided such great feedback.

Time to get crafting!

Down the rabbit hole

This title describes very aptly where I’ve been for the past few days.  A big group of wonderful crafty blog and facebook fans tried out the draft bunny and made some gorgeous little rabbits. Fabulous but… the directions just weren’t as simple as I would’ve liked.

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With that thought I dove straight back down the rabbit hole of pattern writing – it got bigger, and smaller. Techniques became curiouser and curiouser. I took an “off with their heads” approach while I stitched, measured, unpicked and re-wrote. It’s a strange experience turning something creative into something logical. What makes complete sense to you could be utterly confusing to everyone else.

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“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?” 

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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But here I am, back in the real world and I’m proud to say that this Funny Tummy Bunny pattern is better than ever. It was worth all that unpicking, re-stitching and wording.  Hooray! It really is the most satisfying thing in the world conquering a pattern. It makes up for all those moments of  “… oh my god… what AM I DOING WITH MY LIFE?”  To think that this little idea that began in wonder  now exists in the world as something that people can actually make is amazing.

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“Do you think I’ve gone round the bend?” “I’m afraid so. You’re mad, bonkers, completely off your head. But I’ll tell you a secret. All the best people are.” 

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

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And with that, I’m pleased to say that the Bunny pattern is finished. He’s cuddly, and squishy with flopsy ears. Just a little photoshoot to go and the pattern will be in the store on the 1st of August. In the meantime I’m back off to imagine six more impossible things before breakfast. .