A HandMade Tie

Ever been to the Purl Soho website?!?! Purl Soho is a fabulous store in NYC, which has a lovely online shop and fabulous blog with tons of cool projects.

There is a great tutorial on their blog to make ties for both men and smaller ones for boys. Check it out HERE.

Here is my version of the men's tie.

That's voile fabric from the Innocent Crush line, by Anna Maria Horner. I just fell in love with that print when I saw it at Whipstitch Fabrics.

I like the fabric so much, I bought a few more yards so I could make Delilah a dress to match.

Forgive the knot. I did it myself, and I'm not experienced when it comes to tying men's ties!

Perhaps a tie is one of those things you should show off actually being WORN on a person! So I need to get this around my handsome husband's neck to really show it off.

I just think a little girl dress with a matching tie for Daddy will be SO cute. Perhaps an ensemble that needs to be ready for Father's Day? That gives me plenty of time. For my next version, I think I will widen the pattern a little and make a more traditional wider tie. It was mostly handstitching and that can be quite soothing to do while relaxing on the couch in front of the TV.

Now - full disclosure -- I saw the tutorial on the Purl Soho blog and have had it on my "to try" list for a while. I signed up for a class at Whipstitch Fabrics to make a tie, and lo and behold, we used the same pattern and instructions. So I had some great in real life instruction to make this tie. This was my first time taking a class at Whipstitch, if you are in the Atlanta area, you're in luck because the classes are nice and small with quality instruction. If you are out of the area, I think this particular tutorial from Purl Bee is really well written so still go for it!

Happy Stitching y'all!

Janimal

Felt Birdy Toy Tutorial

BIRDY TUTORIAL TODAY!





Hello friends! While visiting my Father-in-law for Thanksgiving, I whipped up a little birdy, handstitched using wool felt. The night before our flight I threw a few pieces of felt in my suitcase and during a naptime, this is what I came up with!


Photography was all done indoors in bad lighting as quickly as possible so I could get this finished.

First: I drew a birdy on some paper! You can download this drawing HERE.

Ok, this step is obvious, right, cut it out!

Then use that piece to cut pieces from wool felt. I had brown and pink felt handy - have fun picking colors.

For the beak, add about a quarter inch tab so you have room to stitch it on later.

Ok, once all the felt is cut, we can sew!

Place the wool felt birdy pieces so you have two pieces facing opposite directions, and layout the other felt pieces so they mirror each other.

Choose whatever color you like embroidery floss and straight stitch on a wing. I used a slightly darker pink so the stitches would show and be decorative.

Once I started stitching, I decided a few rows of stitching would be pretty, so went around each wing three times. Totally optional to do whatever you want here.

Next, the beak needs to be sewn on. Here is a pic of the WRONG side of the birdy, so you can see how the beak is stitched on. I used brown to MATCH the birdy this time, so the stitches wouldn't show up as much on the outside.

Stitch the beak on both birdy pieces, making sure they line up and are still mirroring each other.

Now for the eyes. Using embroidery thread, I pulled the needle from the middle of the circle, and did stitches out from there, making little stars in the center of the circles for eyes.

Instead of felt, you could use buttons for eyes, assuming the toy is for a child old enough where they won't be a choking hazard of course!

I almost didn't give this birdy any legs. But thought better of it and cut a couple legs out of felt, and sewed them to the bottom of one birdy piece, with the matching brown thread, just like I used for the beak. The legs were too long so I trimmed them AFTER sewing them on.

Ok, time to stitch the birdy together. START with the beak. If I had grey matching thread, I would have used it here. But alas that wasn't the case so I used black. Use a whipstitch (great tutorial to whipstitch here). Once the beaks are sewn together, stuff just the beak. If you don't, it can be hard to get stuffing in the beak properly once the birdy is sewn together.

Keep on whipstitching around the birdy, leaving about a two inch opening across the top back of the bird.

Then enlist a little helper to help finish the stuffing! Delilah recruited her Daddy to help to, so this was a whole family affair. She put little tiny bits of stuffing in the birdy at a time. So it took a while. But we didn't mind, this birdy was a labor of love!

Hey - we stuffed a bird on Thanksgiving - perfect! Once all stuffed up, sew him closed continuing that whipstitch.

Now, those feet! This birdy's feet need some attention!

A few snips with the scissors and VOILA!

So there you have it! A soft felt birdy to love.



Hope you liked the birdy tutorial. It was quite relaxing to sit and handsew him up while Delilah slept, and was a joy to have her be my little helper to get him all stuffed and finished. I hope if you make one you have as much fun as we did.

Happy Holidays,

Janimal

The Doll Post

Greetings friends.

I'd like you to meet some dolly friends. Both made from FREE (well written, easy to follow) downloadable patterns found on the web.

Meet Dotty and Audrey.



Dotty is a very simple version of the Black Apple Doll, from a pattern featured on Martha Stewart. I made Dotty some time ago, before I ever thought about having a blog myself. Honestly, I forgot about her. Hadn't seen her in a while. Then I discovered she had taken a mini vacation in the space between our washer and dryer in the laundry room. Naughty girl had gotten a little dusty. She looks well rested from her holiday.

Dotty was mostly sewn using my machine, and I chose to embroider her face rather than paint or draw on. The Black Apple pattern is pretty easy to follow, and can be done by hand also. I personally have a tendency to overstuff the doll parts. Learn from my mistake!

As for Audrey -- I think she looks much more complicated to make than she actually is. As I was putting her together I was surprised at how smoothly things went. I like working with wool felt. It's cool not to have to think about fraying. And even wonky stitching can be disguised well as the right color floss practically makes the stitches disappear. (A tip, choose floss slightly darker than the felt rather than lighter, it blends better). The toughest part was attaching the arms and honestly, it wasn't that hard. The second hardest part was picking the colors to use!

Audrey is handstitched from wool felt, from a pattern by the incredibly talented Mimi Kirchner, featured on the magnificent Purl Bee website. You can see the tutorial and download the pattern here.

I think I should have embroidered the nose differently. I think the floss I used was too light, making it hard to see. But other than that I'm really quite pleased with her.

Know what else is cool about Audrey? Her legs are attached with buttons which makes her poseable so she can sit up on her own.

Even if you aren't up for making the whole doll, the dress is a great simple pattern and could be used to make an outfit for Barbie!

You can check out more versions of the Purl doll on Flickr here. Versions of the Black Apple doll are all over blogland.

If you have ever thought about making a doll - do it! Honestly it is so satisfying! And probably much easier than you think it's going to be!

Later skaters,

Janimal

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