Three, Four, Five...

I've been making some progress... but only on one of my goals!

I want to make as many things as possible from the fantastic 'Oliver + S Little Things to Sew' book by Liesl Gibson.  I started slowly with two puppet theatres and one backpack, but have upped my game by sharing three more today!

Firstly some bags (not for juggling balls)...

These are considerably smaller because we needed them to hold some card games, like 'Uno'.  The fabric is by Riley Blake, 'Pieces of Hope'. 

K is great at Uno and we've been having lots of family fun with it recently.

This one is much larger, being only marginally smaller than the pattern and has a future secret purpose in mind!  Love the lamb fabric.  :-)

18" dolls are not easily found in New Zealand (I've hunted) so I adapted the Doll's Tea Party Dress for our 11" Gotz darling.  I scanned the pattern pieces and reduced them by 75% (with some fiddling for seam allowances).  This is still a bit big so next time I will try about 60%.  In order to avoid fiddly hems and seam finishes I fully lined the skirt piece and it becomes reversible!

I had already made K a hooded cape about two years ago, and it is well used for imaginative play.  So I needed a new adaption - I made it smaller!

The pattern dimensions have been halved, i.e. if one part was 10" long, I made it 5".  I was not terribly accurate in my measuring and did not play with seam allowances, just made narrower seams.  The only issue was fitting in the centre piece to the sides of the hood, it could have been 1" longer.  It worked!

The doll is a fantastic knitted one from a pattern by AK Traditions.  She is about 19" tall, with particularly long legs, and is very cuddly.  Most of K's dolls have over-large heads so it was a bit tricky finding a doll to fit the cape.

I hope my adaptations are allowable in the 'Bartacks and Singletracks' 'Little Things to Sew - Cover to Cover Challenge'.  A lot of thinking and planning was involved!

These are numbers 78, 79 and 80 ( bags counted together) in my great O+S count.

I also must mention that I have finished another two items (bias trim apron and tutu) but these have been hidden as upcoming birthday presents.

How are you going on your challenges??  Doesn't time fly when you are having fun?

Orange Bunny

My latest project - I wanted to make a soft toy for looking at rather than playing.  So I looked through this great book...

... and chose this bunny pattern...

This is the finished bunny...

...with embroidered face in contrasting orange...

...and a daring orange dress hiding an orange pom-pom tail (made from wool leftover from this project).

I made the bunny using a cotton/linen blend which I interfaced to give it more stability.  This wasn't suggested in the book - in fact their bunny was in felt - but the linen makes it look really nice.  She's a solid bunny and although I'm very impressed with the pattern, I have a few changes I'd make next time.  She needs smaller ears, the head gusset needed to be longer and I still need to change the limbs some more.

'Stuffed Animals' is a great book because it really gets into the details of stuffed toy making (it is my only book on the topic though) and has heaps of hints for building your skills.  I'm a bit disillusioned with many craft books at present because the patterns and ideas are very simple and dare I say it - you don't really need the book to make it!

On a different note we have our local Agricultural and Pastoral (A&P) Show coming up next weekend and I've been tidying up a few projects to enter in the needlework section.  We've also been trying to train Patty the lamb to walk with Miss K.  It's going ok but the two of them haven't quite worked out who should be boss yet!

I'm looking forward to seeing the poultry on display at the Show as we are hoping for new developments in our own chook collection.  One of our New Hampshire Reds is sitting on fertile Black Orpington eggs that we got from a breeder - she's barely moved.  Fingers crossed!  We are also waiting for the chance to get a (much) larger hen-house from the same retiring breeder.  This hen was the first of ours to start laying so we may have another broody from the others this season.  Nothing happens in a rush with these girls - and so many things can go wrong - but it is fascinating.