Catching Up

There are a few projects that I've finished since Christmas. Two of which are plushies that were created from scratch.
My sister's cat passed away last year and she asked that I make her a stuffed animal of Stinky (her cat). So, I made a "Stinky Pillow." As I knew I couldn't make a realistic cat plush and I thought this would be more functional. My husband made the pattern based off of an image I found online and then I cut it out of fleece and sewed it on my sewing machine. I have decided to avoid fleece and a sewing machine at all costs in the future! I'm not used to working with stretching fabric and this just drove me nuts! Thankfully, the finished pillow looks great and my sister was really happy!

My husband really wanted a squid plushie. He had found an image of a giant squid online and asked that I make him a small one. He drew out the pattern and we bought two different batik fabrics. This had a lot of hand sewing, as the stuffed tentacles and small belly caused my sewing machine to hate me. I really like the way that the fabrics work together! Also, they make felt buttons that you can buy at any craft store that are really great! I plan to use only felt buttons for plushies from now on!

I also made a lot of felt food for my niece as her Christmas gift, however, I forgot to take pictures of it all... So I will try to take pictures the next time I'm over at my sister's house.

Tip:
If you want to start sewing but aren't really sure where to begin, I highly recommend My Favorite Felt Sweets by Joie Staff. You can learn basic stitches (all of which are in the book as images for easy learning), with extremely inexpensive products (felt and stuffing) and make cute felt sweets you can be proud of!