I’m sure you’ve realised that I really enjoy sewing bears – especially ones from the Polar Bear pattern that was in Simply Sewing several years ago. I was offered the opportunity to make something using this faux fur, and it just had to be two brown bears!
These bears were made at 200% sizing, which was just the right height for this one to try helping to sew his brother!
I’d crocheted these mugs and cakes several years ago, and they seemed the perfect photo props to use for these two bears.
Not long after these photos were taken, these two bears went on a little adventure of their own, moving to live with an old school friend’s two sons.
Head over to the Minerva site to find out more about these really cuddly bears I made.
With Euro 2020 taking place, I had to draw a football themed envelope, although I’m not convinced that Donald Duck would get through the entire match without at least a yellow card!
Because I want to make sure the address doesn’t run if the envelope gets wet, I used a permanent pen for the faux calligraphy, and also for the typewriter-style address lettering. Maybe I need to get a permanent brush pen, so I can write the address in ‘proper’ calligraphy!
“This just in” – the classic words of news anchor Kent Brockman on The Simpsons. I had another attempt at using my watercolour pens to colour the drawing – this came out better than my previous attempt, but it still doesn’t really look fully blended. Maybe I need to use specific watercolour paper instead of a generic envelope!
I’ve never made plushie frogs before, but when I had the opportunity to make something from Velboa, it seemed a natural choice!
I’ve sewn with various styles of faux fur before, but Velboa is totally new to me. It does have a nap (so the fur can be brushed in one direction), but this particular velboa has an abstract pattern where the nap changes direction multiple times. This meant it was a bit more challenging to lay the pieces out, but I tried to just get the background nap in the same direction at least.
I wanted to try out the glow in the dark fabric paint I bought in the sale from Minerva a couple of years ago, so I used that on the white felt eyes for two frogs. It does give them a bit of a strange look in daylight, but the glow works perfectly once the lights are out at night.
As you can tell from my stack of frogs, there’s also a Manta Ray lurking with them. I had enough fabric left over after making those four frogs, and thought a Ray would be a good companion for them.
I tried using watercolour pens for this envelope, but I can’t get them to blend properly. So Tom has to put up with some unusual blue shadows and some darker grey where I’d coloured over one section again.
I haven’t drawn Yogi Bear much, so for this month’s competition envelope, I thought he should be running in with a pic-a-nic basket he’d just liberated from an unsuspecting tourist.
Tigger is looking pretty thoughtful… maybe it’s because the address went over his face! I wrote the address first, then tried to fit the drawing around it, but couldn’t quite make it work without it overlapping.
Since Lockdown 1.0, I haven’t done much sewing – the majority of things I made were face masks for friends and family. I wanted to sew something as a Christmas present for K, but what do you make a young boy who loves dragons? A dragon backpack of course!
I’ve made plush toys before, but this would be the first backpack I’ve ever attempted…. I like to make things challenging!
My original plan was to use some glow in the dark fabric paint on the eyes to add an extra fun little detail. However, the glow paint I’d purchased online was a ‘lucky dip’ when it came to colour, and I ended up with pink – perfectly fine, but I didn’t really want this dragon to have pink glowing eyes! So I stuck with the pattern’s recommendation and appliqued the felt eye pieces onto the face.
This fleece fabric is surprisingly slippy – it behaves almost like a fake fur rather than fleece when you’re sewing. As a result, the zip on the main pocket isn’t the neatest of stitching.
I had a Union Jack patterned fat quarter lying around, which worked perfectly for the pocket lining. I didn’t want anything too dark, as it would make it quite challenging to find something in the bag otherwise.
After a while of fighting the fabric, I tried an alternative technique – placing a layer of calico fabric against the feed dogs when sewing. That worked like a dream, allowing the fabric to feed through evenly, and no more squished stitches!
Because the dragon needed to be stuffed and the fabric had a slight stretch, I wanted to make sure the seams would allow some stretching, so I trimmed down the calico to as small a piece as possible. Ideally I would’ve used a tear-off fabric stabiliser or even tracing paper, as both of those could be fully removed after sewing. But as usual, I didn’t have either to hand, and I really needed to get this dragon finished!
As an optional extra in the pattern, there’s a hidden pocket in the dragon’s tail. I thought this would be a neat addition (which I didn’t point out when I gave K his present – I wanted him to discover it for himself), so not only is this my first backpack make, it’s also my first attempt at sewing in an invisible zip (albeit without an invisible zipper foot)!
My only other slight mishap was when I stitched the strap to the wrong side of the dragon’s paw (oops!) and had some well-nigh impossible unpicking to do to resolve it. But thankfully you couldn’t see the mistake once I’d finished.
And I can safely say that K loves his new backpack – after he’d opened it, he put the bag on his back and ran round the room shouting “I’ve got wings”!
Pattern: Dragon Backpack by Choly Knight Fabric: Rainbow Fleece from Mibs Fabrics (now closed)
