Tag Archives: Bat

Festive Forest Furry Bat

I finally finished the Forest Furry Bat without jabbing myself with the sewing needle too many times! It wasn’t the easiest of things to hand sew, given the thickness of the faux fur pile, but I think the end result was worth it.

I know it’s not really seasonal given that I’d chosen some Christmas fabric for the inner ears and wings, but I didn’t want to wait for December to share it!

I think if I make another bat in faux fur, I’d be tempted to use fleece or felt to make the feet so it stands up a little better! But it has given the bat a totally different look to the original design, which was definitely worth the effort.


Bat Pattern: BeeZeeArt
Faux Fur & festive fabric (wings and ears): Fashion Fabrics

Furry Forest Bat (UFO)

Ok, so it’s not the fabric I was originally intending on using to make a bat, but the pattern is one of my ‘Nine to Try‘ for this year and after my original idea for the fabric proved a flop, I couldn’t resist trying to make a furry bat instead.

First things first, fake fur is a thick fabric. My machine can happily sew two layers together, but once you get to four layers…. yeah, there’s a lot of hand-cranking to get that sewn. In the end, I resorted to hand stitching a lot of the seams, which I do try to avoid with fake fur, as it’s quite challenging to see the fabric backing through the fur pile.

I chose to not make the feet – there was no way the fur would turn out easily for such an intricate shape, and sewing them into the seam would have ended up as a total nightmare. But other than that, so far the bat follows the pattern!

Batty is now stuffed, with some plastic pellets in his body to help him stand on the shelf (as a lack of feet mean he’d be prone to falling over otherwise), and just needs the final bit of hand sewing to get his body and head permanently attached!


Bat Pattern: BeeZeeArt
Faux Fur: Fashion Fabrics

Glowing Spooky Spidery Bat

I actually made this bat back in August but I had to wait until now to share this post, because it was a Christmas present. Using the tried-and-tested BeeZeeArt bat pattern, I got on much better sewing the head gusset and feet than I did with my starry bat.

Strictly speaking, the spiders are a little large for the wings, as it’s only the spiders and strand they’re dangling from, which glow in the dark.

But as a gift for a friend who likes Halloween and bats, it should work really well. The dark “minky” fabric means the spiders seem to glow even better than the stars do on my blue bat.

Starry Skies and Blue Bats

A month or so ago, I was browsing for sewing inspiration when I came across this glow in the dark fabric. I wasn’t too sure how well it would actually glow, but I thought it would look great paired with some blue “minky” to make a bat.

Using the bat pattern from BeeZee Art again, I marked out the pieces on the fabric using a white pen, as I felt that would be easier than using chalk. This is the first time I’ve tried sewing a bat from this pattern with “minky”, and although it has a tendency to slip and slide while I’m sewing, I think this bat is much better than my first attempt, which used regular fleece.

There are a couple of elements that could have been sewn slightly more accurately – my bat does look like he’s got one foot standing on the other, but that just gives him character. And to make him really special, those stars actually glow in the dark!

Happy Halloween!

How do you make a really good looking Halloween card, that isn’t just full of witches, cats and spiders? I was completely stuck until I came across a book on Zentangles – that gave me an idea…. what if I was to write out the letters, then do a Zentangle style pattern in the middle of each one?

Some black card a white gel pen and a white pencil later, this is the end result:

Happy Halloween

The outside of the card, with a Zentangle-inspired look

The white gel pen wasn’t as opaque as I’d hoped, and some of the patterns needed going over a few times to make them stand out, but it still has a really striking effect on the black!

Happy Halloween - Hobbit

Inside the card – copying a Hobbit font

But for the inside, I wanted to use an orange gel pen…. so I cut some white paper to line the card, and copied a Hobbit-themed font from my computer screen to make it look a little more unique!

I knew I wanted to send a gift with the card, and I’d found the bat pattern from BeeZee Art a little while ago. I made the mistake of buying some nice thick fleece to make the bat…. and ended up having to hand crank the sewing machine, as even with a denim needle, it struggled with the thickness of the fabric layers!

I’m pleased with how the bat came out though – although the black fleece was a nightmare to work with, it gives Batty a nice plush feel, and the orange lining for his ears and wings (remnants from the polycotton lining of the Trendy bag‘s second version) lifts the black.

Bat - wings open  Bat - folded wings

My topstitching on the wings came out surprisingly well, even though his nose is slightly crooked! But his new owner loved him, and that’s the whole point 😀