Sewing Stuffed Animals

During this time at home I've been able to do some sewing projects that have been in the back of my mind for ages. I have a small selection of fleece fabrics and thought it would be cute to make some little stuffed animals. I say little because some of the fabric is in quite small pieces and I wanted to use up what I already have.

The first one I made was this dolphin. I used this pattern by Choly Knight. She has a lot of free patterns and when I just went on her site to get the link I found even more things I want to make!
I reduced the size of the dolphin pattern a lot as my white fleece is in very small pieces, so this dolphin comfortably fits in the palm of my hand. As it was so small I hand sewed it together which worked fine.

Next I made this crab using a pattern from While She Naps. As this one is a little bigger I was able to machine stitch the main body section together. Things got a little crowded under the sewing machine so a few bits shifted, resulting in the pincers and claws not being completely symmetrical on both sides, but it's cute nonetheless.

And finally, as I've made a start on Christmas stock, I made this little Rudolph by adapting this pattern found on Handsome and Pretty. It was a bit fiddly and the antlers are a bit wonky, but I like it, and am very pleased that I got it to stand up. I'm wondering whether to add some string or ribbon to make it into a hanging ornament.

Are there any projects that you've finally got round to during lockdown?

Character Gift Tags

 I felt like adding some personality to my gift wrapping so I decided to make these fun character gift tags. All I needed was some coloured paper/card and a glue stick.

To make the snowman I cut out a gift tag shape from white card. I cut two rough circles for the eyes out of black paper and five smaller circles for the mouth. I glued everything in place and added an orange triangle for the classic carrot nose.

For the Santa belt I cut a gift tag shape out of red card. I cut a strip of white paper with torn edges for the fur trim, which I stuck down first. I then added a strip of black paper for the belt, with a yellow square and black square on top for the buckle.

For the Rudolph tag I cut two gift tag shapes, one brown and one white, and sandwiched the paper antlers between them. I cut a large tan oval for the mouth and added Rudolph's signature red nose on top. I then used black and white card for the other facial features.

 Once I'd added some matching string through a hole in the top of the tags they were done.

There were really simple to make and I'm already thinking what other characters I could create in gift tag form.

Candy Cane Holders

Since I have a lot of candy canes around from the candy cane horses I thought I'd try and make something else with them. I remembered seeing something on Pinterest where a character is holding the candy cane so I went with that.

These were pretty easy to make. I sewed the face on a piece of felt first, then made the additional parts, like Rudolph's ears and antlers, and then I sewed the two pieces of felt together adding in two loops of felt to be the hands holding the candy cane.

How cute would these little guys be hanging on a Christmas tree?

Rudolph Decoration

Do you like this cute new Christmas decoration I made?

I found that great tan fleece at the scrap store and it was prefect for this little Rudolph. I made a paper pattern and was quite surprised when it all fit together, though the head is only made of 3 pieces.

There's wire going through the head, connecting the antlers to make sure they stayed upright. 

Like the Christmas banners I made, this little Rudolph got sold the next day after I'd finished it. In fact it was the first thing I sold at last week's Christmas Fair.