Craftwork Gets Soft
Image from My Paper Crane
It's been a productive year for us. Between knitting and cupcakes, we've been crafting up a storm. Our favorite new craft has absolutely no function other than looking cute. We're talking about softies, soft homemade toys that may not be all that functional but are certainly fun to make and coo at. For inspiration head on over to My Paper Crane, where master softie maker Heidi Kenney has an incredible gallery of softies for sale. Flickr of course has a great gallery of softies as well as some fabulous pictures of amigurumi. Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed toys. These beauties take a little more skill and time, but they're certainly fun to look at.
We made our first softie this weekend and although it took most of the afternoon, we're going to blame that on our hangover and not the skill level required to make a softie. A cupcake may have been a bit ambitious for our first hand sewn toy, but it made a cute birthday present and Richard seemed to appreciate its homemade appeal.
That most awful of holidays is right around the corner and instead of wasting your money on cheap store bought chocolate and hallmark cards we suggest you get creative and sew up a softie for your loved one.
Start with an easy project, like a stuffed heart (you can make it black and bloody in protest). You'll need felt, thread, a needle, embroidery floss (if you want to get fancy and stitch on the felt), and fiber filling for stuffing. You can buy everything you need at your local fabric shop. The fabric outlet in our neighborhood has a well stocked felt selection in every color you could ever need. Remember to pick out several colors of felt, especially if you want to decorate your heart with eyes, a dagger, or blood. The felt will run you about fifty cents a square, so go nuts.
Once you have your felt, cut out two identically shaped hearts however big you want your toy. You can make more of a heart pillow by just sewing the hearts together or you can make a more three dimensional toy by cutting out an inch long strip that will wrap around the border of your hearts. You'll want to cut your strip in half so that you can sew it in two pieces on to your heart. Here's a picture in case that's not clear.
Before you start sewing the heart pieces together, embellish the hearts however you want. Now is the time to stitch any phrases onto your fabric. If you are sewing a pillow-like toy with no border you're going to sew the hearts together with the right sides facing in, so all of your embroidery, ect. won't be visible while your sewing. Be sure not to completely sew the hearts together and leave about an inch open, turn your fabric inside out so that the right sides are now showing and stuff your toy with filling. Once the toy is stuffed, neatly sew up the seam.
And there you have it, a sweet homemade toy that cost you under $10. Even if your heart turns out looking like a first grader made it we promise you’ll score points with your loved one for all the time and effort you put into it. And if the recipient isn't impressed, now you have the skills to stitch up another heart, this time you can embroider in Ungrateful F*#k! And if you really mess up you can make it a cat toy, like we did. We're certain Jack doesn't care how our softie turned out.
