Tried my hand at another quilted bear, this time using the maze pattern seen on all those lovely log cabin pillows crafters are making.

This one is off to a friend’s Baby Shower in Sydney. We don’t know whether Baby Chung will be a boy or girl so that basically determined the colour scheme. I got the chance to use some red & white polyester, which is from the 1970′s (bought from a vintage fabric dealer on eBay). It was much easier to work with than I had imagined and the quilted pattern turned up quite nicely on it. I also like it’s somewhat ‘thinking’ facial expression :-)

Speaking of bears, if you’re a Melbournian, please keep a look-out for the Royal Children’s Hospital Auxiliary, who are in shopping centres currently selling these lovely totes to raise money for the hospital. They even threw in a gorgeous little knitted bear for Ava!

So it’s 1am and I’ve finally finished a little bear that will be heading off to the USA for my neice, Eliza. I’ve been meaning to make Eliza something and finally decided on the bear today over my morning hot chocolate. Basically, I needed to satisfy 3 things with this softie given that it was for a baby:

1. Definitely baby-friendly – so no buttons or embellishments that can be pulled off
2. Washable – that is, the kind of softie that can be chucked into the washing machine without a second thought
3. Huggable

With these 3 criteria in mind, I sketched up a pattern that has been floating around in my head. I also thought that I would like to try quilting parts of the bear for a bit of texture and extra cuddliness, so I bought some premium/hard-wearing cotton batting.

And here she is (sitting on my desk under the desk lamp):

I used brown flannel (I love this stuff!), wool felt, and a colourful stretchy fabric that has been sitting in my stash for a while, just waiting to be turned into something. I quilted the shirt and legs and used a zig-zag stitch to secure the felt embellishments. Usually I’m a real stickler for sides to match up accurately or for stitches to be as perfect as possible. But this time I was intent on having a more “rustic” (hope that’s the right word!) feel to the softie as most times I find that the ‘rustic’-looking softies tend to exude more character.

She’s just as I had imagined her to be and I do hope Eliza enjoys her! I may try a few more of these quilted bears with different fabrics. But for now, I must get some sleep!

I thought I might as well try to make the most of the limited sunlight we’ve had today and take some photos of the softies I’ve been working on. Here they are with details.

“Aiko”

Aiko’s ‘skin’ is a soft flannel, and hair and shoes are heavyweight cotton. Her sleeves and leggings are repro vintage cotton which you’ll probably recognise from some of my other softies (just love this fabric!). Her wrap-around skirt is a gorgeous Japanese print of lanterns, as is her collar which is topped off with a vintage heart button. Both her collar and skirt are attached to her body.

“Kaede”

Kaede’s ‘skin’ is a soft flannel, and hair and shoes are heavyweight cotton. Her dress is made of moss-coloured denim with a small pocket on the front. Her knee-high socks are a retro screen print by Robert Kaufman, as is her collar which is accented by a yellow vintage button. Both her collar and bottom part of her dress are attached to her body.

“Momoko”

Momoko’s ‘skin’ is a soft flannel, and hair and button-up boots are heavyweight cotton. Her top is a very cute and colourful Japanese cotton print of cats on little rugs and her skirt is made of light cotton featuring green circles, accented at the waist with a vintage button. Her skirt is attached to her body.

Al three stand approximately 40cm tall. More photos of each will be up on my Flickr gallery and hopefully I will have a chance to include them in my shop later today. Also hope to do a few more over the next few days.

I can’t believe how quickly my little toddler is growing up – she amazes us everyday with her new words, and skills, and vivacious personality. She’s the inspiration for many of my little projects and the latest batch of softies I’ve been working on have grown out of this picture of Ava. Here she is playing with one of her favourite household objects – an empty toilet roll!

My initial sketches based on the picture above yielded these two little girls – I’ve decided to call them Happy Chibi Girls to differentiate them from te original chibis I made a few weeks ago. I was happy with the way that they turned out but they weren’t exactly how I had pictured them. The bodies were a little too big and the faces were too wide.

So back to the drawing board and after a few more adjustments to the pattern, I finally came up with this little one, who seems to be a shy but giggly little girl.

And then this little one arrived with a more playful and adventurous personality.

I’m very happy with the way these two turned out and given the amount of time it took to actually put them together, it’s very satisfying to see them with their happy faces sitting in my little studio. I hope to make two more and will then post up more details (and better photos hopefully – the natural lighting hasn’t been too good these last few days).

It’s been cold, dreary and rainy here in Melbourne but I’ve received a few packages in the mail to brighten up my day!

Half of these fabrics come from Cia’s Palette and the other half were won on eBay from Atomic Boom. All colours, prints, and patterns make me giddy with delight and I have already earmarked most of them for a few softie dolls I’ll be making over the next few days.

And here’s a sneak peek at what I’ll be making for Amber for Back Tack 3 – the fabrics (one from Cia’s and one from Atomic Boom) and a little bit of the pattern I’ll be using (can’t give too much away just yet!). I’m still committed to using what I have for most of the projects I hope to complete this month, but for Amber’s softie and the softie dolls I thought it would nice to splurge a little bit and add some colour to my stash! :-)

Being stuck in bed with a nasty cold means no crafting for me but lots of time to surf the craft network! Here’s a few of the wonderful softie/plush creations I’ve come across:

Fat Kitties – love their colour, use of interesting fabrics and most of all, their different personalities. See her Fat Kitties Flickr Gallery for more Fat Kitty pics.

OneEye Characters by 12Punt3 – just so weird they’re irresistably cute!

Love=Creatures sold on LookWhatICanDo – adorable little creatures in a wonderful array of fabrics, each with their own imaginitive bio.

P.S. Apologies for if you’ve encountered some problems with viewing my website lately. I’ve migrated to a 3-column template and have been trying to fix some issues I’m having with display on Internet Explorer (works fine with Firefox!). Hopefully, I’ve ironed out the bugs but if you do use IE and it’s still not displaying correctly, please do let me know! Thanks.