Woodland cushions!

So I have to admit, I’m a bit of a hippy. I love the thought of being in a wooded area surrounded by animals! Snow White’s life sounded idyllic.. bar the fact she was on someone’s hit list!

So when I was asked to make some cushions for a children’s nursery the theme was a no brainer – woodland animals! Who doesn’t love a cute little badger?! (ahem, ignore the fairly recent news items before steam starts to escape my ears…) My only problem was that I had to choose just 4 characters. Queue lots of list making: pro’s and cons, “are wolves scary to children?”, “If I sew a squirrel will the children actually recognise what it is?!”

And onto the making..

I think if I were to do this again I would try to make the animals a bit more uniform.. and change the foxes’ eyes. I don’t feel like I have quite found my ‘style’ yet. It was fun all the same, and quite cute to have them all lined up ready for posting 🙂

Bear x

Halloween Costumes

I thought I would start by showing a few examples of what I have created in the past. For Halloween last year my friend decided to host a Pokemon themed party. He is a hardcore fan and I knew I had to be on top form with my costume. My boyfriend and I decided hand-made costumes were the way to go as I hate the tacky polyester shop bought costumes, and how expensive they are when I know I could probably make something just as good for half the price.

After much deliberation and frustrating google searches we finally decided to go as Jigglypuff and Squirtle (the cute ones!)

My cats always think it’s a great idea to try and help me at the most inopportune moments! I managed to find some great baby blue fleece and pink faux fur from the local market stall, and after many minutes of fighting to retrieve my material from furry paws I began to cut out my pattern pieces. I didn’t take step-by-step photos for my costume, as Jigglypuff is just a big ball with a face. I also kept forgetting to take photos during the “Squirtle process” but I managed a few!

 

This costume was actually surprisingly easy to make – the most time consuming part was cutting out the pattern pieces!

 

After sewing the “onesie” torso I added a layer of yellow to create the shell.

 

…and then added a zip. I also sewed in a hood, gloves and cuffs, and created a padded shell that attached as a backpack. The final products:

 

 

Excuse the messy rooms/ bad photos – (and drunken looks!) the costumes became very last minute, I am known to be quite bad for time keeping! The hat was also a bad choice on my part as the fluff was (funnily enough) extremely painful when it shed into my eyes!

Hope this inspires you for next Halloween 🙂

Bear