Finally finished, only 3 years late!

Three years ago, Kade asked me for a sock lion for his birthday. That was his favorite animal at the time, and his favorite color was yellow. I bought some cute yellow socks, cut and sewed them up, and set them in my bin full of projects I needed to finish. And there they stayed, getting covered up with more and more unfinished projects.

Kade asked me about his sock lion the other day, and I immediately felt so guilty! I've made close to a hundred sock creatures in the last three years, plus countless other stuffed animals and other things. But I forgot about his little sock lion. I can't believe Kade didn't forget about it too, since it's been so long!

In a way, I'm glad I made this lion now instead of three years ago. I don't think it would have turned out looking anything like a lion back then, when I was just getting the hang of sock monkeys! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It took hours to hand tie each hair of his mane to his head, but it was worth it!

Now, three years later, Kade's favorite animals are turtles. His favorite color is "all the colors but pink!". But I think he will still love his finished sock lion that I will give him as part of his Easter basket. Better late than never, right?

Still to do in my huge pile of halfway done projects-
~King size jean quilt
~Three sock monkeys
~Owl purse
~Two fabric first name puzzles
~A few pairs of baby booties
~A summer shirt for me
~A wallet for Jer

....plus more! Am I the only one who has this problem? It's a personal goal of mine to start finishing all the things I've started, to make way for new things. I *love* getting something done and checking it off my mental list. I'm not going to procrastinate any more. This yellow lion is the first of many, and I'm so excited to move on to the next!!

***Just thought I would add the link to the tutorial I used, years ago, to learn how to make sock monkeys! They are easy, and with just the basic sock monkey form you can also make lions like mine, cats, dogs, bunnies, monsters, and lots of other things! There are also lots of other sock creature tutorials out there if you just search for them. I highly recommend it, they are so fun to make!***

Play on Words

Literally! :)
This is something new I'm working on.
Here is the tag that will be tied on to the drawstring bag
(This one is for Banden, the son of a good friend of mine):

Comes with it's own carrying case to keep things organized and easily transportable. The little one also fits into the large bag.

Inside is a stack of hand cut, double layered felt letters, and a rolled up mat.

Unroll the mat, and now you can see that it is a matching game!


Now Banden has a fun new way to learn how to spell his name!

*These are not yet available in the shop. However, if any of you want one of these for a child in your life, I am offering them at a discounted rate, while I make more practice ones to figure out the best way to do things! Just let me know :)

Sonic the Hedgehog

Last Christmas, when we drew names within my family for gift giving, I drew my sister's name. Surprise! I have made her so many things, why not one more :) I wanted to make her something one of a kind, and I searched the internet for a long time looking for just the right pattern. I finally found it here: Silver Seams- That link takes you to a free plush hedgehog pattern! Looked easy enough, but I had never made a stuffed animal before, so I started with some muslin. It was a good thing I did, because it turned out absolutely horrible! It took me forever to figure out how to sew the pattern pieces together. Sewing 3-D creatures is a lot harder than it looks! After fiddling with the pattern and making three more deformed muslin hedge-things, I was brave enough to start on the real thing. I used some white faux fur fabric that I had gotten off Freecycle (I have received lots of great fabric from Freecycle!) for the tummy, arms, legs, and face.
I used neon green fleece for the back.
I hand cut little felt hands and feet:

I used felt for the nose, embroidered the mouth, and used safety eyes for the first time!
I trimmed the fur around the face to make it a more defined area.


Now for the hard part. Little did I know that they actually HAVE long, bright blue fun fur fabric. I almost died in the store when I saw it a week after Sonic was finished. I have a knack for always choosing the hard way, though! Instead, I went to Ben Franklin and found some bundles of bright blue eyelash yarn with specks of pink and neon green. Perfect! I bought three. They were normally $10 apiece, but I found them on sale for $2 on clearance.

I made the furry back by wrapping the yarn around 2 fingers about 10 times, cutting, tying the center, and sewing onto the hedgehog.
Repeat hundreds of times. Run to the store to buy SIX more bundles of the yarn.
Get cramps in your hands.
Slowly grow to hate the hedgehog, as you work on it for hours and hours and only seem to get an inch of work done.

And then one day, he was done! I used the *very last inch* of all that yarn I bought to cover the last bald spot on the hedgehogs butt. I was tricking myself thinking he was done, however. Next, I had to cut all the loops so the yarn would stick up like soft spikes. There were lots of loops. After that, I had to give him a haircut so he could see. That created a pile of blue fur on the carpet about 5 inches high, which got the attention of K's potential mess radar. He ran through the pile before I could stop him and now, months later, I am still finding blue fur in weird places.

I am just glad I got him done before Christmas (barely). Sis gave him the name Sonic, since he's blue, and he has had a happy life ever since.