Day 167: Another horsey doll

This is a good way of exploring collage and using funky paper together with textiles. I really like making these but should probably expand from making horses and elephants.

Day 163: More horses

So happy with my Winnetou horse I made another one. Brought up in communist country, we never had 'My little pony' so I am making up for it with a collection of my own. Who knew string was so much fun:)

Day 162: A 2D elephant toy

This is my new 2D type of toy made of fabric and paper. Really pleased with it:)

Day 161: Winnetou's horse: Iltschi

The other day I was lookinf through my fellow 365er Rebecca Jones artworks and she makes lots of different horses. I love horses and I do draw them often but I haven't actually made any for my blog se I intent to rectify that so here he is: Winnetou's horse -  Iltschi. 
Winnetou is a fictional character from books written by Karl May and it's kind of germanic phantasy about Wild West. As a child I was deeply influenced by these books as well as by Jack London's books and one of my alter ego's was Winnetou, a bit strange for a small, croatian girl but hey, my friends were not much to write home about...

Day 160: A little toy elephant

My dear husband has found my book with toy pattens that I have lost several months back..turns out, it was in  my shelf all the time...fancy...Anyway, this little chap is made from my old sweater and I like this edition of sweater much better:)

Day 151: Toy Mouse

A 10cm toy mouse climbing the tree. I rarely give sense of scale so I thought this would be a good opportunity to do so:)

Day 150: Rose and Cherry - photo shoot

After all that hassle, I decided that a photo shoot was in order. Really proud over myself, I didn't throw it all in the bin after all...

Day 149: Rose

One day at the time and I finished Rose too. I had to cut a new dress for her since the first one got all ugly from many times turning in and out. I had difficulties attaching limbs but finally managed so it looked neat:)

Day 148: Cherry

Tadaa...legs right way round and all. This is Cherry as she has little cherries attached to her hair.

Day 147: Rose and Cherry - part 2

Got my stuffing and started sewing...The first doll was so badly sewn that I had to take it all apart because I wasn't following the technique correctly. Dress part got so badly abused I cut it all off and left it at one side. So I made a start on the other doll, Cherry, it all went really well and I got all parts together as I should. The trick was to sew on arms and legs,fold them inside the doll and then turn the whole thing right way round. I did...and after all that I managed to sew both legs wrong way rounds..AAAAARGH!!!!! So I threw everything in the box and left.

Day 146: New dollies - Rose and Cherry

I got so fed up with drawing so I decided to get my trusted buddy  - the sewing machine and make something else. This pattern is from magazine Mollie Makes and it seemed simple, so I cut out all parts, made the hair and then run out of stuffing, easy-peasy, I thought, I'll carry on tomorrow. For sure I will finish this tomorrow...

Day 115: Cheeky Chaps

Two cheeky chaps!

Day 114: Wonder-Fox!

All that swea...I mean sewing payed of and I am really proud to present WONDER-FOX!! Like Wonder Woman just canine/feline (I always think of the fox as half-half animal).

I never buy expensive materials for my projects so this is a mix of one felt square, a scrap of velvet and a buttons from car boot sale. 

My worry is though, as charity shops are getting quite expensive, where am I going to source fabric next?

Day 111: Sewing and un-sewing

I made a lot of part yesterday and then I made some more and thought I will put this together and the I realised that the head was wrong so there was nothing else to do but undo it...then I got fed up and went to watch telly instead.
And that's sewing in a nutshell. More time is spent un-doing, patching and turning things right way out just to find another hole...then actually sewing. Time consuming and nerve grating but I will have another go tomorrow and hopefully make that head right:)

Day 110: A whole lot of parts

After several hours of sewing, patching, re-sewing and turning, I have a whole lot of little you parts and you will have to come back to see what they will become:)

Day 107: Another doglet

Another little doglet, this time with some pictures of process and some tips. 

1. Use a sponge to jab your toy on. It's easier to shape and you don't jab your fingers.  

2. For little things like ears and tail, take a piece of felt and thenn prefelt it a bit on the sponge, make sure you turn it and keep it wide, you don't want a ball. If you felt it to tightly, it will not stick on to the body. 

After you attach it to the body as well as you can take another thin piece and wrap it around that ear/tail and use it as 'glue' and also to shape your ear/tail. You might find that a part of the body sinks in if you stab too much on same place. Just take another piece of felt and add it but keep the piece thin and wide and use layers, don't bunch it up on same spot.

3.After I felted my doglet enough I used scissors to shape it's head a bit. Don't know if you are supposed to do that but it might help. Also I can imagine the quality of fleece used helps, mine is not great but it works. Hope you find this useful. I am no expert, this is my 3rd felted toy but if you wan't to ask any questions please do. 

Day 106: Cute doglet

After x amount jabs in the finger, I seem to be getting an idea of how to so this. Quite happy with this  little chap, I am making one a day at the moment. Besides the repeated jabs in the finger, it's not that hard.

Day 64: A Strand of Emotion - Scrappy

This is Scrappy. She is 6 years old and lives with mum, dad and big brother. Scrappy spends a lot of her time on her own while her parents work and her brother is with his friends. But that is ok as Scrappy learns to amuse her self. She also learns to dress her self, go to school and come home again. She learns that every stranger is a potential friend although you still have to be careful in choosing. If you choose well, your friends might share some cake with you. Scrappy also finds that reading a good book in library kills many hours while waiting for parents as well as opens door to new worlds and even more friends. Sometimes she gets fed up and sad with her parents and silly class mates but life is full of adventure waiting to happen, after all that is how she found  a friend who kept some racoons in his garden. Turns out, they love chocolate...and so does Scrappy.

Scrappy is created as a response to project "A Strand of Emotion", a project done together with other members of Facebook group 365ers - 2012 https://www.facebook.com/groups/292386624157701/
Please check it out to see other great 365 project our members are doing this this year.

Day 59: Softy Heart

A little knitted heart and another in making:)

Day 53: Skinny-legged Bird

This bird is tiny and supposedly it would take only about an hour so that suited me today as we spent most of the day on the boat....That is before I got it wrong three times and had to rip and sew again. Then i felt like giving up and posting my miserable little fabric patch but then I thought no, i'll patch it up. So I did. It turned out quite funny with it's tall legs and it can sort of stand...I like it. 

If you want to make one of your own, here is how: http://jennysbuttonjar.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/little-birdie-project.pdf

It is a project from Jenny's Button Jar-blog.

More about our boating adventures are available here:

http://littlepearlboat.blogspot.com/