Category: Toys

New Baby Teddy

My brother and sister-in-law have a new baby, so I wanted to make them a gift.

I bought a DMC teddy blanket in Hobbycraft, which had a bib made from aida fabric that you can cross stitch onto.

I wanted to stitch the baby’s name onto the teddy, so started by getting out my graph paper and a coloured pencil to work out how to fit it in and what size letters would work best.

Then I picked out a nice blue thread and stitched it on.

I hope they like it!

Pascha Bear

This is Pascha bear. He’s made from a free pattern by Crafty is Cool, who also sent me the eyes and nose to make him.

I used Rico Design Creative Cotton Aran yarn to make Pascha, which is the same as I used to make Upsy Daisy, nice and sturdy for a toy.

He has made his way to Ireland with lots of other Pascha bears that people have made to the charity ‘To Russia With Love’ who help and support abandoned children.

Upsy Daisy

My youngest niece turns 1 today!

I wanted to make her a toy for her birthday, and after thinking about which characters she might recognise decided on Upsy Daisy from In The Night Garden.

I looked at several patterns for making her on the internet, but only came across one that I thought really looked like her, from a etsy shop based in Finland called Fjukten.

The yarn I used was Rico Design Creative Cotton Aran which comes in lots of bright colours, which is perfect for Upsy Daisy, and should stand up to more cuddling than acrylic yarn!

Each part of Upsy Daisy is made separately and then put together. Her head has lots of parts, as each bit of hair is separate, as well as the hair base, the eyes, nose and eyelids.

I really liked the pattern because it was very detailed and specific about what to do at each step. It also had a lot more detail than any of the other patterns I’d seen, including the white petal pattern on her skirt and the handle she uses to make it inflate.

Here is my finished Upsy Daisy:

I’m really pleased with her, and hope my niece likes her too 🙂

Crochet Owl

The sewing machine is still on its round the world cruise, so I’m doing lots of crochet at the moment, in fact I started and finished 4 things in the last week – this must be a record for me!

One of those was a cute little crochet owl. The pattern (found here) was linked to on Facebook, prompting a friend to ask me to make her one.

I copied the exact colouring of one of the example owls in the pattern to make the stripey tummy and think he turned out quite well.

I used Rico Creative Cotton Aran to make it. I like cotton for making toys as it’s a bit more sturdy than wool and acrylic. The eyes are brown safety eyes (which I conclude that the only unsafe part is trying not to injure yourself fastening them on!) and the beak in just stitched on at the end.

Royal Mail did a pretty good job and he arrived the day after he was finished and is now living in his new home in Rugby 🙂