First Soft Toy I Ever Made + Back to Blogging

 

 We are taking a trip back to the pre Instagram Facebook era where you don’t do things for instant likes and get to be put onto people’s feeds and so forth.  This blog doesn't invite comments, even if they are encouraging.

Anyway, the brilliant designer who sold the pattern had good instructions. It took me ages (steps and steps and steps) to make this thing that’s only 25cm ish.  It’s a birthday present for C**** and now I need to make clothes.  I’m proud of the quality of work, I can’t believe it’s my first soft toy and it turned out so well.  I even airbrush sprayed the colour onto the fabric, which is S****’s old flannel sheet that was leaving lint everywhere when it was washed. This is also a good fabric to make your animals look furry. 

I used barely diluted acrylic paint and heat set with an iron.  I hand stitched many parts of it. I’m happy with the eyes - they look great and I didn’t even practice them.  Just jumped into it and don’t need to remake or back track. All the last two years of learning slowly at home has paid off in being able to just go for it and make a beautiful something that’s really good quality and practically professional. 

I love the understanding I’m gaining about fabric and paint manipulation.  I don’t think I’ve “done a lot”.  I think learning by slow observation is faster than copious mountains of experimentation. We don’t need to pump out heaps and heaps of stuff. Quality slows us down and makes us think. 

I think about the chemistry of paint and colourfastness. I need to. 

I think about dyeing and the various methods - cold and hot. Direct vs procion mx. 

I read and research so that I can manipulate the elements with intention rather than shadow boxing in the dark. 

The internet’s my main teacher. 

Dyeing is currently my weak point. Just still too experimental. Shade matters a lot. Haven’t mastered the art yet. Will get there.