Sock Bunny - Free Tutorial

Spring is in the air! ... Well, some days it is. Some days it still feels like winter. But I stray from my point. ...

It's close enough to Spring that the lawn needs mowing! (How's that?) With Spring comes Easter and sweet little Easter Bunnies running around out in the yard hiding eggs for the young'uns to find.

I have been wanting to see what I could come up with in the way of a sock bunny for some time now and figured this would be the perfect time of year to share a free tutorial on making one.

I started with some socks I picked up a year ago and hadn't yet had a project for. They were green and brown with the "recycle" symbol on them. They were interesting and different from others I've seen so I kept them around to wait their turn to inspire me. It was these socks that I started with.

This is Lloyd, the Recycle Bunny. He is actually my second attempt at making a sock bunny. I'm too embarrassed to even post a pic of my first attempt, so anyway, poor Lloyd gets no mate. (Get it? Mate? You know, mate of a single sock as opposed to mate like a buddy or the love of his life. You know, I have to explain my little jokes a lot. You'd think someone who has to explain their attempts at humor would just give up, but not me, no, persistence, that's what I'm all about. And again, I stray ...)

Then when I was folding laundry (socks) the other day I thought how cute it would be to make a teeny one out of a baby sock. I went out the next day and found these sweet infant socks and made them into little sock bunnies too.

I call them Pinky and Pearl.

The size of the sock really makes a difference on how long their ears turned out. Lloyd has long floppy ears while Pinky and Pearl have cutesy little ears that stand up.

The two bunnies made from infant socks are small enough to fit into one of those plastic prize eggs - not the standard size, but one size up. The bunny made from an adult sock is about as big as my hand and a much better size for an Easter basket.

So there you have it. My Sock Bunny experience. Below is the free tutorial so you can make some up for your Spring activities. Just save this pic to your computer or print it out and you're on your way!

I'd love for you to make as many sock bunnies as you like for yourself or to give as gifts, but please do not make them and sell them or sell the pattern or any part of the pattern. Thank you!

Dick and Jane Baby Blankets

Several months ago I came across some fabulous Dick and Jane fabric that I just had to have. Of course, I had no clue what I was going to do with it and it ended up sitting around in my stash for quite a while (like so much of the fabric that I buy). Well, the print is just too large to be of real use in my dolls, but I figured I'd eventually come up with something.

Then I had my "ah-hah" moment. What if I made them into baby blankets? That would be a good use, right? But I got to looking at some of the blankets that I use now for my little girl, and the ones that are a full yard are just too big and unwieldy. So I was stuck pondering on baby blanket sizes and what would be ideal.

Then I thought, "Well, wouldn't it be better if I made a burp cloth to match the blanket? That would be way better than just a blanket. Who doesn't like sets of things? I like sets of things." Of course, just a plain ole piece of cotton fabric doesn't make for a very good burp cloth. It'd soak right on thru that. From my experience, cloth diapers make the best burp cloths - very absorbent. So I knew what I had to with my Dick and Jane fabric.

And this is what I did:

1) Get 1 yard of each of 2 coordinating cotton fabrics.

2) Get 2 premium prefolded cotton cloth diapers from the store.

3) Wash and dry everything to pre-shrink. Iron everything. (And boy, do those diapers shrink and wrinkle-up.)

4) Measure cloth diaper. Cut a piece from the corner of each fabric to measured size.

5) With right sides together, pin one fabric piece to one diaper. Do the same with the other fabric on the second diaper.

6) Sew most of the way around, leaving about 4 inches open at the bottom.

7) Turn burp cloth right side out and hand-sew opening closed.

8) Iron flat at the seams.

9) Use a 1" seam allowance - sew around each burp cloth to finish off.

10) Take the big pieces of fabrics, lay flat with right sides together. Cut into an even rectangle for the blanket.

11) Sew most of the way around, leaving about 4 inches open at the bottom.

12) Turn blanket right side out and hand-sew opening closed.

13) Iron flat at the seams.

14) Use a 1" seam allowance - sew around the blanket to finish it off.

My finished blankets turned out to be about 26"x33". Which is a good size - large enough to wrap around baby or lay her down on, but not so large that it's dragging the ground or getting tangled up. The burp cloths are 12"x17".

So there you have it. You can make some too. I've listed for sale the Dick and Jane sets in my etsy shop at: http://www.fun4me2.etsy.com/.

I've got some more fabrics that I plan to use for more baby blanket/burp cloth sets ... some Holly Hobbie and Beatrix Potter. (Don't know what it is with me and nostalgic fabric that makes me think "baby blanket", oh well.) I really hope that I get around to making them.

Baby's Pet Pals

While pregnant with my little girl, I decided that I wanted to make her something that she could play with and drool on that was just a special little something from Mom for her. What I came up with were these little critters.

I really enjoy coming up with new patterns and I knew I wanted this one to have a variety of looks all in one, so I drew up a basic body and head shape that seemed to work for a bear, a bunny, a cat and a dog. I changed the ears on each, and voila, I had 4 different patterns in one! I even gave them embroidered tails on their bums.

When my son was little, I learned my lesson about having to constantly bend down to retrieve toys, so I liked the idea of being able to use ring links to attach them to whatever apparatus my baby might happen to be occupying at the time. I was going to make arms and legs out of looped ribbon, but found that the bottom on these dolls is just too narrow for the legs to look right. I opted to have arms only and I'm really pleased with the way they turned out.

They range from 5" to 6" tall and are just right for her little hands to hold onto. The pink bunny is my favorite, so of course that's the one I kept to give to my sweet little girl.

I listed the others on my etsy shop and have had good feedback on them from other mothers who bought them. I also wrote-up the pattern, Baby's Pet Pals, and have it available (http://www.fun4me.etsy.com/) so you can make them for your little lovie!

These were super easy to make and I did get a little carried away, but now I know what I'm giving as a gift at the next baby shower I go to!

Wee Ones - Free Pattern and Tutorial

Another free pattern to download! These are my "Wee Ones". They are just under 4" tall when done.

These little dolls are super fast and easy to make and are a great teether for babies and a fun little toy for toddlers and small children.

I had a good time making them. I even made more than one (which is quite something for me).

Here's what you need to do to get the pattern: 1. Click on one of the below pattern pics to have it display larger; 2. Save it to your computer; 3. Print the picture to full size*, which is 8.5" wide by 11" tall; 4. Repeat with the second pic; 5. Make your own gaggle of Wee Ones!

*For this particular pattern, it is important that the pattern pieces be printed to scale with no sizing. You may know of a better way to do this, but this is how I know to print them full size: 1. Open a Word document (or whatever your word processing software is) that is 8.5"x11"; 2. Insert the picture; 3. Format the picture to be "In Front of Text"; 4. Resize the picture to cover the entire page; 5. Print the document from Word. Like I said, you may know of an easier way to do it, but that's what I've found that works.

Enjoy!

Pocket Baby Dolls

These little dolls were a creation that came about thru an exercise of simplicity. I wanted to make a fun little doll that was super easy to sew up and different from any of my other creations.

I've seen other handmade dolls with these cute little cheeks - I knew I wanted that feature. I wanted hair, but not felt, I've done that already and wanted to try something new. I also thought that if the arms and legs were made from the same pattern piece as the body, that would make finishing the doll even easier and faster. So, putting all that together, I came up with my Pocket Baby Doll pattern.

Now remember, these were supposed to be super easy - and they started out that way. ... I had a naked little baby doll that was essentially two pieces of fabric sewn together and some yarn for hair. Well, they aren't all that cute naked, so I decided that clothing was essential.

This was my first time to "design" a doll dress. I kept it simple. And I hope you'll agree, it made a huge difference!

I did spend quite a bit of time considering whether or not I had made the right decision to give them rectangle-ish heads, but I figured, "Why not?". I was looking for different when I started out, right?

I'm happy with the way my experiment turned out. They're still easy to make and still unique to the collection of dolls and patterns I've come up with so far.

If you'd like to make your own, you can find the pattern listed as "Pocket Baby Doll Pattern" in my etsy shop. http://www.fun4me.etsy.com/

My Little Mouse - Free Pattern and Tutorial

Here's my first free pattern to download. The pattern is for making these cute little mice. It's called "My Little Mouse". Clever, huh? (They're about 4.5" tall - including their ears.)

I wanted to make something to share that is quick and easy to whip up, but still has a bit of charm. These guys are what I came up with. I hope you like them.

Here's what you need to do to get the pattern: 1. Click on one of the below pics to have it display larger; 2. Save it to your computer; 3. Print the picture to full size, which is 11" wide by 8.5" tall; 4. Repeat with the second pic; 5. Have fun making your own Little Mouse!


Enjoy!

Socks, Socks and More Socks

I had so much fun making my Fun & Funky Sock Dolls that every time I went to the store, I would look to see what kind of socks they had that would make a cute doll. Well, I bought several pairs of socks in those days. I had a stack of them actually. One of the biggest contributing factors was that my first sock doll pattern only used one sock. - So not only did I have pairs of socks lying around, I had several single socks left over from using just the one to make a doll.

The problem was that I was done making dolls from my first pattern. And I'm the type of person who, when I'm done with something, I'm done with it. So, there was no going back to make more of the same dolls out of the stack of socks I had accumulated.

I knew I had to come up with something else to do with socks just to justify having bought so many.

Well, I tossed around several ideas of animals and dolls that I could try to make a new sock pattern for. What I came up with was to make a sleepy & awake sock doll. I'd seen this type of doll made before - just not from socks.

I figured that all I had to do was to give a sock two heels and I'd have the two faces - one asleep and one awake. It took some imagining, but I came up with a plan to cut the heel from one sock and attach it to another sock to create the look that I was going for.

It turned out to not be quite as complicated as I was giving myself credit for, but nonetheless, I had my sleepy and awake doll made out of socks. I gave them two different hair styles and two different dress styles and voila, all done.

These dolls were fun to make and still had the benefit of being all hand stitching - which for some reason seems to be relaxing for me. If you'd like to give them a try, you can find them in my etsy store http://www.fun4me.etsy.com/ listed as Sleepy/Awake Sock Dolls Tutorial.

Fun & Funky Socks

Through my hours spent browsing etsy, I came across the cutest pattern for a Sock Kitty from http://www.cuddlet.etsy.com/. I bought the pattern and immediately made three different sock kitties. They were so much fun to make that I decided to give it a go at making my own style of doll from socks. What I came up with is now known as my Fun & Funky Sock Dolls Tutorial.

I had a lot of fun creating the pattern for these dolls and coming up with crazy new hairdo's for each one. They are super easy to sew up and I really enjoyed creating different faces to give each one her own personality.

Part of what I liked so much about making them was that they are all hand-sewn, so I wasn't in the back room sewing all evening. Instead I was sitting in the living room with my family enjoying their company while also getting to do something that was fun for me.

The Ones Who Have No Face

I had this brilliant idea to make a plush with more of an abstract look to it. You know, thinking outside the box a bit. Well, in this vein, I made the two following bunny patterns.

The first of my bunnies with no face is my Doodle Bunny Pattern. This was my first "abstract" creation. I LOVE the look of this one.

She has long, curved ears and a big round tail. I thought, "A-ha! If I don't give it any arms or legs it will be easier, right?" Alas, I was still enamored by the look of doing the curved seams and having the back "fur" fabric come around as slivers to cut into the front patterned cotton fabric. But, as with my sweet Moopsie, it was too difficult for my experience level of the time.

So, I was back to the drawing board.

This is the final version of my Doodle Bunny pattern . It still has the same feel to it, but is a simpler design.

Thinking back on it, they were fun to design and fun to make, but that was when I decided that having all those curved seams was definitely not the way to go for me - regardless of how much I liked the way they looked.

The second of my bunnies without a face is my Love Bunny pattern. It's similar to the Moopsie in that the front fabric is cotton and the back fabric is "fur". Ahh, and also I shouldn't forget the nubby arms. While in the drawing stages, I tried a couple of other types of arms, but never found anything quite right. So, here he is with lots of love to give and little nubs to give hugs.

I did bust out of my norm a bit and give this guy some big bunny feet - which, I was quite impressed with myself about at the time.

I didn't design any curved seams on this one, but I tried to give him the same type of curvy body that I had done with my previous couple of patterns. He turned out pretty much as I'd had him pictured, but for some reason, those nubby arms still nag at me today.

Both of these patterns were "one hit wonders" for me so the written patterns don't have step-by-step photos to go along with them, but are still descriptive enough to give someone the directions needed to make their own. They are available at my etsy shop if you'd like to try them out for yourself: http://www.fun4me.etsy.com/.

So there they are. ... The ones who have no face. They both happen to be bunnies, but I'm convinced that was just coincidence. :)

My First Doll

Amry's Doll was my first doll pattern creation. At the time, my sister-in-law was pregnant with her daughter, Amry. I had made her boys and my son teddy bears and whatnot from commercially available patterns, but this was my first opportunity to make an actual doll for someone, so I figured I'd give it a go at making my own pattern.

This teal-haired cutie is what I came up with. Amry's not quite a year old as of yet, but I'm hoping she gets years of enjoyment out of her doll.

(I've got to give credit to Amry's mom, Michele, for the beautiful pic above. You can see more of her fabulous photography at http://www.pinkletoes.com/.)

Of course I didn't totally know what I was doing, and the first version of Amry's Doll turned out to not quite be what I had envisioned with her super skinny arms and legs. But, with a little tweaking, Amry's Doll was made. This was the first pattern I posted for sale at my esty shop, http://www.fun4me.etsy.com/. I was pleasantly surprised and excited to gain the approval of other crafty sewers who bought the pattern to make for themselves.