I drew up a form of a dinosaur and went to town. I decided to make a set of two dinosaurs with contrasting embellishments. Drawing the form wasn't too difficult for me. (Sketching patterns freehand is the only type of drawing I do halfway decently. Do not ask me to try to draw something that won't be cut out and traced.) Cutting the felt proved a little harder because there were some tight corners in my design. Assembling the dinosaurs was nothing.
The first dinosaur, a sort of stegosaurus, was just two forms and four triangles cut from the scraps. I pinned the forms together and inserted the triangles about 3/16" in between the forms, pinning each triangle. Then I sewed all the way around the form except for the belly, for stuffing. DO NOT DO THIS. I don't know what I was thinking. Leave the back open, please please. Not only did I have a bear of a time stuffing all the tight areas, I had to stuff the legs AS I WAS SEWING THEM. Plus, I had to go back and reinforce all the sharp corners because I pulled them open while stuffing. All the sharp corners are around the legs, of course.
The second dinosaur is a brontosaurus with his head down, or that's what I'm telling myself. He required a bit more work because his embellishments, spots, had to be sewn onto each side individually. (Then, when you make two right sides, which you will inevitably do if you try to multitask, you have to rip off the spots and reattach them the other way, and it will look nowhere as good as it did the first time.) Since I hadn't learned of my stuffing error yet, I sewed all the way around except the belly. DO NOT DO THIS. That is worth repeating. Please, please, leave the back open for stuffing.
I could have thrown these dinosaurs together in a couple of hours if I'd paid attention to what I was doing. They are a great little set to accompany one of my daughter's favorite books, Oh My Oh My Oh DINOSAURS! by Sandra Boynton.
Very cute!
ReplyDeleteFrom Mom: They turned out so cute!
ReplyDelete