Stuffed Elephant Tutorial

I have another friend having a baby in March! She and her husband are having another a little boy and I wanted to make them a little gift. I had made burp cloths with elephants appliqued on them a few months ago and wanted to find an elephant pattern so I could make a small stuffed elephant.

I found the template for this elephant on this website. I did add a few ribbons to it and enlarged the pattern a bit. Mine is reversible (one side is from a repurposed towel and the other is blue flannel).

Steps for this project:
1. Print pattern.
2. Cut pattern out.
3. Cut fabric out around the pattern.
4. Pin fabric in place (right sides together) with the ribbons between the right sides of fabric.
5. Sew around the fabrics' edges, leaving a space for turning.
6. Clip the pointy corners and clip the curves so the elephant lies flat.
7. Turn the elephant right sides out. Use a pencil to poke out the spots like the trunk and legs. 8. Stuff the elephant!
9. Blind stitch the elephant's behind closed.
10. Stitch the ears onto the elephant's head.
All done!

Sewing Machine Cover Instructions

I decided to use up some more of my upholstery fabric to make a sewing machine cover. (When we get our new home built, I'll have a sewing area that doesn't involve semi-permanent takeover of the dining room table.)

These are the dimensions my cover had to be to fit my machine (it is a little more generously sized than necessary):

1 piece for the top 9" x 18"

2 (front and back) 18" x 12"

2 (sides) 9" x 12"

To begin, I sewed the front, back, and sides together first in one long strip (right sides together). I zig-zagged all my edges and then I hemmed the bottom.

Next, I sewed the sides together to make a box (no top yet!) I then carefully pinned the top onto the box (right sides together), sewed around it, and then zig-zagged to finish the top's inside edges.

All done! Make sure if you're using any type of striped or patterned fabric, you m

atch the pattern at the edges. This was the first time I had to do that and didn't meet perfectly at all the corners. Oops. Learn from me.

Stuffed Hippo Pattern

I really like hippos. I made two blue stuffed hippos awhile ago but just posted the picture, not the pattern. Here's a picture of a scrappy pink stuffed hippo I made as well.

As for the pattern, I'm sharing it now! Click here to download the pattern!

Taffeta Flower Tutorial

I saw this idea on one of my very favorite blogs, "Make It and Love It". I think Ashley (the author of Make It and Love It) and I would be very good friends if we actually knew each other! I just really admire her blog, blog's pictures, sewing skills, and all her ideas.

Though this was not an original idea of mine, I wanted to make my own tutorial for it because I had some trouble with a few steps and found some solutions that worked for me and might work for you, too!

You will need taffeta (I bought 1/8 of a yard which was more than enough for two headbands and a pin), felt, beads, a headband, candle, and a glue gun.

I used my low-temp glue gun. I highly recommend that against singeing your fingertips on the regular gun.

Cut the taffeta into circles/ovals of varying sizes. I used 3-4 circles for each flower.

Now you need to get your candle going.

I do not recommend children help with this project! I burned my fingers once or twice.

You want to hold each taffeta circle above the flame just until it starts to melt. The edges of my circles did turn black in some spots. If you don't like this, go ahead and cut them off and try again, holding the circle further from the flame.

Here are my melted circles:

To assemble the flowers, I just stacked the circles in descending sizes (smallest on top) and hot-glued each circle to the middle of the last. Then I put a dot of hot glue on the top circle and put beads on top.

I free-hand cut some leaves out of the felt.

I melted the edges of the felt in the candle, too. At first, I just held the felt pieces with my fingers.

Then I got smart and found a kitchen utensil to help me protect my hands.

A picture of the melted leaves:

I hot glued the flowers and leaves to a stretchy headband. Then I put extra hot glue on the back to keep it all together and to keep it from sliding around while wearing it!

Here is a picture of me wearing the headband in my hair. My hair doesn't look this sloppy from the front, I promise!

I used one flower to make a pin. To do this, just hot glue the flower and leaves to a pin back.

Here's the finished pin:

Here's another picture of one of the headbands! I used different beads on this one:

I really love making things I can wear! I have forgotten how much I love doing crafts...I guess I've been doing too much sewing lately!

Felt Block Tutorial

Would your child be thrilled to have some soft felt blocks to stack? (Or to throw?) Here's a quick and easy tutorial for these cute felt blocks!Start with six squares of felt, each cut to 4.5"x4.5". I used my rotary cutter to make them look nice and even.

Then I pinned them together. Since I was using three different colors per block, I didn't want any of the same colors next to each other.

Then I sewed each edge. Be careful at the edges so you don't have gaps. (You'll see what I mean.)
I left one edge partially open so I could turn the whole thing right side out.

Here's a close up view of my gap.

After that, I stuffed them and hand-stitched the openings closed! I think they're cute.

I'm wondering if next time it would be best to use beans or some sort of heavier stuffing. They don't hold their shape all that well.