A couple of weeks ago I signed up for my first ever Craftster swap - a pincushion one to be exact. It was supposed to be fun - try something new, make connections with other craftsters - you know, a little bit of lightheartedness! But somehow it's turned into something that I placed so much self pressure on that the pleasure was almost lost completely!
Firstly I got all excited about what shape to do. Rather than knit or crochet a cushion I decided to practice my new found sewing skills and sew one. But what pattern to choose? There are soooo many witty, beautiful, whimsical designs out there in blog land that I have to say I got completely overwhelmed. I must have spent weeks looking at different ones, not sure which one to go with. In the end I decided on a little self designed animal - sort of a hedgehog/turtle type thing with little patchwork applique's. Sounds pretty good right? Except that I've never made stuffed animals before and all of my finished attempts looked like they should be in a hospital for sick animals (actually John said one looked like he needed to be put down!)
I've finally finished the pincushion - I've reverted back to my original, do what you know best, idea of crocheting one! But I have to ask permission if I can show a picture of it first. But what I CAN show you is the project I decided to start when I realized my toy making skills needed some work and that I should maybe start with something a bit bigger.
So let me introduce Bertie the Elephant - taken from the lovely Sew Everything Workshop book. I think the trickiest bit was the stuffing - I used acrylic because it was all the local craft shop had and it kept clumping up - it took me 3 goes at stuffing it to get it smooth and even all over. But now that he's finally finished - I'm quite pleased with him. He's got a certain 'rustic' charm!
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