Monday, January 4, 2016

2016 Fluff Project: Goals and January's offerings.

Holy crap, y'all.  It's 2016 which means it's time to set new charity sewing goals (and generic creative goals but that might be a separate post, not sure yet).

But first, let's do the 2015 Grand total.

The goal was 5 items per month (sometimes not exactly completed in the exact month but the average needed to be 5/month).

SO, the goal was 60 items for the year.

MY GRAND TOTAL FOR 2015:  68!

WOOT!  I came in OVER goal.

Ok, not by a ton but still over.

And I also managed to give 35 items to Mirabel.  So that makes my total charity stuffed toy contribution for 2015:

103 stuffies

HOLY CRAP, I made over 100 stuffed toys for charity in 2015.

*takes a bow*

Yeah, I'm totally bragging that up a bit.

Ok, bragging is over.  Time to focus on 2016.

Once again I'm going to aim for a minimum of 5 Fluff items/month.  But I'm also going to sew for Mirabel as much as possible (in hopes Spoonflower does a collection again, if not then those can go to Fluff, so I'm not out anything).  For Mirabel I'd like to do 40 items total (or more).  So I need to get sewing!

Check it out, I'm AHEAD on my Fluff goals.  I have January technically done with these:


EWOKS!

Pause for one moment.

Not all of these are for charity.  Three went to my hubby's nephew, aka The Bratling.  But that leaves 7 for charity (so 5 for Fluff and 2 for Mirabel!).

I don't remember what three went to The Bratling but I'm fairly sure they were all ones with safety eyes (I find them cuter and thought he would like them better).

Close up time!



The stitched face ones are still cute but those safety eyes. . .yeah, I don't think I'll be making stitched eye ones ever again.  The only reason where were stitched eye ones this time was I forgot to put safety eyes on a few of them before I sewed them together and putting eyes on them after that is just too much fuss.  So they got stitched faces.

The gray and dark brown are flannel, the light brown is corduroy.  I love using corduroy for these.  All the cowls are all wool blend felt with blanket stitching.

Want the pattern?  Get it here.

What's next?  Well, I have the whole month of January to get more items made and I have some in progress gingerbread men so I guess I should get them done (those will be for Fluff most likely, though there is a pair so I could split them up).

First I need to get the rest of my christmas sewing done.  We didn't end up meeting with the in-laws so I didn't need to get all the assorted things for the kiddos done, so I got lazy.  I have a kitty (for The She-Brat) and a super baby friendly pony for the Wee Brat (that's the infant brother of The Bratling).  They're all cut and ready to assemble.

2015 Final Projects: Swaps, stuffie, etc

One post to show off all the bits and pieces I finished up in the last week of 2015.

First up, the guinea pigs I made for my friend's kids.


Ernestine and Bertram

Get the pattern HERE.  Do it, it's totally worth the few bucks (Jodie's patterns are great stuff).

Next up a pair of swaps.

First is an inspiration tree.  You had to make a tree shaped pillow stuffie and decorate it using your partners prompt word.  My partner had "peace" (as in peace and quiet) as her prompt.


I went with calm and soothing images that you would enjoy during a peaceful/quiet moment.  So the trunk is book print fabric.  One side of the top is coffee, chocolate, and "shhh".


The other side had cookies (yes, I know you shouldn't use food to soothe yourself but a cookie would probably go nicely with the coffee and treats aren't all bad).  Since there wasn't a lot of embellishment on this piece, I added "relax".

I'm worried this tree didn't hit the mark, though I like it.  I let the fabric to the work and that feels a bit like cheating but is it?  No, not it is not.  (hey, even with creative endeavors, work smart not hard!)

Last but not least was a One Tiny Thing (profile based) swap.

My partner likes minions so. . .this happened.


Yes, those are minions on a little banana headed child.  It's weird and I love it.

LOVE IT!


Little banana beads (with leaves) along the edges, too.

The beads are all courtesy of my sister.  The minions were on a bracelet (for kids, from the dollar area at Target) and the bananas/leaves were from a beaded handmade plant hanger she scored at The World's Longest Yard Sale (she went over the summer but I couldn't join. . .she got me some great stuff and I'm all about going this summer, already planning it!).  I had to give the fruit beads a good scrubbing (they had a nice layer of dust on them) but the minimal effort was totally worth it.  Now I have a little dish full of all kinds of different fruits and a mess of leaves (I tossed the generic white plastic filler beads, they were ugly and just needed to go bye-bye).

And the back:


I'm so uptight that I just LOVE when I can keep the theme going on the back fabric.  It gives me JOY I tells ya, JOY!

Along with getting these items wrapped up, I started on my charity sewing.  That's in the next post.