Easy felt strawberries

Why not make some simple strawberries for decoration, or for kids to play with?

Step 1: Draw a circle on a red piece of felt (or other fabric), and cut into thirds.

Step 2: Embroider little strawberry seeds

Step 3: Sew up side up strawberries (by hand, or by machine), with right sides facing (inside).

Step 4: Turn the strawberry right-side out. Sew a gathering stitch along the top of the strawberry, and fill with some stuffing.

Step 5: Pull the gathering stitch tight and fasten at the top with a few more stitches. Then cut some leaves from some green felt.

Step 6: Fasten the leaves to the strawberry. Admire!

Toy Society Drop: Constance Bunny

In 2010, I won a Tollipop giveaway: an original painting of a bunny. At that time, I also sketched a little picture of a toy I wanted to make based on the painting.

In 2011, I cut out the pieces for the toy, hoping to make a softie for the Mirabel foundation. I missed that deadline, but in 2012 I finally got around to sewing the toy in time for an Easter drop for the Toy Society (drop #1817).


Constance was made from a smattering of linen and cotton fabrics I had picked up from freecycle. If (when!) I make another Constance bunny, I will try and make the face rounder (perhaps attach it separately instead of having the head/body as one pattern piece), the dress wider at the bottom, and I will probably not stuff the ears. I still think it ended up being pretty cute, wonky arms and all.


I bundled Constance up in a plastic sleeve to protect her during her overnight jaunt in the park. Luckily I had a stash of labels and info sheets from the last time I did a drop.


I snuck out last night and hung it from some play equipment. I hope someone visited the park and Constance found a good home on Easter Sunday!

Free toy pattern: Lorretta

UPDATE: Pattern updated 09/10/10

UPDATE: Alternate "retro" version of pattern added 09/10/10
Please scroll down for details.

You may recall I did a Toy Society Drop (#1179) earlier this year called No llores, Lorretta!

This was the toy in question:


I've finally gotten around to making a pattern for it, which I am releasing under an attribution, share-alike creative commons license, which means you are allowed to modify and redistribute the pattern, as long as you do so under the same license and give credit.

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UPDATE: After realising that toys made from the original pattern posted here look quite different to the ones in the photos above, I made a second pattern which matched the first toy better. I'm calling it the "retro" version. I also added a lightning bolt to the original pattern.
The files below have been updated, and the old version is still available too.

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Original pattern v2.0:

• pattern PDF (A4)
• pattern PDF (US letter)

Retro pattern:

• retro pattern PDF (A4)
• retro pattern PDF (US letter)

If you want to edit the pattern directly in Inkscape or an equivalent program, here are the original design files:

Original pattern v2.0:

• pattern SVG (A4)
• pattern SVG (US letter)

Retro pattern:

• retro pattern SVG (A4)
• retro pattern SVG (US letter)

Lorretta comes in shy of 15cm (~6") but the pattern can be easily scaled to any size. The construction is very basic, hence the lack of tutorial. I used running stitch in matching colours to sew the face to the cloud and running stitch in black (for contrast) to sew the two main pieces together. I started with the arms and used a chopstick to stuff in small amounts of polyfill as I went.

Mary Corbet has a fantastic video library of stitches including running stitch and blanket stitch.

I hope you enjoy the pattern, it's fun to do a little hand sewing from time to time!

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Related posts

• Toy Society Drop: No llores, Lorretta!
• Toy Society Drop: No llores, Lorretta #2 (with added lightning!)

Toy Society Drop: Zing the polite cat

Meet Zing, the polite cat. He comes from One Red Robin's pattern of the same name in the book Meet me at Mike's.

He is made from recycled materials including an old pair of purple jeans and a remnant of fabric my sister brought back from Nepal. I made him half-size, and the pattern was easy to follow.

I made him especially for a Toy Society drop (#945) - check out the site for more plushies!

I bundled him up and left him with a letter in an envelope explaining what the Toy Society is about, and a tag that said "Take me home - I'm yours".


I left him near a foot bridge in Telopea Park (Canberra, Australia) a few days ago (20 January 2010).

Somebody picked him up that same afternoon and sent a lovely email to the Toy Society straight away. It really made my day to see that email, and the accompanying photo.

I'm so glad I managed to get another toy out there, as I've been so distracted by Morsbags recently!

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Related post: Toy Society Drop: Greggles

Eugene wants a hug!

I finished Eugene last night, so he'll be off to join the everyone else's toys for the Softies for Mirabel drive soon :)

He turned out pretty well, though I had trouble with a few things. I struggled with the face stitching and ended up using small black felt circles for the eyes. I was incapable of sewing the horns on straight, and it took me ages to do the last step where you tuck in the bottom and sew on the legs... but it was worth it!

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Related post: Udderly lovely cow for Mirabel

Udderly lovely cow for Mirabel

I'm sure many of you have heard of Pip's annual Softies for Mirabel drive. If you haven't, head over and read about it. It's a worthwhile cause and a good excuse to make a softie!

I completed my fourth-last piece of assessment for the semester today (optimistically worded!), a study of the morals and ethics in a short story by Isabel Allende. Since the essay's in Spanish, I read over it again and again, knowing that no matter how hard I try, there are always mistakes... very frustrating! At least when you're sewing, you can see the mistakes and unpick them... anyway, to cheer myself up I chose a softie to make, settling on Fliss Dodd's pattern: The Udderly lovely cow from Pip's Meet me at Mike's book.

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It's been high on my "to do" list for some time, but I could never decide which fabric to use.

I took the plunge and chose soome fabric and cut out all the pattern pieces. The floral patterned fabric is from my parents' old sheets and the red clay-coloured fabric is from an op-shop. The horns are made out of gorgeous hand-dyed wool felt from winterwood toys, whereas the face & heart are straight acrylic felt.


Stay tuned for the finished product!

If you're thinking of sending in a toy, try and have it in by the 1st of December. They'll be on display for 10 days before being divvied up amongst the kids. Happy crafting!

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Related post: Eugene wants a hug!

Wool felt camel from Sew Soft Toys

Meet Miguel. He's made from 100% hand dyed wool felt from Winterwood toys, a company based in Australia. If anyone knows of any other suppliers of wool felt here in Aus, please let me know! Lincraft and Eckersleys here in Canberra only seem to stock acrylic felt. Winterwood toys stock a variety of colours, available individually or in themed lots: "animal colours", "earthy colours", "rainbow", "skin colours" and "spring". They also have commercially dyed felts.

It was the first time I've worked with hand-dyed wool felt (It makes a difference!), and it was beautiful. Thick, soft, dense... I even liked the uneven colouration from the hand-dying process.

I also bought the book "Sew Soft Toys" from the nice folk over at Winterwood toys.

It has some great patterns in it, including the camel. I had to reduce the pattern size to 75% to fit on the 20x22cm felt pieces I ordered (I ordered the "animal colours" set, you can see them in the top photo). I didn't add the seam allowance, opting to use a blanket stitch to sew the pieces together, which worked well. Good for a lazy winter's evening!

Toy Society Drop: Greggles

Meet Greggles. He's adapted from a pattern of the same name in Plush-O-Rama.

He is made from some old pyjamas of mine (the stripey material) and some short red toy fur from the bargain bin at Lincraft. The long fur for the eyes came from Love and a Sandwich's etsy shop where you can buy a small bag of assorted fur offcuts. The eye-rings and mouth are made from hand-stitched felt.

I made him especially for a Toy Society drop (#295) - check out the site for more plushies!

I bundled him up and left him with a letter in an envelope explaining what the Toy Society is about, and a colourful tag that said "Take me home - I'm yours".


I left him near Manuka (Canberra, Australia) this morning (11 May 2009) and when I went past this afternoon, he was gone. I salvaged the ribbon and tag which had been left dangling.

Hope he found a good home :)

I'd like to do some more of these drops, but not before I finally get around to making up some morsbags...

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Related post: Toy Society Drop: Zing the polite cat

Glucksschwein swap

I made this pig for the Glucksschwein swap at swap-bot.

I made it from Runo's pattern, making it half-size. The colouring is inspired from a black and white potbellied pig.


I saw that my swap partner also likes Dotees. Having only just discovered them myself, and after looking through many galleries of them on Flickr, I decided to make my first one.

My housemate liked the pig toy I made, although it became known as the "cow-pig". I sketched a "cow-pig" dotee design and am happy with how it turned out!