Ready for Tomorrow

I'm positive you can't tell the needle felted bunnies vs the marshmallow bunnies!

School tomorrow Amy.

Copy Bunny

I saw this project on Craft Magazine and knew it was my next needle felting project. I had already purchased the peeps for the second graders. I thought the teachers would like these instead!

I had Gil do the eyes for me, he's good at the small detail stuff. Below is where you can find the original post:

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2011/04/needle-felted_easter_peeps.html

Remember Celery?

Celery was made with a bear pattern.

This is the same pattern with different fur.

Celery's new cousin. This is the bunny we worked on the other week at my friends house. I stole this picture off her blog to show you, Monkeyhouse Productions.

As you can see, you can own one bear pattern and make any number of different stuffed creations.

Friday

Once and a while I sneak off to my friends house to have some crafting companionship. Our project this time was bunnies for her boys. She sews everything by hand so she can always be paying attention to what the boys are doing. They are always approaching her with a new project to sew. Mom, can you sew me a pair of socks so I don't have to get a pair upstairs? But they should watch, after I told her how much I had to spend on my son's sophomore dance she told me she was going to sew her son's suit out of felt.

She got this bunny sewed up in no time.

She handed sewed this wonderful turtle (terrapin) for my birthday.

Bunnies vs Rabbits

I really want to make my own patterns but the thing that gets me is the head. I can pretty much visualize everything else. So I continue to heavily modify. I found a rabbit pattern that I can play with.

When I asked you folks about what other animals were black, squirrels were brought up. Do you have black squirrels in your neighborhood?

Above I've been messing around with that rabbit pattern. I'm pleased so far with the results. When making or modifying a pattern for a particular animal I strongly suggest that you find a couple pictures of that animal. There are certain nuances that animals possess that can really make your stuffed animal more like that animal. You can certainly get across bunny with a couple of long ears on his head, but you add shorter arms and hoppy legs and you get a rabbit.

My rabbit pattern will make an excellent squirrel so a tail will need to be made and probably some longer black fur purchased for it.

Now that I finally have everyone off to work or school I'm gonna sit at my sewing machine and sew my brown bear and black squirrel. Hopefully the changes I've made will work!

It's always hard tracing on the dark materials.

Here I have my work all cut out for me.

Working With Longer Fur

Bunnies ears are pinned on and he's lookin good!

But on this post I'm gonna point out some of the things you'll need to be aware of when working with this type of fur or any longer fur you might use.

Check out these seams. A lot of fur is caught in the stitches but it doesn't have to stay that way.

Take a needle or seam ripper and gently pull that fur out. Start further away from the seam and then work towards it. You don't have to get every last hair out especially closest to the seam.

That looks much better.

This guy has already been named Celery. He will go to one of my girlfriends kids who I sent the material to. I understand they are planning on making hats for their bunnies. I hope they send a picture for us!

Anyway back to work.

#1 When cutting long fur material, only cut the backing and not the fur side.

#2 It's easier to sew in the direction the fur is going.

#3 You can trim or shave the fur within the seam allowance if it's thick.

#4 While sewing on the machine you can push the fur in the seam with a seam ripper as you go.

#5 When your parts are stuffed and jointed you can pull the fur out of the seams with a pin or seam ripper.

#6 If using slippery nylon backed fur, hand sew and use a ton of pins!!! (I'll get back to you about the interfacing)

Bunny Ears

These ears aren't difficult. I did have to make a pattern which I've included at the bottom.


Here I'm tracing 4 inside ears instead of 2. I've done this because the felt I'm using is thin so I'll double it.

We're well pinned.

The ears are finished.

The bunny was about 13" tall. The length of this ear is 3 3/4" and it's on a 5" x 7" background. Click the picture to download to your desktop.

Focus On The Fur Not The Bunny

It's easy to make a bunny, it's the fur we're having trouble with. It's the fur material that you can buy locally at the craft/fabric store that has the nylon knit backing on it. I'm still recommending plush felt, but if you've found the softest, most wonderful fur, with this nylon knit backing, that you just have to make a bear or bunny with, here's a few things I've learned so far.

Pin, pin, pin.

Move along and pin some more.

Here I'm centering the gusset to the sewn side pieces.

The first side I sew, I always sew straight to the back. Notice how close the pins are.

The first side's done, so far so good.

The second side I leave an opening for stuffing and joining about an inch up from the back.

You wouldn't even know if it were machine sewed or hand sewed with that back stitch!

I'll show you how I make his ears tomorrow.

I Was Asked About Bunnies

This is the pile I sent off the other day. My friend asked if the bears could be converted to bunnies. The strangest thing happened though, when I pulled back the ears on a couple of my bears and put a bunny ear on their head instead they screamed, I'm a bear. When I took an extra bear head, without ears, out of my drawer and stuck the bunny ears on it, it said bunny. Once a bear always a bear. You'll notice I'm sending her that difficult material I told you about. Boy did it give me no end of problems. Normally I wouldn't give a first time animal maker the hard stuff, but she's quite skilled.

Included is a pattern with bunny ear.

This is where I am on the prototype now but don't ohhh and awww yet!

I'm not gonna take you through the whole process but I will give you any tips that I can. I'm still learning myself!

I made the decision to hand sew the entire bunny because this stuff would not stay in one place or behave itself. I'm thinking about using fusible interfacing next time. Has anyone tried it before???

Tomorrow I'll show you how I sewed the head. It'll give you a better idea of how you can work with this kind of fabric.