♥ His Name is Mervin and I LOVE Him ♥

So I took that same wacky monsters pattern and enlarged it. I ended up with Mervin, who thanks to my inexperience and lack of skills has many flaws, but he is gorgeous and snuggly and quite big. (he also makes a very comfy pillow!!





And oh Boy do I love to snuggle him!!

♥ Cute Lil Monsters (Made by ME!) ♥

So this was my big sewing project of last week - and I would have posted it sooner but it was for JJs birthday so I had to keep it on the down low until the weekend. It is an insanely easy pattern (so it was good for my first sewing project) but it was also SUPER cute. So here we go:

The pattern (purchased from spotlight!):



I used this fabulous (and very snuggly) fake fur. I bought half a metre but that was WAY more than I need (it was enough to make two complete fur monsters or four half and halfs like I did):

However while the fur looked great, it was horrible to work with. I got fur everywhere (including all over the floor, the table, up my nose and in my mouth). I sewed around the outside to stop it fraying, but before I finished doing that I had made a very large mess.



I then made the faces out of white felt and sewed them on:



I used black polar fleece for the back (because I actually don't think I could put two layers of the fake fur through the sewing machine!):

Then Stuff it ($5 bag of stuffing from Aarons emporium that has enough for at least 5 bears):



And the snuggly, finished product:



The pattern was about $15 but I don't mind because I plan on making many more of these cute lil monsters (including two for myself that I plan to start on this week).

♥ Learning to Sew! Pt1 ♥

I am finally learning to sew (yay I am getting started on my goals) and although I said I was going to start off on Jennis present, I thought it might be better to start off with something simpler. (Look it's me sewing!!)



So I am screenprinting/sewing a tote bag. I am starting with a picture that I just found online by googling 'cute skull' - (it is by ashzstock at http://ashzstock.deviantart.com/ and is free for personal and commercial use so I am not stealing) but I am planning on designing my own (yup you guessed it - cute skull) design to put on tote bags and maybe t-shirts to give as gifts/sell at markets later on down the track.

I didn't use a pattern for the bag, just cut out two squares (40 by 42cms) and a strip 124ish cm by 15cm, out of calico. Sew around the edges to stop the material from fraying.

Then I screenprinted the image on. First I printed the picture onto an A3 piece of paper three times. I cut out the skull on the first print out with a craft knife, placed it under the frame and put the fabric paint with the first colour on. Then I waited for that to dry, and took another copy of the picture and cut out the bow for the second colour. First I put white paint on for the undercoat, then when that dried I used bright pink. It now looks something like this:



Then I cut out the same sized square and strip with a coloured material to use as the lining. I found some bright pink Satin:



Then I just sewed the strip onto the two squares inside out (the corners took some tricky sewing), then I just turned it in the right way. Now it looks more like this:



Tomorrow I am going to sew together the lining, and place either cardboard or thin mdf in the bottom of the bag for it to keep its shape. Finally I need to put some handles on it and it should be done :)