toys | the curious kiwi

I saw this meme somewhere, it made me smile, you might also relate to it:

I don’t make New Years Resolutions but I am kind of over being behind with my blogging! So to get me started this, and the next post, are going to cover a lot 🙂 and then hopefully the writing keeps happening because I do miss it.

In late 2017 I was to become an Aunty and to welcome my nephew into the world I wanted to make him a soft toy.

I had in my head this photo of me and my little sister beside a huge Pink Panther toy. She’s still fairly brand new which puts me a 3 & 1/2 years old. I’m not sure if this photo was supposed to be part of a series but I like the idea.

On Etsy I discovered DIY Fluffies and accidentally bought 6 patterns including this ridiculously gorgeous Giraffe that I liked so much I decided I had to copy the fabric choice as well.

Apologies in advance that a lot of these photos were taken at night time on my old phone.

Note the beautifully illustrated instructions.

I picked up the brown and yellow spotty cottons from Spotlight and all the felt I had in my stash.

The pattern comes as a single A4 file with two pages of instructions and two of the pattern pieces, one of which you need to print twice. The instructions suggest cutting out the pattern pieces then drawing around them on to the fabric while adding your 1cm seam allowance. I added my seam allowance to the paper pieces instead before cutting out. They also say “seam allowance doesn’t have to be very precise” but on such small pieces I disagree.

I really enjoyed making this little cutie but it did come with it’s fair share of challenges.

First of all the tail was the hardest piece to turn! It’s so narrow and getting past the join between tail and tip was almost impossible…I’m not sure how I’d try it next time…maybe catching a long thread in there while assembling so that I’d have something to pull through the tail, like how a bodkin works, to get it started.

The ossicones (dictionary lesson: that’s what giraffe antlers are called, I checked. Try and use it in a sentence later today) were only slightly easier.

But if I thought the tail was hard, that was nothing compared to the tiny hoofs!

Pinning them enough to get a smooth sewing line and then trying to fit them under the machine foot was so difficult. Sewing black at nighttime didn’t help either. I used a narrow foot but I still had to unpick all the little caught sections so many times!

My favourite part of this pattern is how the legs come together. They have a gusset which means all four legs end up independent and tubular. The giraffe stands sturdily on it’s own, it’s quite clever.

The head was a breeze.

The ears get caught in the horizontal seam at the back of the head but the ossicones are stitched onto the head surface. I stitched these on pretty securely but part of me is still a little worried. Next time I’d add a second horizontal seam so they could get sewn in similar to the ears and work out a way to get them to stand upright.

Overall I’m pretty proud of this little cutie. A few tricky bits but ultimately it was worth it and fun to see it take shape so quickly.

It took A LOT of stuffing and the final giraffe is 37cm tall.

Here it is with my nephew H. I’m not sure how old he is in this pic, he still looks pretty new but he has found his smile 🙂

I actually made two of these giraffes simultaneously. So now you understand why I emphasised the the tail and feet issues, they were doubled for me!

A good friend of mine J was expecting a couple of months before my sister so it made sense to double down and make giraffes for all.

P loves his Giraffe too:

As well as a giraffe for H I also started a tradition of making and sending a Christmas decoration each year. I find the endless plastic toy adverts that bombard us leading up to Christmas so disgusting that I wanted to make something a bit more meaningful. It later years I’ll start adding educational toys or books to accompany them.

For his first ever Christmas I thought a stocking would make perfect sense.

I sketched out the pattern myself and even had a go at some hand sewn lettering.

It’s basically to layers that I decorated first. These were then sewn together with a white rectangle folded over the top. You can’t access the inside of the stocking.

I’m not sure how he’ll feel when he gets to 18 and has 18 handmade ornaments from his crazy Aunty. Hopefully he appreciates them…eventually…we’ll see 😉