I normally start the year off with a burst of sewing creativity, but not so much this year. So far, I’ve managed to make exactly one thing, and it wasn’t even for me - it was a gift for a baby shower!
Back in the day, John and I were known as “frog people”, and while we no longer keep frogs as pets, we did delve deeply into the world of herpetology, and I still have a soft spot in my heart for frogs, so it was a natural choice for a stuffed animal. After doing a little online research for ideas, I settled on a simple design, and did a quick trip to JoAnn Fabrics to pick up some froggy fabrics - a minky fabric in the perfect green and a super soft white plush fleece, to go with some leftover fair isle knit fabric I had in my scrap bin.
I drew out my pattern pieces and played around a little with the fabric layout, and then got to work. My biggest challenge was when I tried to embroider a black circle onto the eyeball, which was a bit of a mess on the fleece, so I decided to play around with my new fancy machine and see what I could come up with. I don’t have an embroidery machine, but it does have a pretty wide 9 mm stitchplate, so I made the biggest pupil I could. It turned out more reptilian than the cute round circle I was going for, but I’ll take it!
It was fairly straightforward to assemble it from there, except one of the eyeballs wasn’t getting caught in the head seam, so I had to sew over it a few times, ending up with one eye at a more rakish angle. I’m calling it cutely imperfect, and it works, right?
And there you have it! Hopefully I’ll get in a more productive groove soon…
He's really cute 🤩