A Whale of a Stuffed Toy

I tried my hand at sewing stuffed animals again. This time for my baby cousin (really cousin once removed), Piper. And this time it turned out better than the turtles I made before.

I've had this whale pattern saved for a while and truth be told, I made a couple that were not fit to take pictures of, let alone give as a gift. By the time this one was finished it was 2am so the pictures I do have are a bit hurried.

I used leftover material from the receiving blankets that I made for her in April. Don't you just love flannel? I don't think I'll ever get tired of the feel of it. Could be why I spend most of my off-hours in pyjamas.

The toy is made of four pieces for the body, plus four pieces for the flippers. I had problems getting the four pieces to line up and form the tail correctly, so instead I ended the top/side pieces halfway down the body and made the top of the tail section one solid piece. I don't know if it's my mediocre sewing skills, or a problem with the original pattern, but once I tweaked it a bit the finished product was much more acceptable.

Original pattern:

My changes:

Hopefully you can see what I've done. I cut off the tail on the side piece, shortened the top, and added a top tail piece. I also added letters so that you have a guide to where the pieces meet up. Note that my lines are approximate - you may have to adjust where you cut each piece off so that they match up. Also note when you have to cut two of the same piece to flip the second one so they are mirror images.

The order in which you sew the pieces together is up to you - though you'll want to do the flippers first. Take two of the flippers - if you're using this pattern you'll notice that the flippers aren't exactly the same so make sure you match up the right ones! - put them together right side in, and sew around the edge, leaving the bottom open. Turn them right side out - using a pencil end sometimes helps - and stuff them with Polyfil. Push the Polyfil in as tight as you can, pin the open edges together, and sew straight across the bottom to close it.

I'm going to leave out the "right side facing inwards" part from now on because I'm sure you get it.

Figure out how far back you'd like the flippers to be. I'd say 1/2 to 2/3 of the way back. Pin the raw edge of each flipper to the bottom body piece and sew right along that same line you used to close the flipper. Watch that you're attaching it to the good side of the material and that it is pointing inwards and towards the back while you're sewing it. That whale doesn't want a flipper in its belly! Repeat for the other flipper.

Pin the wide end of the triangle piece to the curved edge at the top of the belly piece and sew them together. Try to centre them both. Pin the straight edge of the "side" piece to the belly piece (along the side of course) and sew them together. Repeat on the other side. Make sure the flippers stay on the inside!

Pin the two tail pieces together and sew all around the edge (except for where it will meet the body). I think this is probably the easiest part  of the whole thing.

The last sewing step (with the machine anyway) is to attach the sides to the top. Line up the long side of the triangle with the curved side of the "side" and sew them together. Repeat on the other side. The two side pieces should meet at the tip of the triangle. I want to say side again. Side.

Now, I chose to leave the opening for stuffing at the point where the triangle meets the tail, but you could leave it open at the mouth if you wanted to. Just remember that you'll be hand sewing it closed. I'm not the greatest sewer so I like my handwork to be as hidden as possible.

Turn your whale right side out - yes, the tail is difficult. Stuff the body, including the tail, with Polyfil. Make sure it's firm. Not using enough stuffing is what gives you those lumps.

Once the whale is stuffed, hand sew the opening on the back closed with tiny stitches. Try to make them as invisible as possible. Again, I'm no expert so I'll just direct you here for a tutorial.

Once it was finished I added some eyes with black embroidery thread, but it was in the car on the way to my cousin's house (I'm so embarrassed) so I don't have any pictures. If you were planning ahead you could add the eyes before you pieced the body together. You could use felt, contrasting material, or just plain embroidery thread like I did.

When we got to my cousin's, she handed me the baby and a receiving blanket, and it just so happened that the blanket was made of the same two patterns that I'd used for the whale. How great was that? So now it kind of looks like they're a matched set.

I'm hoping I can find some other cute patterns that aren't too complicated - starfish? squirrel? penguin? - to make with with rest of the leftover material. And now my cousin is reading this and thinking, "Please, no."

Bedroom Makeover (Goodbye Dusty Rose)

We've been spending a lot of time at Tom's parents' place this year. His mother is very ill, and they've had to do numerous renovations to the house to make it more accessible for her. One thing that was done was moving her into another room that was easier to get her wheelchair in and out of. This left Tom's dad with the master bedroom all to himself. The dusty rose bedroom. Dusty rose carpet. Dusty rose walls. Dusty rose patterned curtains. Here is a picture taken just before we started painting (but after taking it apart a bit).

That's kind of pink, isn't it? Even Tom's mom questions what made her paint it that colour so many years ago.

Tom "volunteered" me to paint the room. His sister told me she was buying new purple bedding (think eggplant) and that the curtains were staying. Other than that I had free rein on the colour.

I used the Sherwin-Williams tool Chip It! to match one of the beiges in the curtains. You upload a picture of something you want to match, click on "Chip It!" and it will tell you up to ten colours that are in your picture. One of the colours it came up with was Perfect Greige. I grabbed a paint chip at the store and took it to Benjamin Moore (my favourite paint store) to colour match. I've since learned that Benjamin Moore has a tool similar to Chip It! called Colour Capture, so I'll be using that in the future. At Benjamin Moore we found a colour called Evening Gown that was a perfect match to the SW colour.

This colour is really interesting. Depending on the time of day and the lighting, it can look tan, green, or grey with a hint of purple. That really leaves it open to any colour scheme.

A few years ago Tom & I built a closet system for his parents because there just wasn't enough storage. But we built it a little too well because that sucker wasn't going anywhere. You could use it as a jungle gym. Which means I had to tape around every shelf and support. This was the point where I started begging people to change places with me, but no one fell for it.

As always, I painted along where the wall meets the ceiling with an eggshell white to hide any pink marks from before. Then once it had dried, I taped it off and painted with white again to seal the tape and prevent seepage. This gives a crisp line when the tape comes off. I do the same thing around window frames and baseboards if they aren't being removed.

I had to patch a few spots and then applied two coats over two days. It was really rainy that weekend so the paint dried slowly. Excruciatingly slowly.

We gave it a full week to dry completely and then put the baseboards and outlet covers back on. Here is the "after" with the bedding and curtains in place. We got rid of the pink sheers and just left the printed drapes. And the green tomatoes on the window sill. Isn't that where you ripen your tomatoes? It's still an "old guy's" room so there was no way he'd let me style it - even for pictures.

It's such a huge improvement though. Tom's dad is considering pulling up the carpet and putting in hardwood (a great idea). It's so much more masculine now. Streamlined even. Imagine how much better it'll look with those new floors!

Some Halloween Fun

This is just a little bonus post because Halloween is almost upon us. I didn't make new costumes for the dogs this year as the time just got away from me completely. So instead, I want to share my favourite costume ever, the one I made for Chloe last year.

This post first appeared on the blog in October 2012.

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How far are you willing to go to embarrass your dog? 

I'm willing to go pretty far as it turns out. 

This is Miss Chloe showing off her primary function in life.

We've been dressing our dogs up for Halloween for years. I'm pretty sure they enjoy it as much as we do. They would say something, wouldn't they? Of course they would.

This particular costume idea has been floating around the internet for a couple of months and I kept it in the back of my mind (and pinned on Pinterest) for when I finally got my butt in gear to make something.

Thank goodness the fall edition of the Pinterest Challenge showed up to force me into action. (Not like October 31st was a deadline or anything.) 

The Pinterest Challenge is a fun project thought up by Sherry from Young House Love and Katie from Bower Power (with co-hosting assistance from Carmel from Our Fifth House and Sarah from Ugly Duckling House). So often we just pin and pin and pin - this challenge makes us stop pinning and start doing.

I love Pinterest, and I love showing what I've made after being inspired, so you know that if someone flat-out ASKS if I want to show off I'm not going to say no. For past challenges I've made yarn-covered easter eggs, vacation photo bottles, a fold-up patio bar, and the ever-popular pinecone map ornament.

Now to be completely honest, I missed the deadline for the map ornament, and it was really inspired by something Sherry was inspired by on Pinterest. But I think that counts, doesn't it?

This time, my inspiration comes from this picture I pinned from an internet photo site. I've looked around and found other versions - here and here - but none of them link to an original source. If you own one of the adorable dogs in the pictures - thank you.

The poop factory costume itself is pretty straightforward - a cut up cardboard box decorated to look like a building. I decided on red brick (red construction paper) to provide a contrast to Chloe's colouring. This turned out to be Chloe's costume because Sasha ran away every time the box came near her. So much for being our brave little toaster.

I used 3 sides of a squarish box, with the sides that hang down shortened to a length that didn't bump the dog's legs when she walked. The perpendicular flap edges were taped to each other with packing tape, and then I covered the sides in red and the top in black paper using craft glue.

While I made windows and doors out of more construction paper, Tom drew in the bricks for me. I added a bit of scalloping along the roof edge with black poster paint, to blend the seam between the top and the side.

Each of those twelve window frames is made from one piece of black paper - I cut out each of the window panes using an x-acto knife and then put white paper behind them. By the third one I was so over it. Until I realized I could cut multiple windows at the same time just by stacking them. Duh.

The font I used for the factory name is called Quentin Caps - found on PicMonkey. It's fun - sort of carnival-like - even though the outlined letters tend to look out of focus from far away. That's what I'm blaming it on anyway.

The smoke stacks are toilet paper tubes covered in more black paper. I fanned out the bottom of each tube and glued it to the roof, and then cut a ring out of black paper and slid it down over the tube to cover the fanned out part. The "smoke" is some polyester stuffing I usually use for pillows.

I was going to use some stuffing from one of the dog toys, but I looked around the house and all I could find were toy carcasses - no innards anywhere. It all kind of circles back you know, because Sasha likes to eat the stuffing and then it gets pooped out. And the factory is a poop factory with stuffing coming out of the smoke stacks. Get it? Get it? Ahaaaaaa-haaaaaa!

I used black grosgrain ribbon for straps. There is one strap that loops across Chloe's chest to keep the box from sliding backwards and then two straps that tie underneath her stomach in a bow to keep the box upright. I used hot glue to attach them to the box (not to the dog) as I didn't think craft glue would hold for long and I didn't want staples to show through.

She looks pretty awesome, right?

And it's a fully functioning factory. 

Unfortunately you never know when they're going to make a delivery.

(She didn't really poop, she was just sitting down.)

And sometimes your employees go on strike and refuse to work any longer.

So you convince replacement workers to step in.

But not for long (one picture only) because they run all over the building and tear their safety harnesses right off the factory wall. Yes, thanks to our moose-ance the straps have to be glued back on.

(She looks like a stubby little corgi from this angle. Please don't think I overfeed ma dawg. She's a skinny little butterpants under there.)

Do you dress up your dog for Halloween? Or for any other occasions? We also have headbands for Easter, Canada Day, and Christmas. 

This is one happy dog. 

I've come to the conclusion that she can't read.