Squid

My son is super into squids right now. He wants to be a marine biologist, specifically studying the Giant Squid. He has decided upon his major, college choice, and future graduate work. This is awesome. Especially since he's 10. :) Granted, I picked my major when I was 12 (and got my degree in it) so it's entirely possible he'll see it through.

For now, he is constantly drawing squids, his pinewood derby car was a squid, and he and his best friend design submarines at recess everyday.  So, when I needed to come up with a birthday gift for him that could be made cheaply at home, I thought it'd be fantastic to make a stuffed squid for his bed. 

To say that he LOVES it would be an understatement. 

Personally, I'm rather proud of myself for thinking to use polka dot fabric for the suction cup sides of the arms and tentacles (he informs me that they're not all tentacles, only the long ones are). 

I didn't have a pattern, I just sketched out what I thought the squid should look like, added 1/2 inch seam allowances to my sketch, and cut it out.

 

It was a great scrap buster.  I used leftover polka dot fabric from this dress and gray fabric leftover from the Dumbledore costume from a couple Halloweens ago.  The eyes (one on each side) were made of felt I had in my stash. 

 

 

I sewed everything right sides together and stuffed it.  I basted it together as I assembled it, as working with all those arms was rather complicated--too complicated for pinning. 

 

 

I really love how it looks sitting on top of his green bedspread.  I'm proud of my little squid.  :)

 

SYTYCS Entry: The Pillow Chair

As you may recall, I am participating in the So You Think You Can Sew Competition at Mommy By Day... Crafter By Night. This week's theme is "For the Home." I thought and thought and thought about what to make for this challenge. Most things I thought of seemed too easy or too boring. My kitchen curtains would have been perfect, but I made them last spring, so they wouldn't count.

Finally, I thought about making a cute little chair for my 3 year old little boy.  He begs for the mini chairs at Target every time we pass them, so I thought I'd try my hand at making him a little chair he can read or watch TV in.  Here it is!

I think it's safe to say that he LOVES his new chair.  He would sit there all day if I let him.

It's a fun little cozy spot and he loves to sit there and read.

Personally, I love the bright colors.  I'm definitely pleased with how it turned out.

I'd hoped to write you all a tutorial for it, but...I kinda made it up as I went along, which makes writing a tutorial a little difficult.  But, I can tell you a bit about how I made it, so maybe you can figure it out, too, with my help.

I started out by staring at some of the chairs in my house.  I've never made a slipcover or anything before, so I had to wrap my head around how the different pieces of fabric are put together on a chair.  I drew a few (awful) sketches (I may be creative, but drawing has never come easy for me...).  I figured out the general shape and size of what each piece needed to be.

And then, I got out some extra fabric from my stash and got to cutting.  I'm a visual person.  See, my husband could have come up with all the right dimensions in his head.  Not me.  I have to manipulate it and see how it goes together.  So, I literally just started cutting shapes out of the fabric and sewing it together in the way I thought it should go.  I ended up with this:

It's pretty much the right shape.  Yay!  I was now ready to do the real thing.  I unpicked the whole thing (I had machine basted it together, knowing that I would pick it apart, so it really wasn't so bad), straightened edges, and made sure everything was lined up the way it ought.  And then I used my mock-up as a pattern to cut out the real fabric.

I used "Sophia" fabric from IKEA, about 2 yards.  I laid my mock-up pieces out on my fabric, making sure that the stripes matched where they needed to, like where the seat top would be attached to the chair back.

The curved piece there is, obviously, the arm of the chair.  The skinny, short, rectangle is the front of the seat.

The almost square rectangle below is the top of the seat.

Here you can see the rest of my "pattern" pieces:

I ended up having to make the back of the seat back longer.  And I had to figure out as I went what size to make the bottom of the chair (as the mock up had no bottom...).  Like I said, I kind of made it up as I went along.  :)

After I cut all the parts of the chair out, I sewed the seat front (B) to the top of the seat (C).  Then I sewed the arms (A) to the seat front (B).  And then, I sewed the seat top (C) to the front of the chair back (D).  

When I finished when all that, I pressed my seams.

Next, I pinned the top of the arms to the front of the arms (A) and the seat top (C) and sewed them together. I repeated the same thing on the opposite side.

Again, I pressed my seams and made them look nice.  Then, I pinned the top of the chair back (the long strip) to the front of the chair back (D), sewed them together, and then did the same for the back of the chair back.

I sewed a couple more arm pieces (A) to the backs of the arms and then sewed the arms to the back of the chair.

At this point I had about the same shape as my mock up.  After pressing seams again, I measured the bottom, sewed on a bottom square, leaving a hole to stuff it through.  Then I stuffed it, using two very large bags of poly-fil and stitched up the hole I'd stuffed it through.  I stuffed it pretty tightly-packed, so it could be sat on without squishing down too much.

It was definitely worth it to make this.  It was much cheaper than if I'd bought something similar, and it's worth it just to see the smile on my little guy's face when he uses it!

I would love it if you'd hop on over to Mommy By Day...Crafter By Night and vote for my project.  Voting is open!


The poll over at  Mommy By Day...Crafter By Night will allow one vote per computer.  Voting will take place all day Wednesday, and Thursday until 8:00 PM EST (That's 6:00 pm for those of you in Colorado!).  Those moving on to the next round will be announced at 10:00pm EST on Thursday night.  I really hope I'm one of them.  :)  Voting has ended and I'm in the top 9!  Thanks, guys!