Welcome to the last stop of the Best Homemade Toys Sewing Patterns to make for Christmas Presents Blog Tour, hosted by Seams Sew Lo and sponsored by Seamingly Smitten and Phat Quarters! The Blog tour is based on the Best Homemade Toy Sewing Pattern list here. Today is the last stop on the tour, but we may look into doing this again next year? What do you think? Do you want more toy ideas for next year? Comment below and let us know!
My kids love the snow! Here is a little snowball fight that broke out this year. It was the perfect snow, just enough to have a snowball fight, but the roads were still fine. It also warmed up to the 40’s, so not too cold to play. There is still snow on the ground now, but is only 12 degrees outside. Sorry kids, no playing in the snow today for this Mama! Brrrr!! So I made them their own snowballs.
I used the snowman snowball embroidery design by Digitized Creations on Etsy. You can find it here. You also find it on the Best Homemade Toys Sewing Patterns list. I actually made one of these for Little Dude a couple of years ago with my Brother SE400 Sewing and Embroidery Machine. Yes, just one. For a couple of years now, I have been promising to make him more. It has been used so many times! So I am finally making true on my promise. The first one I made of this set was the furry one on the far right.
I originally wanted to use just the felt fabric on the left, however I brought it upstairs from my stash the other day and I could not remember where I had placed it. With furry fabric, the embroidery designs usually need a water soluble stabilizer on top, so the stitches do not sink into the fur. I went ahead and made one without the water soluble stabilizer and one with the water soluble stabilizer.
As there is no doubt, I used the water soluble stabilizer on the snowball on the left, but not on the one on the right. You can see a huge difference between the two. I thought showing the difference between the two would show the importance of using water soluble stabilizer on certain designs. I knew it would help with the furry fabric, however I decided to test it on the felt fabric as well; not expecting to see a huge difference.
However you can clearly tell the difference between the two. I used the water soluble stabilizer on the snowball on the left. The nose really is a brighter color in real life. It is not just the camera playing tricks on us. I used the same color thread for both of them. I was a little surprised by the difference.
There are a few differences in water soluble stabilizers. For this type of project, I just use the Sulky Water Soluble Stabilizer. It is thin and easily comes off without making the project sticky. It is pretty inexpensive as well.
For projects like free standing lace, the Sulky Water Soluble Stabilizer is not the best solution. I love free standing lace. I used it for my daughter’s 3D Butterfly Birthday dress. For free standing lace, I like to use Floriani Wet and Gone Water Soluble Stabilizer.
I used the wet and gone for this lace crown I made her a long time ago. She tried it on for me the other day, because I am making her a new Christmas crown and needed to know if I needed to know if I needed to make it bigger this time. The Fleur de Lis lace crown is one of my favorite free standing lace designs. You can find it here on Etsy.
This is Baby Girl wearing it for Valentine’s Day when she was younger. The picture was before I made her clothes, so this is a store bought outfit. If you know of sewing patterns similar to this, please let me know, as I love this outfit. It looks as if her head has grown since I made her the crown, so I will need to make the new one a little larger.
We are all excited about our DIY Christmas Toy Blog Tour based on the blog post Best Homemade Toys to Make for Christmas Presents! Please visit all of the wonderful bloggers on our tour to get more toy ideas for your little ones!
- December 11th: Intro by Seams Sew Lo
- December 12th: Stitched by Jennie
- December 13th: Sewing Blue
- December 14th: Manning the Machine
- December 15th: Threadistry
- December 18th: Sew Cucio
- December 19th: Oak Blue Designs
- December 20th: Kathy’s Quilts and More
- December 21st: Just Delphine
- December 22nd: Sewing by Ti
- Decmeber 23rd: Seams Sew Lo
Thank you to our Wonderful sponsors Phat Quarters and Seamingly Smitten for the awesome giveaway! Please enter below
Love the snowballs
Thank you!!
Your snowballs are great! I really need to start using my embroidery machine again, it has been a long time. I am surprised at how much the stabilizer mattered, thank you for sharing this, I will definitely be sure to use the right stabilizer on my next embroidery project.
My embroidery machine goes unused for short periods of time, but I do like to use it. I used to use it all the time.
These are so cute and look so quick and easy to whip up. I’ve lost my washaway stabilizer :/. Need to add it to my JoAnn shopping list this week!
Thank you! They are so much fun and quick! Oh no! Must buy more stabilizer!
I would make the drum or the rucksack, but your snowballs are very cute!
Cute snowballs!
Love the snowballs, especially since we don’t get snow that much. It is the perfect way to “enjoy” the snow! Thank you for the idea!