Sewing for my Kids

When I first started sewing, I made loads of things for my kids. Since it's become my day job, I make less and less for them, which I constantly feel guilty about, especially when they ask if every pretty, brightly coloured object is for them!

So this weekend I did some sewing just for them, and just because I could.

Seren had spotted this gorgeous 'make your own kit' on my Facebook news feed:

From Clara & Macy: Do you fancy a 'get your very own squirrel kit first before they are available anywhere else and at a super marvellous price' kind of offer. You do? Of course you do! 

Okay so I'm offering 20 squirrel kits with a super pre-launch offer of 30% off their usual price of £18. That makes them a mere £12.60. 

P&P is £1 for the UK, £2.50 for Europe, £3.50 for everywhere else.

The lovely Laura from Clara & Macy has designed a new kit which is going on sale soon and this was a chance to get one before they were on general release.

Initially I said no, I wouldn't buy one for Seren as I could make her something similar without needing to spend anything (as I already had the felt, threads & stuffing), but then I thought that a) she said she liked this and copying it would be wrong and b) it would be quite nice to sit with all the things I needed, with the instructions and pattern all worked out for me, by someone else and just do what I was told, rather than trying, reworking, retrying, getting annoyed, leaving it for 2 weeks, coming back to it later.... etc!

So I got the kit. I was thinking maybe Seren could try sewing it herself, but it's a bit too advanced for her (the packaging says 8+ and I think that's about right) Seren is only 5 and although I like to think she's advanced... I didn't want to set her up to fail with something too fiddly.

I was really pleased that when I measured it all out, there was actually enough felt in there to make 2 squirrels, because of course as soon as Patrick saw it, he needed one too!

So here are the two finished squirrels: (Ellie, Seren's one on the left and Bertie, Patrick's one on the right)

Front and back of the squirrels

Irritatingly not as neat as the one on the box!!

The gorgeous packaging the kit came in, including a Clara paper doll and clothes (Seren's claimed that!)

I think the kits are lovely. They do expect a level of experience, not in terms of understanding the instructions, but in terms of getting the finished product looking anywhere near as cute as the one on the box... my first attempt shows Bertie (on the right of the pic above) with very skewiff eyes and not the neatest of stitching. But Ellie (2nd attempt) fared better!

In terms of the time it took me to create these little critters... I started at 5pm on Saturday evening and finished at about 11.30pm the same evening.

As I'd expected, I needed to add more stuffing and a tiny bit of extra brown felt for the second one, but to make one squirrel, there's more than enough of everything you need in the kit and I'd definitely recommend them to anyone who wants something cute and fun to make, without needing a sewing machine or too many fancy stitches.

The other bit of sewing I did was in honour of Chinese New Year and it was to make a couple of dragons on sticks to be taken into school today:

I spotted something similar to this funny little dragony chap on a google search and decided that I could adapt it quite easily to make up a couple of dragons on a Sunday evening... so that's what I did.

The kids loved parading them off into school today and I really enjoyed the stress free experience of making things this week, just to be enjoyed and played with by my two little monsters!