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Free Doll Pattern – Itty Bitty Sleepy Baby

November 7, 2014

Here’s a free doll pattern to make a sweet Itty Bitty Sleepy Baby – a cuddly beanbag doll.

She’s a sleepy little girl who wants to curl up and take a nap in a special someone’s pocket. :)

She’s super easy to make - great for beginners. And she’s just the right size to be a mini doll for the dolls in The Dress Up Bunch. Fun!

Want to make her?

Here’s how!

Throughout the pattern, the links go to online video tutorials demonstrating the techniques used, or to sources for the materials. All seams are 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Happy sewing!

Materials

• scrap of people colored fabric
• scrap of wool felt for the hair (I used black)
• less than a fat quarter of pajama fabric
• embroidery thread for the face (I used Sulky 12wt. cotton thread in black)
• plastic pellets (I like PolyPellets Weighted Stuffing Beads)
• polyfill stuffing (I like Soft Touch Polyfil Supreme Fiberfill)

Step 1

Download the free doll pattern here. Print it at 100% size.

Cut out all materials as directed on the pattern pieces. You should have:

1 body front piece
2 body back pieces
1 head cut from people-colored fabric
1 head cut from felt
1 front hair cut from felt
2 pigtails cut from felt

Step 2

Trace the face onto the people-colored head piece.

Embroider the eyes, nose and mouth using backstitch and a single strand of Sulky 12 wt. embroidery thread (the equivalent of two strands of regular embroidery thread).

embroidered doll face with felt bangs - partially made with a free doll pattern from Shiny Happy World

Step 3

Sew the hair to the face piece.

Stitch very close to the edge and use matching thread.

Step 4

Sew the two body back pieces together along the center back line, making sure to leave a few inches open for stuffing.

Don’t forget to backstitch at the beginning and end of your stuffing opening.

Step 5

Open up the center back pieces and press the seam nice and flat, including the edges of the stuffing opening. That will give you a nice clean edge to sew when you’re closing up that opening by hand.

doll body showing stuffing opening - part of the sewing instructions for a free doll pattern from Shiny Happy World

The stick shows where the stuffing opening is.

Step 6

Fold the bottom of the head and the top of the body in half to find the centers. Line those centers up so the head is exactly centered on the body.

Sew the face to the body front and the felt head piece to the body back.

Step 7

Fold the heads up and press.

doll front and doll back pieces waiting to be sewn together

The seam allowance should be pressed toward the head so the body remains flat.

Step 8

Lay the body front face up on a flat surface.

Lay the pigtails over the face as shown in the photo. Don’t worry about making them perfectly even - crooked is cute. :-)

partially sewn doll with pigtails pinned in place

Pin or clip in place.

Step 9

Place the body back face down over the front, sandwiching the pigtails between the layers. Pin or clip the layers together carefully.

I match the neck seams first, then the center bottoms, then the dips at the sides and then the tips of the arms and legs and the head.

doll front pinned to doll back - ready to be sewn

Step 10

Sew all the way around the body using 1/4 inch seam allowance. Make sure you’re catching the pigtails.

I changed the thread color when I got to the hair. I didn’t want specks of pink colored thread to show at the seam.

Clip into the seam allowance at all the concave curves and points as shown in the photo.

partially sewn doll body with clipping locations indicated

Step 11

Turn the body right side out.

Awwww! Isn’t she a cutie? Take a moment to admire your work so far. She’s almost done!

Step 12

Stuff the head pretty firmly with fiberfill.

Pour 1/2 cup of plastic pellets into the body and sew up the opening in the back using ladder stitch.

Finished!

Give her a big hug and then slip her into a special someone’s pocket. :-)

finished Itty Bitty Sleepy Baby sitting in the lap of a Pip the Cat doll - both patterns from Shiny Happy World

I designed her to be just the right size to work as a sweet baby doll for everyone in The Dress Up Bunch. Because dolls need dolls to play with, of course. :-)

If you like this, there are two more similar free doll patterns you should take a look at – the Itty Bitty Bunny and the Itty Bitty Pocket Pirate.

Like all Shiny Happy World designs – you’re welcome to sell items you make with my patterns, but please don’t sell or distribute the patterns themselves. 🙂

If you like this free doll pattern, sign up for the Shiny Happy News! Subscribers get a weekly newsletter with updates, special offers and links to happy things. Sign up here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

The Dress Up Bunch is a collection of cute and cuddly rag dolls. Get patterns for the dolls, plus all their fun outfits and accessories!

A Pretty Felt Bird Ornament Pattern

November 6, 2014

I seem to be slightly obsessed with pretty, patterned birds – but they’re so much fun to stitch!

This felt bird ornament is the tenth ornament in the Christmas Club collection. We’ve only got two more to go! Here they all are so far. . .

~~You can still join at any time! The Welcome PDF that you get with your order has a link to access all the patterns that have gone out so far.~~

The Club is closed now, but you can still get all the patterns!

Get the entire 2014 pattern collection (at a discount!) here.

Get just the bird pattern here.

See all the felt Christmas ornament patterns here.

Merry Christmas!

Best,
Wendi

How to Make an Easy Charity Quilt – a simple and fun tutorial

November 4, 2014

The easy charity quilt I made for Craft Hope is finished and on its way. I love how it turned out!

Craft Hope is an organization that partners with different organizations to collect handmade items for donation. I know lots of crafters like making items to donate and there’s always a demand for patterns for easy charity quilts, so when I made my Craft Hope Quilt I decided to share the how-to so you could make one too, if you’re so inclined.

It’s an easy and fun technique – great for beginners of all ages. I’ve been posting lots of in-progress photos as I go and I’ve been getting a ton of questions, so I’m going to answer them here all in one place. . .

How are you piecing and quilting the blocks all at once?

That is the magic of Quilt As You Go. It really is the perfect no-stress way to make a scrap quilt of this kind.

You can see a full tutorial for the process here.

Did you really make it all from scraps?

Yep. I have (had) a lot of scraps and I store them in baskets sorted by color – which made it really easy to make this kind of quilt without making a HUGE mess in my studio. It was more of a manageable mess. 🙂

If you did all the quilting while you pieced, how are you backing it? Do you have to quilt it again?

Here’s what the back of the quilt looks like.

I backed it in Cuddle Fleece – delightfully soft, cuddly, and easy to work with. I used it as the back of a quilt for my daughter a little over a year ago and she loves it so much that she basically told me I should never use anything else. 🙂

You can see that the front is nice and crinkly after washing – every seam is also quilted so it crinkles up nicely.

The back has a lot less quilting. I sewed all the finished, quilted blocks together, pressed the seams open, backed it with the fleece, basted it (I use safety pins) and then quilted 1/4″ from each block-joining seam. I like the kind of frame-ish effect around each block and I like the big grid on the back.

There’s a video here showing that technique in more detail.

How big is the finished quilt?

Each block is a 10″ square, finished, so the full quilt is 60″ wide and 90″ tall. You could very easily make it bigger or smaller just by adding or removing blocks. You could also change the size of the blocks, but I don’t think I’d make them much bigger – a 10″ grid on the back of the quilt works very well but there might be some bagging or sagging if you went a lot bigger. I’ve done some quilts with 12″ blocks and that works fine too.

Why don’t you spray baste?

I tried it once (many years ago) and it was a disaster. The fumes are pretty intense and you’re supposed to do it outside – but there’s no clean place in my yard to do it and I don’t have a clothesline to use for that method. So I tried it inside where the fumes almost killed me. I got overspray in my carpet (which was very hard to wash out) and then the adhesive gummed up my needle the whole time I was sewing. The product has probably improved a lot since then (I don’t even remember what brand I tried) but it will be a while before I’m ready to try it again. 😛

How do you pick your binding on a quilt with so many colors?

I really love to use black and white or dark grey bindings with a rainbow quilt like this. I actually would have preferred a nice crisp black and white stripe for this, but I didn’t have enough of that and I needed to ship the quilt out to make the deadline so I went with the black and white gingham-ish print you see in the photo above. I love black and white with bright colors!

That’s it!

With winter and the holidays coming, a lot of organizations are calling for quilts – especially twin quilts and crib quilts for kids in need and lap quilts for seniors. This is a fun technique for an easy charity quilt that even beginning quilters can make successfully. Kids can do it too! Give it a try!

Happy quilting!

Best,
Wendi

A Matroyshka Doll – felt Christmas ornament pattern

October 30, 2014

All the detail stitching and bits of applique in this matroyshka doll were So Much Fun! I love a rich little project like this one – lots of detail for fun stitching, but it’s small so I can finish it in a couple of nights. 🙂

This is the ninth ornament in the Christmas Club collection. Here they all are so far. . .

~~You can still join at any time! The Welcome PDF that you get with your order has a link to access all the patterns that have gone out so far.~~

The club is closed now, but you can still get all the patterns!

Get the entire 2014 ornament collection here.

Get just the Matroyshka doll pattern here.

Find all the felt ornament patterns here.

Merry Christmas!

Best,
Wendi

Knitting Phi: technique for carrying yarn across stripes

October 29, 2014

Do you want to see what I’m working on?

I’m knitting Phi, a fabulously fun garter stitch shawl.

The shawl has stripes that can be quite thick, so you need to carry the unused yarn up the side of the thick stripes. I came up with a little technique for how to do this in a way that’s nearly invisible on the right side (a modification of the technique suggested by the designer), and I thought you might be interested!

Here’s the video!

That’s what I’ve been up to this week… how about you? I hope you have an awesome Wednesday, and get some great knitting/crocheting done this week!

If you want to check out more Work-In-Progress posts, please check out Tami’s Ami’s Blog, who’s been organizing a great WIP Wednesday blog theme! And, don’t forget to come back for FO (Finished Object) Friday!

How to attach a flattened piece in amigurumi

October 28, 2014

How to Attach a Flattened Piece to Amigurumi - a tutorial from Shiny Happy World and FreshStitches

Every once in a while, you’ll come across instructions that tell you to ‘flatten piece, and attach’. But, what does that mean? Today, I’ll show you step-by-step!

Let’s assume we’ve followed the crochet instructions, and we have a piece (that’s been worked in the round), and we’ve fastened off. The piece will look something like this one:

Now, we need to carry out the instruction ‘flatten piece’. It’s easy! Simply squish the piece closed, leaving your long tail on one side.

how to attach a flattened piece in amigurumi

Thread the long tail of your piece onto a tapestry needle (mine is shorter than usual for photo purposes!).

How to attach a flattened piece to amigurumi

Now, we need to do the ‘attach piece’ part. To attach a flattened piece, the key is that you want to go through both layers of your flattened piece.

Run your tapestry needle through both layers of your piece, then through one stitch on your background work (just like you usually attach):

Now, just repeat this last step, until you’ve attached your entire piece! Yay!

Here are handy links to all the posts about attaching parts. . .

Return to the main table of contents for Let’s Learn to Crochet Amigurumi.

Move on to the lessons about faces and details.

Happy stitching!

Learn How to Knit a Sock

October 21, 2014

Rainbow striped socks knit by FreshStitches

I love knitting socks. And I get a lot of questions about which resources I’d recommend for learning.

So, in today’s blog post, I’m going to give you a list of my favorite sources!

Your First Pair of Socks

Do you feel comfortable increasing and decreasing? Have you used double point needles? Great! Then you’re ready to knit your first pair of socks!

My Easy Peasy Sock Pattern is designed for the first-timer. It’s a pattern that’s easy to follow and gives you a nice (although thick) sock.

Socks knit by mmeglet on RavelryIf it’s your first time, then there are a few things you should know. First, ssk is a decrease, not simply slipping two stitches and knitting the next. If you’re not familiar with the stitch, then watch this video. Second, turning the heel requires working short rows. They aren’t scary, but they’re weird. If you follow my instructions to the letter, your heel will come out perfectly. Don’t overthink it.

If learning from a written pattern isn’t for you, then I highly recommend Donna Drachunas’s Knit Sock Workshop on Craftsy. It’s a video course, so you’ll learn everything you need to know!

If you used handwash-only yarn to knit your socks, you’ll want to learn how to hand wash your socks!

Your Second Pair of Socks

I designed my sock pattern to be the easiest to do… but it’s not the best-fitting sock. For your second sock, you’ll probably want to use fingering weight yarn and choose a different pattern. I adore the Basic Sock Pattern by Churchmouse.

neon knitted socks

I’ve knit 7 pairs of socks from this pattern. It’s easy to understand and contains lots of variations.

I also adore The Simple Collection by Tin Can Knits. I haven’t knit them yet, but I have no doubt that Rye is a fabulous sock to knit as one of your first.

You also might be prepared to ditch your double point needles. My favorite way to knit socks is with a 9″ Circular Needle. Read this post to see why I love them!

Toe-up socks knitting

And more…

My second favorite technique is to use two circular needles. You can even knit two socks at a time! I highly recommend Antje Gillingham’s book for learning the technique.

two at a time on two circulars

Socks can become a lifelong addiction… they’re portable and fun to make. As you make more socks, you might get interested in more complicated patterns and designs. I have the book Sock Knitting Master Class: Innovative Techniques + Patterns From Top Designers, and it really gets your sock juices flowing. Check out this really interesting toe shaping I learned to do:

toe up socks

You might want to have a listen to my recent Coffee with Stacey episode about knitting socks– I chat all about yarns, caring for your socks and different techniques!

Ready to Cast on?

Are you already a sock knitter? Or want to start? I hope you love these resources!

pile of hand knit socks

Spooky – a free cat applique pattern

October 17, 2014

Spooky - free cat applique pattern from Shiny Happy World

You can add this free cat applique pattern to your Cuddly Cats quilt pattern if you like. I designed it especially to have really terrific eyes for a black cat – but you can make it any color you like.

I love black cats! I grew up with two of them – Nasty and Gandalf. But it can be tricky to applique the eyes on a black cat. Almost all of my animals in all of my applique patterns have simple black oval eyes. That helps give all my designs a cohesive look – and they’re also simple to applique. But what if the animal you’re making is black? Black bears, black panda eyes, black raccoon eyes, black penguin eyes, and, of course, black cat eyes.

This post shows you a quick and easy trick to applique dark eyes on dark faces. But I really love black cats and I really wanted to make a free cat applique pattern with big, glowy cat eyes.

So I did!

Especially for Halloween, I created this spooky black cat applique – a single block applique pattern – with huge luminous green eyes. I love her! And the pattern is the same size as the blocks in the Cuddly Cats quilt so you can mix and match if you like. 🙂

There’s a tutorial here with instructions for making a hanging sleeve so you can make your block into a Halloween wall decoration. It’s easy!

Here’s how to make the block. (This video shows all the steps for working with fusible adhesive – if you’ve never done it before you’ll find it helpful.)

Step 1

Download the template pieces here.

Step 2

Trace or print the pattern onto the paper side of the fusible adhesive.

I use Heat & Bond Lite printable fusible adhesive sheets so I just printed out the page. No tracing!

The image has already been reversed, so just trace or print. If you’re tracing, be sure to trace the facial features too. You’ll need those for Step 5.

Step 3

Rough cut around each shape and fuse it to the back of your fabric.

applique pattern pieces cut out - from the Spooky free cat applique pattern from Shiny Happy World

Leave a little bit extra all the way around - a little extra extra (at least 1/4 inch) where there’s a dotted line, like the top of neck shoulders and the base of the ears.

Step 4

Cut around each piece neatly. Cut directly on the solid lines.

Leave a little seam allowance on the dotted lines - the top of the neck and the base of the ears will tuck behind the head.

Step 5

Remember when I told you to make sure you traced the facial features in Step 1? Now you’re going to use that. Hold the face up to a window so the light shines through it. You’ll be able to see the lines, and the adhesive will stabilize the fabric so you can trace on it without it crinkling up.

Since this is a dark fabric, I traced with a white chalk pencil.

Here you can see all the tracing I did – without the light shining through.

I traced the whiskers and mouth exactly, since I’ll be stitching over those lines. I traced the nose a little smaller, and just marked the corners of the eyes to help me position the applique pieces later.

Step 6

If you’re doing Quilt As You Go (I did) then you can quilt your block before adding the applique. So easy!

I used a bunch of orange scrappy strips all sewn together for a super textured background, but you can use just one solid square.

Cut your background fabric and a piece of 100% cotton batting 11 inches square.

Layer the block with a piece of 100% cotton batting. Quilt any pattern you like!

Find all the Quilt As You Go tutorials here.

If you’ll do the quilting later, simply skip this step.

Step 7

Peel off the paper backing and arrange the pieces on a background block. Tuck the ears and the neck behind the head.

Remember - all the dotted lines indicate where pieces tuck behind other pieces.

Fuse the pieces in place.

Step 8

Outline all the pieces with black thread and a simple straight stitch – or choose your favorite decorative stitch.

This video has some tips for outlining those tight curves.

Done!

One free cat applique pattern, all finished!

If you’re making a one-block project, go ahead and finish it up!

If you’re making a bunch of cats to join into a quilt - have fun!

Please share a photo of what you make! You can share it in the Shiny Happy People group or tag it with #shinyhappyworld on Instagram.

Happy stitching!

Perpendicular Mattress Stitch (knitting)

October 17, 2014

Do you remember when I was knitting this sweater?

Well… I’ve finished! And today, I want to chat about a seaming technique that really helped me out!

Perpendicular Mattress Stitch

I loved knitting this sweater… the pieces are knit flat, which makes for very speedy knitting. At the end, you need to seam the pieces together.

Have a look at the sleeves. You’ll notice that you need to seam together stitches that are going vertically to stitches that are going horizontally. Tricky, right?

Fortunately, I discovered that MochiMochiLand has a fabulous tutorial for just this technique! She uses it for toys, but it works great on sweaters, too. You’ll want to click over to this blog post and scroll down to ‘Vertical-to-Horizontal Mattress Stitch’.

Genius!

Do you prefer seaming or double points?

When knitting a baby sweater, there’s no getting around those tiny little sleeves! Your choices are to either knit the sleeves flat and seam them at the end, or knit tiny little rounds… usually on double point needles.

Which method to you prefer?

I’m generally a knit-in-the-round girl, but those sleeves are very tiny! (Right now, I’m knitting Flax on two circulars, and there aren’t a lot of stitches!)

I think for baby sweaters, I’m a seaming girl!

A Red Rocket – felt Christmas ornament pattern

October 16, 2014

I love this retro red rocket Christmas ornament! We have a collection of tin rockets and robots and this felt version fits right in with that vintage toy feel.

This is the seventh ornament in the Christmas Club collection. Here are the first six. . .

~~You can still join at any time! The Welcome PDF that you get with your order has a link to access all the patterns that have gone out so far. Get all the details and sign up here.~~

The weekly club is closed now, but you can still get all the patterns.

Get the entire 2014 Christmas Club pattern collection here.

Get just the red rocket pattern here.

Find all the felt ornament patterns here.

Merry Christmas!

Best,
Wendi

How are you piecing and quilting the blocks all at once?

Did you really make it all from scraps?

If you did all the quilting while you pieced, how are you backing it? Do you have to quilt it again?

How big is the finished quilt?

Why don’t you spray baste?

How do you pick your binding on a quilt with so many colors?

Your First Pair of Socks

Your Second Pair of Socks

And more…

Ready to Cast on?

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Done!

Perpendicular Mattress Stitch

Do you prefer seaming or double points?

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