Sewing with Courtney

It's been quite a while since I showed you something that Courtney sewed... last summer? She's had something in the works since the middle of March, but since she only had an hour or two after school once a week to work on it, depending on homework quantity, it's been a slow process. But she finally finished it last Tuesday, and we're both pretty excited about it!

After making her emoji pillows last summer, she decided she really enjoys making soft squishy things - stuffies, plushies - whatever you want to call them. Things that are good to sleep with, y'know? So we did a lot of searching for just the right pattern that she would be able to sew. She finally came up with this one:

Yes, a "Mewnicorn"! A unicorn kitty! Perfect for the cat-lover in her! It's a lovely detailed pattern that's even free, and it can be found here. The eyes on it bothered us, however... it seemed to me like I was looking right through its head - ha! I sent a copy of it to Auntie Jess, and here's what she sent back:

Much better, right? So Courtney went to work. She did ALL of the work. I only instructed a little bit.

She cut it out, carefully using a rotary cutter.

She did great with remembering how to thread the sewing machine.

Since she was well-practiced at sewing on appliques, this was a breeze for her.

Look at that beautiful job - front and back!

Sewing on the round bottom was a new experience. It involved lots of Wonder Clips.

She took it slowly and did an excellent job.

Here's the body, all ready for stuffing.

Stuffing is not really fun. To do the best job, you have to break the polyfill into small bits so it doesn't get lumpy. It takes a long time to fill a body this big. And you get covered with tiny fuzzy bits. But she persisted!

There was a LOT of hand sewing involved, too. Other than the appliques, all the other bits were hand sewn on with the ladder stitch. I thought she'd get tired of that, but she never lost her enthusiasm, and week by week, she made progress.

So ta-da... here we have the completed Mewnicorn with her proud creator!

Our photography assistant helped us out for a little size reference. For the ear size, y'know? ;-Þ

Needless to say... Courtney loves it!

I thought with all the detail and hard work, it would make a good 4-H/fair project. After some serious consideration, she decided 'nope'. She wanted to be able to sleep with it, etc., right away rather than have to leave it sit so it didn't get messed up and pilly. Plus, she didn't want other people touching it at the fair. Perfectly good reasons, I'd say!

So for the fair? We have another project all figured out. In fact, she's shopping for fabric for it this weekend! And with school nearly out (2½ days left), she'll have longer hours here (and no homework), so it won't take nearly as long to make. Of course, we probably can't show you till fair time in August. Patience......