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Bugs and a Book Review!

July 6, 2013

I have always loved making stuffed animals and toys and I have been admiring the work of Abby Glassenberg for a while now.  Abby is an amazing softie designer and blogs over at While She Naps. When her new book, Stuffed Animals, came out I didn’t hesitate to pre-order it from Amazon.  Here is the book with my (in progress) bug on my cutting table! bug in progress with book

The book has 16 insanely cute stuffed animal/creature patterns, but what is even cooler is that she has 52 Lessons that give you tips and tricks on how to design your own stuffed animal!  This was just the book I needed to practice with and give me the confidence to design my own softies!  So far I have only completed 2 of the 16 patterns – but already I am learning!  My most recent project completed from the book are these adorable bugs!

SONY DSC Abby’s pattern uses the standard black and yellow colors for this bumblebee, but I decided to tweak the colors since I wanted to give these bugs to the 2 year olds at my kids’ upcoming bug birthday party (in August).

SONY DSC I started with the pink and purple bug and followed the book’s instructions to use a felted wool ball for the eyes.  My major problem on this one was finding the felted wool balls in white!  I managed to find 2 white balls in a bag of earth tone balls, but if I wanted more I was going to have to make my own.  She turned out cute but I wasn’t really sure I wanted to start making felted balls!

SONY DSC So for the next bug, I used black safety eyes (after a lot of back and forth between sizes and colors) in a largish size.  I LOVE the way this guy turned out – and much easier than having to make my own felted balls!!  So the next 2 bugs got black eyes too!!

SONY DSC Green and yellow cute bug!

SONY DSC By the time I made the blue and green bug – I had finally figured out the best way to put the head together to put the closing spot on the right side.  He turned out pretty stinkin’ cute!!  I kinda want to make the swarm bigger!

SONY DSC

Stuffed Animals is available now – and Abby has more cute softie patterns in her etsy shop!  Check out my shop for new stuffed animals soon!  Sewing these guys (and any stuffed animal) make me so happy – I have to get sewing more!

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