Scottie Dogs

With this particular project, the material pretty much decided on what pattern I needed.  I found a brown/purple skirt in my favourite exclusive boutique (Cancer Charity shop) and couldn't help myself.  I may have mentioned that I am a fabric hoarder - turns out I am also an impulse fabric buyer too!!  I knew what I wanted to do with it but didn't have a pattern so again, lots of hours were spent looking for the one and who knew just how many dog toy patterns there were!

Anyway once I had the pattern (http://www.redtedart.com/2013/01/18/free-dog-patterns-scottie-door-stop) my first attempt went a little skew-whiff and like with my first elephant softie, the material began to give and fray once I started to stuff it.  Being the impatient sewist, I wanted to see what the finished project looked like so continued stuffing it until he could stand up.  Although there were problems with it, I liked the shape of the dog so removed the stuffing and turned him back inside out to re-sew the seams.

I should then have decided to break out the electric sewing machine and zig-zag or overlock the edges but I felt that as the seams had already been sewn - even though not nearly good enough - this second seam would suffice and as the dog wouldn't be being man-handled or pulled about, he wasn't in danger of coming apart.

When I had finished my Green tartan elephant toy (see other posting), I used the leftover material to make another dog, only this time, making my seam allowance a little larger and sewing twice around the whole pattern.  Being a little less 'ham-fisted' when stuffing this one also helped to keep the seams intact and now I have two Scottie dogs keeping guard over my stash!

The little brown one now also sports a Lindt rabbit collar and bell - couldn't bear to throw it away.



I then saw a pattern for sock puppies (http://createstudio.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/sock-dog-tutorial.htm) and decided that I just couldn't do this with my machine so I made them by hand.  Not a bad little exercise but not as happy with the result.