DIY Wednesday Again!!!

Hello, it's me wearing the Kakak Krafter hat again. 

Half of you would have already known what I've been up to for the past few days because I was talking about nothing else but this one project (typical easily excited me). So for today we have the "Making of Little Owlivia"!!!

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I downloaded an owl template from here.  However, it's too thin for my liking so I transfered the image onto Microsoft Excel and adjusted the "fatness". Heheh. Trust me, Excel is the holy grail to DIY-ing templates and stencils. If you had studied in University of Malaya circa late 90's / early 2000's, you would totally get me. 

 Cut patterns out. Have fabrics ready.

Attach templates to fabric. I didn't use all. Malas.

Start stitching/attaching the parts together. I painstakingly hand-stitched these again. It's so therapeutic (eh?). 

Feet go first.

Then the eyes.

Beak and lastly, wings. 

I only stitched the two sides (of the body) the following night at my mom's. 

No, I didn't purposely go back to do this. My youngest sister came home from India for semester break so I wanted to say hello. The "hello" doubled up to  "Can you teach me how to use the sewing machine?". She's quite good with needlework and has her own machine in India (bless her). 

Dentist-cum-tailor. Bukak klinik, time takde patient boleh amik tempahan menjahit. Ngam tak? ;p

Using the sewing machine was NOT easy. I repeat, NOT easy. It apparently requires massive motor coordination. My hands were fumbling with the fabric curves while my foot was trying to control the pressure on the foot press. How the hell does my mom do it ever so gracefully???

I was ecstatic when I finally put the owl's body together.

But alas... I forgot to tuck the feet in (on the right side). Vongok ("-_-)

When turned in, we 'lost' her feet cos they were stitched INSIDE the cavity. Aih....

Exhibit A

Thankfully a sewing machine is a wonder thingamajic of some sort, even if it's already more than 30 years old.  I just had to loosen the stitches, tuck the feet out, and mend the gap by running new stitches over the old ones. Pheww....

I stuffed the cavity with polyfibre. I used pillow stuffing, and didn't go for the ones at art supply stores or haberdashery cos those are somehow 4x more expensive. I believe they're all the same thing. 

The last step was closing the little girl up. I must say that I'm proud of my workmanship. It's definitely not professional quality, but I think it's not bad for someone who last attempted a sewing project more than 20 years ago. And that was just a simple quilted pencil case.

Tiny "hidden" stitches

SO here it is.....introducing Little Owlivia!!!!!

Sitting confidently by herself

With Bapak

With Mommy, and of course, with Lil' Pea. Hehe.

I have a gazillion other projects after this one, all safely pinned up on my Sew Inspired board. I actually wanted to make a big plushy for Pea but I thought it's better to practice on a mini version so I could take note of the do's and don'ts. Trust me, there's a quite a list of those. 

I have so much fabric left and by the time Pea arrives, there could be a whole safari waiting to play with her hahaha....

Till next Wednesday, folks, Kakak Krafter signs off here!