Saturday, April 10, 2010

The Easter Bilby visits

As bunnies are a really terrible pest here in Australia, and the Wicked Fairy is very aware of this as his parents own a farm, we have agreed that the Easter Bilby (whose chocolate presence can be seen on supermarket shelves alongside his European brethren) will be visiting the Tiny Tyrant each year.

This year the Bilby brought a few handmade soy chocolate eggs and something else - bunny skittles, to practice "kick" at with a ball! I knew these skittles would be a hit before I even began them. My prototype was March's Toy Society item, and the Tyrant pounced on the toy and began gleefully carrying and tossing it about the moment it was done (he did the same thing with the purple hippo. It makes me almost sorry to give them away).

The bunnies are stuffed with a core of fabric scraps from the last three Toy Society projects, and rounded and softened with Hobbyfill. This makes them just a smidge heavier than they'd otherwise be, which makes them a little bit harder to knock over.
So the Tyrant's started placing his ball on the ground 15 centimetres away from the grouped skittles and then gleefullly kicking it - conveniently, he's then close enough to kick any skittles over that he managed to miss, without taking a step!

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Toy Society drops


Although I've been running a bit late, I have managed to do roughly a toy a month for my Toy Society drops.

Because of the lateness, January and February's drops were both that wonderful hippo pattern I bought from 2 Little Banshees at Stitches & Craft last year. It's become a wonderfully soothing activity that comes together in more or less an evening (maybe two, for stuffing and fiddly bits like embroidery and button attachment). These two were drop number 974 and 984 respectively.

But in March I managed to sew something a bit different, and dropped it on the 1st April, just before Easter.

It's a little overexposed, as the Attack Toddler managed to get at my camera and change the settings the day before (and I was in a rush to get a shot before the drop, so didn't realise before taking the photos). This is an altered pattern from the book Softies. The original was a cat skittle, but a bunny felt much more seasonally appropriate!