Two Year Old Backpacks

Yesterday my Small Person turned 2.
We had a Ladybugs' Picnic at the local Botanic Gardens, inviting all his friends to wear black and red and join us near the really cool playground there.

I've been prepping like mad, and can now totally understand other parents' love for pay-n-play padded spaces and professionally catered events! I tried not to pressure myself too much (hence the low-key theme), figuring two year olds would just love the chance to run around and have fun, but the one thing I did pull out all the stops for were the party bags. I'm not super-comfortable with handing a group of very small people a bunch of sugar and chemicals to take home and smear all over their rooms, and I really wanted not to give away a heap of disposable plastic junk that would go into land-fill in no time at all.
Also, the food issue was especially important for me since not only does the birthday boy have some food sensitivity issues, but quite a few of his friends do, as well as having all-out allergies.

So instead of traditional party bags I found vegbee's toddler backpack over at her indietutes blog. It was the perfect size for our toddler invitees, and the perfect shape for bug bags!

Inside each bag was a bubble-blowing kit (so I didn't totally escape the cheap plastic - at least it's reusable), a red ribbon on a stick (made at home with chopsticks and lengths of ribbon from Spotlight) and two home-made lavender bath fizzies (with printed instructions designed by me).

Long story short the bags and contents were a bit of a hit - far more than my mediocre attempt at a birthday cake (thank goodness I have lots of years to perfect this art!) and now I have to go figure out my neglected Paypal account, to donate to vegbee.
And after all my stressing and work we all had a lovely time and quite a few of our guests decided to wear their new backpacks before they even got home.

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!

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!

Finished for Mirabel!

I finished my fourth softie for Mirabel, today!
Four was the magic number I committed myself to, so I'm feeling pretty happy to have made it.
This is another go at the Blinking Flights pattern, of course. Something masculine, to go with the very femme florals of the last softie. Plus, I had visions of using the supercool green and white stripes from my frilly hat in a bug.

I lurve this guy's pink mohawk and his cool older brother air (okay, so I'm guessing, being the eldest in my family!). His little smirk looks very laid-back and relaxed, to my mind. (And how awesome is his embroidered nose ring?)

Bug Softie

I've been a bit slack with the blogging lately, and that's partially because I've been a bit slack with the sewing. To break my sewing drought I decided I needed to add to the Softies I would be sending away for Mirabel (because one is pathetic) and I wanted to do something fun, that wouldn't break my brain. So I picked up the Blinking Flights bug pattern and some scraps of bright, cheerful fabric. It only took me two nights to whip up this island bug.
(Why are my creations always just that bit wonky? Let's pretend, and say it was their Creatrix deliberately imbuing them with some of herself, shall we?)

I'm not really a pattern follower, more what I call "A Hack and Slash Seamster", but the pattern plus knowing what the end result should look like made this a super easy softie to make. I didn't trim the seams round the curve of the head, as advised, and I think it shows, unfortunately, and the antennae were actually quite tricky, because they're so slim and require quite a precise control of your machine. But otherwise, this was a really easy, FUN pattern to make (and I felt very inspired by the bright colours and fabrics used by their original creator).

I'm now also kind of in love with the main, flower print fabric I used, and want to make myself a clothing item from it - and I think I've found the perfect pattern.