Seed Farmer play mat finished

I have finished with the seed farmer play mat set, except for the cow pouch.  I am partly done with it, but since I have shown pictures of what it looks like, I am not going to blog it with the set.  It will be finished to go with the set before I give it away.  The order request was for a farm set with arches.  My farm set usually does not have arches, but it is always easy enough to make it become one.  Most of the toys are machine sewn, so it was a little trickier to get the hooks on, but I think they look okay the way I did them.

This is the mat with all the toys hanging.  I actually made nine toys for this mat because they are small enough to have two hang from each side of the arches and one in the middle.  Usually, there are only five with one from each side of the arches.

This shows the mat without arches.  I designed this mat to
look like seed farmers like the couple that are having the
baby are. They grow organic seeds for market. I found
the perfect print material for the border.  It has rows and
rows of seed packets. Sunflowers is one of the types of
 seeds they grow, so the sunflowers were a nice touch.

This is the back of the mat.  It is simple and is made of a soft fleece.

The gender of the baby is unknown, so I just made the man
farmer doll. His hair is from fake fur. I made a small helmet
pattern with a gusset down the middle.  It was tricky to get the
shape I wanted to go around the ears and when I glued it on,
some of the glue showed.  I used hot glue at first, but it was
why the glue showed. Hot glue dries white and crusty. I had
to cut out the bad parts to get the glue out, cut some new
pieces to fill in the empty spots, and then I glued it on with
no sew glue which dries clear and does not glob up. The  other
problem I had with this doll is that after he was stuffed, I
realized his neck was too long. I had to tuck it down into
his body a little bit and sew it down so it was shorter.
Once I had the hat finished, it looked just fine. 

This little lamb always turns out just a little bit differently every
time I make it, but this one is adorable. The wooly looking
material I use is difficult to sew into such a small object.

I always do the duck for the farm mats, but this one is a little
different than my last two.  He is made of felt instead of
fleece and his beak and feet are made from some material
that I usually use for making diapers.
It is water absorbent material that is shiny and I like the
texture for these body parts.

I had so many problems getting the face of this kitty to look
right.  It is new to the set.  I added her as one of the extra four
I needed to complete this set.

This sweet little puppy is also one of the new ones. His ears
are always the part that looks strange when I first get it sewn.
They stick straight out like wings, so I had to tack them down
so he wouldn't fly away. He is also a little crooked, but he looks
good from this angle. His head is on a little sideways, but that
is okay. He just looks like he is looking to the side instead of
straight forward.

These are the four toys that I have made before and since they all look pretty much the same, I just took a picture of all of them together.  My last cow was reversed with the black and white areas.  Also, this one is made out of a soft fleece instead of the felt that I usually use for the cow.  Fleece is actually a little easier to use because it isn't as thick.  Felt is wonderful to use until you try to turn the tiny parts right side out through an extremely small opening.  Fleece turns a little easier, so when I found that I had some white and black fleece, I decided to use it instead of the felt.

I will get back to making the cow pouch so that I can be totally finished with this set.  The baby is due any day, so I am just getting it done in time for my son to give it to his friends when the baby comes.  However, I knew that if I didn't get it finished in time, it would still be okay.  It's not like the baby will be playing with the set for a few months. I think he just wanted to give them a gift when the baby arrived. Also, when I get going on a project, I like to finish it right away.  I started this set just last week, so I feel happy that I have been able to get it done so soon.  Designing the mat is always the hardest part.  It just takes so much time to figure out what will go on the mat, find the material necessary to meet the needs of the design, cut things out, heat bond them into place, and then applique' them all in place.  Choosing the materials and getting the toys cut out also takes up quite a bit of time.  It actually takes much less time to sew them than it does to get them cut out.

Another Play Mat

I have finished another play mat that my son ordered for his girl friend's sister who is having a baby girl.  They loved the last play set that I made with the fox theme, so they ordered one with a forest theme.  Two of the animals are the same as in the fox mat, but there are three new ones.  I had to go through the whole refiguration of the pattern to downsize the animals for the three new ones.  The other two were so easy because all of that was done before.  This mat is for a girl, but they didn't want any pink.  They figure she will get plenty of pink things and they wanted the animals to be in realistic colors.  One of the new animals is an owl.  I decided to make the background of the mat with an owl as the main theme.  The back is also with the same owl print that I used on the fox themed set. I had plenty of that fleece material left to make another mat. I downloaded a picture of an owl sitting on a branch of a tree that looked easy enough to applique' onto the mat.  I decided to sort of make it like a night owl, so I bought some material that sort of looks like sky.  I could have gotten a navy blue to make it darker, but I thought the lighter blue would look better for a baby.  They had so many shades of blue for this print, so I just chose the one that I thought looked better for a little girl and matched the owl print material that I found to use as the border.  Next, I had to find some material I liked for the arches.  I found lots of blue with white stars.  I wanted to use that as the arches, but there were also many shades of blue for that one.  It was a challenge to find the one that matched both the background color and the border color.  I was about to give up and go a different route from stars as the print when I located the perfect one.  With the material purchased, I went back to the owl.  I enlarged it with graphing again, 1/2" to 1".  To make it look more like a night owl, I put a large white moon behind the owl's head.  I think it is very cute and I am happy with the creation.

This shows the mat without the arches attached. I first tried just using fabric glue to attach the eyes because they have so many layers, but after getting everything else applique'd on, they didn't look right, so I also sewed them into place.  It was difficult to do.  It is hard to see in the picture, but the eyes have the white, a little bit of blue, and the small round black center.  I was afraid the needle might get jammed because of the amount of glue I had used to put them on, but it didn't and I really liked the way they looked once I did get them sewn around.  It made them stand out even more than before.

This is the mat with the arches and the animals attached.  The arches were an experience.  I wanted to make them a little taller than the ones I have made in the past, but I miscalculated how much taller they should be.  They are really tall, but I turned that mistake into what I like to refer as, "a happy accident."  By having taller arches, the mat can grow with the baby.  While the baby is still very young, she can lay on her back and reach up to the animals who are being hung with two or three rings instead of just one.  As she grows and can sit up, the extra rings can be removed so that the animals hang higher and she can still play with them, but more at her eye level.  Works for me.

This little hedgehog is one of the new characters to this set.  Kay, that is buying this set, chose this animal because she thinks it is so cute.  She really likes the way I made it, so I'm glad I did it, although it isn't really my favorite.  Kay loves the feet.

The little deer makes a cute animal for a forest themed play set.  It is rather sweet.

Here is the wise old owl.  It took a combination of two patterns to make this one.  I used the tail from another pattern, which you cannot see in the picture, because there wasn't one with this pattern.  I also added a belly to this one which was also not with the pattern.

These are the two like the ones from the other mat.