Giraffe Softie

Another project for the baby.

I only have 6 weeks left, and a long list of things to get done before her arrival that are more important than stuffed toys.  I just thought I'd do the fun, unnecessary things first.  For some reason, I don't feel inspired by making crib sheets lately.

The kid's room is giraffe themed.  So I wanted her to have a feminine giraffe to make a little connection to all the other giraffe prints going on.  Each kid has a shelf, and my son has a giraffe, so I thought I'd go with a giraffe softie toy for her shelf too.  I decided to make one, and was inspired by this cutie over at PinkSuedeShoe.  She mentions in her post how time consuming stuffing the skinny neck was, so I decided to hack out my own pattern to make it easier to stuff. 

Some of my favorite features are the rat-tail ribbon horns (is it really called rat-tail ribbon or is that just what my mom called and that's all I know?) and the eyelashes.

I was lazy and just used a fine tip permanent marker (rather than sew embroidery) to draw 3 eyelashes before I sewed on the button eye.

The mouth and nostrils were also just drawn on with a skinny Sharpie.

The limbs are attached by buttons.  I actually made button holes in the joints so they are movable and removable.  I don't know exactly why you'd want to take all the arms and legs off the giraffe, I'm sure my boy would have a fun game with it being dead and limbless or something, but that just seemed the easiest way to make them adjustable. 

Also taking tips from PinkSuedeShoe, this was really easy to stuff.  Mainly because I designed it a little white trash.  I serged the bottom and just gathered it all together to cinch it up underneath.  I'm planning on putting fabric in there over the polyfill stuffing.  So this method made it super easy to fill with stuffing, but could present a problem used as an actual toy and the kids pulling out all the stuffing.  I actually think if I'd had another adult around to help me, I could have knotted it tight enough with no hole.

I thought about adding a turquoise belly, but left the only turquoise accent the inside of the ears.

To make the red and white giraffe print, I actually painted all the pieces with fabric paint after they were cut out.  Then I could heat press them while they were all flat.

It was a fun little project, and sits on Baby Ellaria's shelf which will be above her crib once we eventually set it up. 

As I was making it, I thought it was turning into a total flop, like the shape of the legs, but in the end, I think it's pretty cute.