Epic pattern fail

I really enjoy sewing and had a lot of success this Christmas making stuffed toys for presents. I looked at pictures of toys for inspiration, but the actual construction and design were all my own. I didn’t use a pattern for anything. In fact, I’ve never made a craft using a pattern. Until now. Or at least I tried. There were…some problems. A lot of problems.

I was supposed to be making a teddy bear and instead I made…something else. This is Igor. He’s kind of like the cross between a bear and an owl and insanity. The deep green is green suede upholstery fabric and the rest of him is a cheerful holiday blanket that was on clearance from Walmart. The arms and legs were stuffed independently and sewed on, while the head and body were sewed together before stuffing, which was a new experience for me. He has no tail because I completely forgot that part, and he does have ears but somehow they got sewed on sideways. (I like that… “somehow” as if I had then on there right but then a goblin came through and mucked it all up without my knowledge)

There is very little “teddy bear” in my teddy bear and I blame that completely on the fact that I used a pattern. It’s not like I don’t know what a bear looks like but all those pieces of pattern paper confused me and I created this owl/bear/monster thing. His head is all rectangle with that awkward long neck, his rear end is all square and despite the many times I unstuffed and re-sewed, his tummy still doesn’t fit the rest of his body. Even when I started looking at the thing and realizing that I was making it wrong, I couldn’t seem to correct it. I mean, I knew that for some reason the head was coming out wrong and it needed to be more round but I couldn’t make the pattern do what I want. Giving up on the pattern wasn’t really an option since that was the whole purpose of the exercise…but boy, was it sad to finish this project and see how bad it turned out. It was supposed to be a present for someone else but now it’s just got a permanent home in my room where I’m sure he’ll scare off any burglars or boogeymen.

Now, just because this didn’t turn out correctly doesn’t mean it was a total waste.  I learned a lot (although not much about using patterns to create projects) and am  excited about taking what I learned and applying it to a different project. Making tubes for the arms and legs was a new experience and I’m happy with how they turned out. Working with the two wildly different fabrics wasn’t as hard as I anticipated so I’m feeling like the next time I want to experiment with different types of fabric, I’ll just go ahead and do it. And while there are huuuuuge with the head, attaching it to the body and then stuffing them both was a success and far easier than I anticipated. Since my comfort level is usually in the whole “create  separate appendages and then piece them together later” camp, I’m happy to have learned an easy way to attach before stuffing. While not the easiest project I’ve ever done, or even a mildly successful one…I’m happy that I gave it shot. And the next time I decide to make a stuffed animal, I’m going to just go ahead and skip using a pattern.