This Week Had a Bit of Everything
Hello, it’s Alyona back with you here 🎉! This week felt very interesting, not only on the crafting side. I also watched a documentary called: The Plastic Detox, and I honestly fell a bit in love with it 🙈. After that, I decided to change a little bit of my lifestyle and went shopping to find a few better options for home and body care 🛍️.
I already changed my shower gel to Faith In Nature gel, got new Botanics Face Scrub, and Salt of the Earth Deodorant 💪. I still have other older products at home, so before buying replacements for everything, I need to finish what I already own 🙈. And I am still not sure what to do with cosmetics like mascara, eyeshadows, and things like that, but I think I need to look for more organic brands there too 🌱.
I am still adjusting to the new products. Some I found in local shops, and some I ordered online after doing quite a lot of reading. Funny enough, it is not always easy to find good alternatives. I also decided to replace plastic kitchen items with more natural materials like glass, wood, or metal. That became a bit of a mission because most shops sell plastic, or at best it is fifty – fifty. So yes, a few things ended up coming from online shopping, but I still managed to find some in shops too.
Why I Turned This Into Articles
Now let’s go back to the creative side. I don’t know if you read my previous article, but last week I told you I was planning to make a Batman because I finally got some black felt. If you missed it, you can have a look at Last Week I was Making a Beautiful Felt Tiger Plushie.
This kind of post was meant to be only a weekly update at first. The idea started as a newsletter, but then I realised newsletters are not really evergreen 🌱. If you subscribe today, you miss whatever I was talking about a week ago, or two months ago. I did not like that. I wanted people to be able to follow along properly, or even binge these little stories later, so that is why I decided to turn them into articles too ✍️.
Life gets busy, though, and it is very easy to forget to check things. So if you do not want to miss these weekly updates, you can go to My Website, scroll right to the bottom, find the subscription button, and join my newsletter. Every week I will send a short version of what I have been doing. I will also include a link to the full article if you want the longer version. When you subscribe, you will get an email where you can choose what you want to receive. You can pick craft content, sewing content, or both. I am not only into crafting here – I am a sewing person too 😉🧵.
Back to Batman
Now for the most important part – Batman himself. In the pattern, he was supposed to be a plush made fully from Soft Felt. Then I changed my mind (as usual 😂). I had not restocked my soft felt yet, and I did not have enough white and black left. Those colours always seem to disappear first. So the Batman pattern had been sitting in my folder called “I need to buy supplies”.
If you have not read my earlier articles, I’ll explain quickly. I keep three different folders. The first folder is for patterns where I have the supplies and want to make them soon. The second folder is for patterns where I have the supplies, but they are not urgent. The third folder is for patterns I really want to make, but I still do not have the supplies. At the moment, I am moving between these three folders while making these weekly articles because I need to test and process my patterns before releasing them online. I also committed to making at least one pattern every week, and so far I have stayed very consistent for almost two months 💪.
Mixing Felt Types for the Cape
A few weeks ago, I had been sewing something for my new car box – a kind of box or padding so my keys would not slide left and right while driving. For that project, I bought Stiff Felt, and I needed black. It came in a pack, so I also got white and grey with it. Then I realised that was actually perfect because Batman’s cape does not need stuffing. It stays flat. So I thought it would be better for the cape to feel a bit more rigid than soft felt.
That little change solved the whole problem. I already had enough felt for the Batman body, so the main missing part had only been the cape. In the end, I combined soft felt with stiff felt and carried on with the project ✂️. I really liked that combination. Sometimes you start a project with one idea, then halfway through you suddenly use something you never planned to use, and it ends up being the best choice.
Sewing Machine on Felt – Still One of My Favourite Things
For the cape, I stitched all the lines on my sewing machine. I decided to skip hand stitching there. I could have used chain stitch, or backstitch as some people call it, but I wanted the lines to look extra neat 👌. So I went with the sewing machine, and I loved it. I honestly love how a sewing machine stitches on felt 😍.
Of course, if you do not have a sewing machine, you can still make this project fully by hand. That would work absolutely fine. I just decided to go a little further with mine. I genuinely enjoy sewing felt on a machine. If you have never tried it, give it a go one day! It has that oddly satisfying feeling where you do not want to stop. You just want to keep stitching and stitching. I love it.
For the rest, I stitched by hand as usual, used Stuffing/Filling, and put everything together piece by piece. I was very happy with the result. I was also happy because I did not need to readjust or alter the pattern itself. That always feels like a small victory in my world 🙈😂.
Testing Patterns Still Makes Me Nervous
The funny part is that even when I know a pattern is probably fine, that tiny stressed voice in my head still whispers, “What if? What if something is wrong?” I always test my patterns myself before putting them on my website, and I take that part very seriously. I remember how much I struggled at the start of my felt crafting journey with badly made patterns.
When you are not very skilled yet, it is so easy to think the failure is your fault. You make the toy, it looks wrong, and you feel upset because you think you did a bad job. Then later you realise the pattern itself was badly done from the start. I still remember that frustration very clearly. That is why I get a bit intense with every pattern now. I really try to make them as right as possible before anyone else gets them.
So yes, I tested the Batman pattern and felt really happy with it. I also loved the idea of combining different kinds of felt. That was probably my favourite part of the whole process. Sometimes the best ideas do not arrive at the beginning. They show up halfway through, when you are already covered in felt fluff and committed to the drama 😂.
A Blanket Situation Developed at Home
That was the crafting side of the week, and I finished the full project just as I planned. On the Queeny side of life, she got a new blanket. You honestly cannot believe how much she loves this thing. First of all, it is not even a dog blanket. I found it in the cat section 🙈.
Usually, in the evening, she always loves spending time with me on the sofa. Since getting this blanket, though, I can barely drag her back 😂. She still comes for a bit before bedtime, but she keeps sticking to that blanket like it has cast some sort of spell on her. At this point, I am seriously thinking about moving it onto the sofa so I can at least get some proper time with her again.
I truly do not know what is so special about it. Yes, it is very soft, but her reaction is on another level. She is completely mesmerised by it. She guards it like treasure. I even started taking it with us in the car because it helps her feel less anxious when we go somewhere. So yes, this blanket has become a very important member of the household.
A Little Thank You Before I Go
So that was my week – my new plastic detox adventure, the Batman project, and of course a proper Queeny update because I know many of you have been following her for a while already. And on that note, I always want to reward the people who read these articles all the way to the end. Honestly, I still cannot quite believe you do 🙈.
That is why I want to share my Free Sewing Pattern with you as a little thank you 🫶. It is my way of saying thank you for reading and for spending this time with me here. It also gives you a chance to get acquainted with my patterns, see how I build them, how I label each element, and how I show the number of pieces. I really love making patterns, and I hope you will enjoy trying one too.
Also, if you ever struggle with your crafting or sewing, or you just fancy a little chit chat with me, you are always welcome in my School Community. It is completely free. I share tips there, we talk about our latest projects, we chat about patterns, and we swap experiences. And just before I go – the pattern I was making last week was a tiger, and I was testing my new paint on that one. That pattern is now online and ready to roll, so if it caught your eye, you can check it out.
But for now, that’s it for this article. I hope you enjoyed it, and I’ll see you in the next one. Bye 👋.
