One more for the family (4)

I had no idea what to make for a six-year-old.

So I made him something that hopefully he can use with his other toys (trains, cars, whatever). I also made one of these for my nephew's birthday. 

I picked out this fabric because he plays a lot of baseball.

It unzips on the sides and becomes a play mat. 

This is a pattern I bought online, and I really like the way it turned out.

The cubes are 4" by 4" squares, sewn together like a cross, leaving 1/4" on both sides of a seam so you can sew between them. Fold the cross up into a cube and keep sewing. Leave one side open to turn it, but be sure to back stitch on either side of it. I bought a giant piece of 2" foam and cut it into 4" squares. I stuffed and wiggle and fit 2 squares on top of each other into each cube, then hand stitched closed.

The little balls are just pentagons that I created on Word again with different sizes (be sure to lock the side ratio to size it) as a pattern. I cut 12 pieces the same size. I sewed 6 together like a flower (one in the middle, five around), and sewed the five sides together as well. I did that twice, and then sewed the two halves together. Leave one side open to turn and stuff (and stuff and stuff and stuff) until it's the right density. These are my brother's and nephew's new favorite indoor toy, now that it's getting cold outside. 

This is my nephew's box-mat before I finished it. 

Family of toys 2

The next thing on my to-do list was the stacking rings. I've already shown you one version. But here's the set for this family:

To go with them, I also made these stuffed animals. 

I found these patterns on some Swedish or Russian website that I could no understand at all, and google translate couldn't really, either. So I just printed out the pictures and did it myself. I put interfacing on one side, cut out two right sides together about 1/4" away from the edge of the pattern. I sewed the eyes and other facial features on first, then sewed the two pieces together. Obviously, I learned how to make the eyes and mouth a little more cute and less creepy on the second try. The tails are made out of shoe strings that I had bought for another project. 

Baby toys

With the new niece on the way [I always spell niece wrong. The i before e rule isn't enough to convince me], I've been on a baby-toy-making kick. I got a pattern for this from Etsy, and I've since made three of them:

 The rings are different sizes, fabric, stuffed with fluffs. The cone is, too, so it's not hard like the plastic version of this. Plus, I can make it out of whatever cute fabric I want.

Of course, I've made an all-pink option for the future niece, and I have a less girly one for an all-boy family.