It’s our local show on Saturday and I rashly entered ten items, many of which hadn’t been started, never mind finished! One such class was a toy suitable for a young child, in other words it had to be small child safe, so no button etc.

I decided to use a kit I bought on a facebook destash site a few years back. It was a kit by Cool Crafting to make Daisy the sheep. I was pretty impressed with the kit as it includes everything from felt, buttons, cotton, needles, everything apart from the stuffing.

I’ve made a few of the ‘Luna Lapin’ characters over the years, several rabbits, a mouse, but I’d not made a sheep. Here’s a selection of the creatures I’ve made over the years…

The sheep’s head was a little more complicated this time, I remembered to put the toy safety eyes in first, then it was ears, horns head and then frilly bit. Apart from the ears it’s all hand sewn with mainly blanket stitch. I got myself organised before a train trip to London and the south coast and managed to get a fair bit done, although I was nearly scuppered in the first half hour when I dropped my needle 🙂

The legs and arms are usually stitched on with buttons, obviously I couldn’t use buttons for the show(I might add them later) so the arms are just stitched on with a sort of cross-stitch which goes right through the body, basically I stitched it as if there was a button there so there is still movement in the arm.

The legs on this pattern are a bit different. A plain button with a shank is stitched into the top of the leg with the shank sticking out, a safety pin temporarily holds it in place whilst the legs are stuffed. Elastic thread is then passed through the button shank. through the body to the other leg and then back again, I think I might have done it twice, before pulling tight and tying a knot.

I love the horns, Daisy is meant to be a Herdwick sheep and the ewes don’t have horns, so she’s going to have to be a different breed instead as I want to make a pretty dress for her.

With Daisy made, I then had to make some clothes, but that will wait for another post. If you fancy making Daisy the kits are available from Cool Crafting or the pattern is in one of their books. She’s very cute!