Crazy Rabbit

I wanted to get this post up last weekend, but my ding dang sewing machine was giving me fits.

I wanted to make rabbit shirts for the girls, so I thought it would be fun to do a little applique. The only problem is that my sewing machine has been on the fritz since I made that denim rag quilt, so this project was slow going. I took pictures throughout the beginning of the project, but once the sewing began, I wasn't fit to be near my camera, so let's just pretend that part didn't happen, okay?

Since my sewing machine was being such a snot box, the rabbits look a little rustic. Rough around the edges. Psycho.

Whatever.

This is how I started. I knew I wanted just a bunny head, so I started sketching what I thought it should look like. If I've forgotten some key bunny part, please don't tell me. 

I find it's best if your pattern isn't bigger than your shirt. Stop laughing. Some of us only learn by making mistakes.

Once I had Mr. Bunny about where I wanted him, I traced over him with a Sharpie. You can see I shaved a little off the top of his head in the process. He was looking a little too Burt-from-Sesame-Street for my taste.

This was my first time using Heat N Bond. I'll never use Wonder Under again. This stuff was waaaaay easier to use.

I started by ironing a piece of the Heat N Bond to the wrong side of my fabric.

Then I pinned my pattern pieces to the right side of the fabric.

Then I cut the pieces out. I have double of everything because I'm making two shirts.

All my bunny parts are ready to go. All I had to do here was peel the backing off the pieces and iron them onto my shirts.

Just a little tip. If you iron on your pink parts before you iron the rest of the ear to the shirt, just make sure you don't peel the backing off the main ear part before you do that. If you do, you'll end up ironing your ear to the ironing board. I may or may not have done that myself. It's just a friendly little tip.

Here all my bunny parts are ironed onto the shirt. If I were to do this again, I would keep the head in one piece instead of dividing the snout and the rest of the head. You can still do an applique line if it's in one piece, and that way you won't have the Grand Canyon gap that I have between mine. Dang it.

This is where my process pictures stop and we go to the finished product.

I know he looks like he's on crack, and I've made my peace with it. Blame it on my machine. Okay, my machine and my skillz. Or lack thereof.

I like his rustic whiskers. They were the last to go on and my machine was spitting back at me at that point, so the part where I sewed the skinny ribbon whiskers onto the shirt are a leetle bit bumpy. They have character.

My sewing machine was only allowing me to sew in one-inch sections before the tension would go all wonky and I'd have to stop and rethread the whole ding dang thing. I dang near threw myself off a bridge.

Instead, I threw my machine off a bridge.

Okay, not really, but I did take it away from my sight, before something bad could happen with it, and traded it in for a new machine. Unfortunately that didn't happen until I finished the shirts. In a very bad mood.

The sad part is that I thought I had a good sewing machine. Singer was a respected name when I was growing up. In the olden days. I paid a lot of money for it originally, and I expected that it would last me for the rest of my life. Singers are supposed to be good machines, right? Apparently, they are now crap. That's the word on the street anyway.

Maybe I'll show you my new machine later this week. Once I've had my lesson and become properly acquainted with it.

I'm on spring break now, did I mention that? I am. I'm giddy about it too.

I j-pegged the Picasso Bunny pattern if you want to give it a go yourself. Just click on it before you save it to your desktop. You can pretty much print it whatever size you want it.

If you have big kids, print it big like this. Or if you have little kids, you can make it little.

Have a great weekend Peeps!