Fun Fabric Animals

I found these cute little handmade fabric animals while going through the old baby toys I saved; they belonged to my children when they were babies.  I kept a lot of the toys thinking someday my grandchildren would want to play with them and I was right.  My first granddaughter, now 5, loved each and every one of them; she played with the toys whenever they came to visit until she outgrew them.  Now she has a 7 month old baby sister who is ready to start enjoying all of the baby toys, which is why I dug them out of the closet.  We will have another new grandchild who will be born in October, those much loved toys are going to get quite a workout, talk about recycling things.

Back to the fabric animals, I made them for my daughter while I was pregnant with her, in those days we didn’t know if we were having a boy or girl so I chose a yellow and white gingham check print for her curtains and bedding and used basic colors for toys and clothing.  I designed and made the little animals from original 1970’s fabric scraps leftover from sewing projects my Mom and I made for our craft shows.  Because they had hand embroidery for their faces and paws they were too delicate and probably not safe for a baby to play with, I hung them on the wall over the crib to add color to the walls and also hung them over her baby brother’s crib when he came along a couple of years later.  I remember making and hanging several more animals but so far I haven’t found the rest, too many house and storage moves, they are bound to be around somewhere, I am sure the rest will be found in due time. I need to look for the old pictures of my daughter’s room to see just how many of the animals have gone missing.

It was a great trip down memory lane, one I wanted to share with you once I came across those cute little animals and realized how popular they are again.  Soft stuffed animals seem to be all the rage among the newer creative sewing community, which means my cute little critters are in vogue, who knew?!  I think I will make a whole set using updated fabrics; maybe my daughter will want to hang them on her daughter’s wall.

Thanks for letting me share my journey into a past creative project; I hope you enjoyed taking a visit with me into the world of 70’s fabric toys, I believe 2012 will be yielding some newer soft stuffed animals to keep their retro buddies company in the very near future.

See you soon, Laurette