The making of a hobbyhorse

Last Christmas I made a hobbyhorse for my niece, but I did not take pictures in the process. Now I was hired to make another on. This time I made some photos which I want to show you here. This is more an inspirational post than a tutorial.

Lets start! For the head we need seven pieces.

• 2 side pieces
• 2 felt ear pieces
• 2 fabric ear pieces
• 1 fabric strip 10 cm wide and as long as the circumference as the side pieces.

Sew a felt ear pieces to a fabric ear piece.

Turn the ear inside-out.

Fold ear in half and sew on the bottom.

Repeat for the other ear.

For the head pin the side pieces to the fabric strip. Don’t forget to already put the ears in place.

Turn the head inside out.

For the harness prepare two strips of fabric 7.5cm wide and 140cm long.

Fold the fabric strips lengthwise 2 times (like in the banjolele strap tutorial) and sew them shut. Cut one 100cm piece and add hooks on the ends.

Gather more material. I use 2 buttons for eyes and two buttons for nostrils. Two large keyrings will become part of the harness. A dollar store walking stick becomes the “body” of the horse. Not shown are two bells which are attached to the harness.

After inserting the handle of the walking stick I filled the head with stuffing.

I folded the long neck of the head inwards and used thick embroidery thread to seal the neck by wrapping it tightly around (sorry, no picture here…).

For the harness I cut 3 strips of the strap and attached them to the keyrings. I did this step by step ensuring a tight fit on the horse head.

For the hair I cut wool threads of approx. 40cm length. I folded the threads and pulled the loop through the fabric on the neck. The ends of the thread are then pulled through the loop.

Finally the horse looks like this.You can cut the hair or add additional features.

That’s all!

Pencil case

 

Today I made a pencil case following the tutorial by Mairuru. It did turn out pretty nice.

Converting clip on suspenders to buttoned ones

As commented before I was invited to a party with a bit of dancing going on. The idea was to have a fancy dress party in the style of the 20s or 30s. One accessory for men are suspenders. Having only a few days left I couldn’t get the buttoned style, so I decided to convert a clip on one. Here is a pair of suspenders I bought at the dollar store for 3 Euro.

I went on to replace the clips. First I took the clips off and pried the metal ring out.

I cut out three pieces of scrap leather.

Put the leather piece through the ring and sew the ends together right side facing in.

Turn the leather around and sew the ring in place.

From an old belt I cut out three long strips with round heads. For the buttons I made cuts in the heads and punched a hole on the end of the cuts to prevent them from ripping.

I folded the pieces lengthwise and sew them.

Here is the comparison between before and after.

And this is what they look like when worn:

I heard bow ties are cool now…

More notebooks and a watercolor sketchbook

I started to do a small run of notebooks following my process developed over the last weeks. These are the first 3 notebooks. A6 sized with fabric covered cover.

As an addition I made a 5x7 inch sketchbook with watercolor paper. Hopefully I can do some sketches on vacation in this one…

Sew a guys wallet

Because my wallet is too bulky I decided today to sew a new billfold. I used the fantastic tutorial on Noodlehead as a guide. It turned out rather well…

Phone Pouch

Today I threw together a phone pouch using some scrap fabric, a button and some string.

Fabric covered notebook: Seventh and probably last iteration

Finally I am perfecting the book binding of this little notebook. The result is a nice small A6 sized 88 page notebook with a fabric cover. The paper is 80g/m² , the cover, final and first pages are reclaimed cardboard and envelopes.

By using the glued spine method, I got a nice alignment of the pages.

Fabric covered notebook: Sixth iteration

This is the next step in notebook development. I was not happy about the layer of fabric between cover and signature block and the alignment of the signatures in general. To change the process a bit, I glued the spine instead of the long stitch used before. The fabric is sewn to the cardboard cover. The page alignment is quite good and the spine sturdy. I think I will go with this technique for the next ones. The fabric cover still needs some refinement.

Fabric covered notebook: Fifth iteration

I am back again with another iteration of the notebook. Again it is approx. A6 in size with 9 signatures of 4 double pages.

Fabric covered notebook: Fourth iteration

Well, this week I made another notebook to eliminate some quirks in the process.