Floppy the Turtle

Overly Ambitious Baby Gifts

Some friends of ours recently had a beautiful bouncing baby boy. We couldn't have been more excited for them and I really wanted to make them some special baby gifts. Our friends had decided not to find out the sex on their little bundle of joy before his big arrival so they did the nursery in sea turtles. Fortuitously, I had just picked up One-Yard Wonders: 101 Sewing Fabric Projects; Look How Much You Can Make with Just One Yard of Fabric! from the library (I love this book, I love this book so much I bought it). Lucky me, there was an adorable stuffed turtle project. Of course the theme of this book is to make projects with just one yard of fabric. I wanted to make something with lots of patterns and soft textures so I did deviate from the pattern . . . which is where I got a little overly ambitious.



This it the turtle's top shell, cute right?



Less cute is how time consuming it was to put together. Now if I had just followed the pattern and appliquéd the shell, this probably would have been soooo much easier. I opted for four different flannel patterns instead. I used corduroy for the head, tail and flippers. The bottom shell is a wonderfully soft plush fleece type fabric that I'm sure has a real name, but we're going to go with "mmmmm soft" for right now. I also opted to just use my eyelet stitch (sewn over three times) for the eyes. I know safety eyes are supposed to be nothing if not safe, but I didn't want to have anything that could conceivably end up in a little mouth.

So meet Floppy the turtle.



He's not perfect, but I'm pretty proud of myself!