bag of horses

I made this as a birthday gift for a six year old girl. She loves horses. I wasn't really planning to actually make any gifts but I stumbled across this fabric and thought it was just too cute. I used the basic construction pattern of the Haekelbeutel but instead of granny squares, I did mitered squares. Also, instead of creating each strip from four squares, I used three. I wanted it to be much more petite than the full-on Haekelbeutel was.

Lining this thing was... interesting. I've been hesitating to line my own Haekelbeutel because I'm more than a little intimidated by its odd shape. I started with half a yard of fabric and, after attempting to create the proper shape by pinning the fabric together inside the bag (both were a bust and created a lot of waste) finally came up with something workable on the third. Strangely enough, when I technically made it too big, I was able to make it work. Don't ask. I just don't even know.

The other interesting facet of lining this little monster was I wanted one of the horse scenes to show at the bottom of the bag. A lot of trial pinning and hand-sewing later, Emma's horsey bag lives. It turned out cuter than I expected considering that I was winging 50% of it. I had hoped I could make something else with leftover fabric but-- my scraps were small as I wasted so much in my first two lining attempts.

I ended up cutting out individual horse scenes and sewing them together and stuffing them... why this child would want tiny stuffed horses, I don't know. Anyway, it took a total of maybe ten dollars and six hours to complete this project. I'm proud of it. Emma may look at it sideways but that's okay.