Birthday Bugs

These colorful bugs were made for my niece's birthday in November. E turned 4 and I was looking for a relatively quick project that I hadn't attempted before. Poking around online I found sewing projects for toys of all kinds. Taking inspiration from several sources, I decided to create a colorful bug menagerie. I drew some templates on index cards.  The circles were traced from various jar lids and the butterfly wings were freehand.

Gave myself basic patterns

The underside of the bugs are single pieces cut from an upholstery remnant. This gave me a solid piece to sew the front layers to and it made all of the bottom sides of the bugs very smooth and soft.

Fabric for bug bottoms

The top layers of the bugs were cut out of scraps pulled from the collection. Some of these pieces were pretty small and it was a good way to use them up.

Mixing and matching for a variety of bugs

Layers of fabric were sewn onto the backing with a zig-zag stitches in a range of thread colors.

Edges were not finished, but upholstery fabric will not fray

Eyes, mouths, antennae, and legs were added by hand and were made from various found objects.

Snaps, beads, metallic thread, raffia ribbon add details

He's got legs

For the butterfly, I tried out a few rarely used stitches on my Bernina 1230 and used up some thread spools of various colors. 

Only one butterfly

All the bugs were tucked into an envelope and mailed to my niece. My sister said E named them all when she opened the envelope. I don't know if they'll remain an interesting toy, but they were fun for me to make.

Who let the bugs out?