Bunnies for Craft Hope Project

Today I finally finished making all the bunnies for the Craft Hope project to make safe birthing kits for Haiti, hooray!  It's a good thing, too, since they asked for kits to be mailed by March 1st... I am planning to take the completed kits to the post office tomorrow, so I am getting in just under the wire.  As I mentioned in my last post about this project, I may have slightly overcommitted myself by deciding to make 12 kits, each of which needed a receiving blanket, tote bag, stuffed toy, and the various other supplies.  Luckily I had some nice friends help me out, especially with the supplies and the bunnies.

I used the wee wonderfuls free bunny pattern, and while I am loath to complain about a free pattern I will say this wasn't my favorite pattern ever.  Note to self: don't commit to making 12 of something in the future if you have never tried the pattern before.  I wasn't super thrilled with how some of the bunny faces turned out kind of pointy, although I did find that clipping the curves extensively helped, and I also found that the pattern circle for the bottom of the bunny was a bit larger than ideal so I cut them a bit smaller.  I was trying to sew these pretty fast so you may notice that not all of the ears point up or that there are other minor sewing errors... but I am sure the babies will love them nonetheless.  My friends were nice enough to help out with embroidering the faces (and I love how they each seem to have a different personality as a result), and with cutting out the pieces.  I used a variety of fabrics that I had in my stash (and honestly, older ones that I wanted to use up, not my favorites), but I think they turned out cute!

I ended up trying a few different approaches for the ears... one pair I sewed and turned inside out, which I liked the look of but should have added a seam allowance for and I didn't want to go back and recut all the pieces.  I made a number with zigzag edges as the pattern suggests and then also hand-sewed some with a buttonhole embroidery stitch (like the bunny on the left above).  I also used the overcasting stitch and foot on my machine for some which made it a bit easier to keep the stitching right at the edge and catch the raw edges well.

I bundled each bunny up in the ziploc bag with the other supplies (and actually, all the other blankets fit in the ziploc too, this one was just a bit bulkier), put them in their respective totes, and packed the box up to ship tomorrow.  I felt a little sorry for the bunnies getting all squished in the bags...

I am still planning to do a tutorial for the tote bags, it has just taken me a bit longer than I expected - it should be up this week.


I'd love to hear if you have a favorite knitting or sewing pattern for a stuffed toy (since it seems I haven't found a favorite yet).