My Second Stuffed Animal

I got the pattern for this bunny at craftster.org. It was rather more challenging than the duck I did last week, so I fully anticipated this being a bit of a trial run for the bunny. I was going to use microfleece so it would come out soft and fuzzy, but I decided to just use some cotton scraps I already had - it would save me money, and why would I want to spend money on the practice bunny!!?? Well, it turns out I was right in not spending money on this fellow. He may look OK in the picture, but he is not so stellar in real life.

I was really excited after I finished the head, because I thought I did a really good job with that. Except, of course, for the way too floppy ears. I decided that for any future bunnies, I would lightly stuff the ears so they could stand up better. Also, I realized that I needed to use the same color thread as the fabric. When quilting, I can use white thread to piece everything together and it hardly ever shows, but this red bunny has all of these cream-colored threads peeking through the seams.

The body was a bit tricky, but relatively easy to figure out, considering that the directions were in Japanese. Stuffing the body proved to be the most challenging part. I'm hoping that fleece will be a little more forgiving in the stuffing department. The most challenging bit of all though was attaching the head to the body. I stitched them together, but it was so hard to maneuver the needle since the parts were so stuffed and not very giving. The head came out a bit crooked and very floppy. I used some fabric glue to keep the poor bunny from constantly getting whiplash.

I had no problem giving my duck to Simon. Sure, he primarily used it for chewing and sucking on, but I'm a firm believer that my crafts should be used and not just displayed. And that's what babies do with everything. I had intended all along that after I finished the bunny I would hand it off to Simon and let him do with it as he would. But now the bunny's head seems so fragile that I don't think it would survive long in Simon's clutches. I think I need to improve my methods before giving Simon a bunny. And maybe make it out of fleece. That way, it will be more cuddleable.

The problem now is that if I don't give the bunny to Simon, what will I do with it?