Little Monster for a Little Monster

Cheers to my first post.  1 of 365 is pretty overwhelming.  This has been an idea in my head for quite a while and it's time to move forward make it or break it.  Tomorrow I celebrate the birth of a dear friends little boy, Gage.  I made this monster for him.  Obviously it fall under the 'babies' category.  As you will see I'm applying my title (theme) rather loosely to my projects.  I have to if I have to come up with 364 more 'things' to make. 

So here 'he' is.  It was actually a clearanced kit that came with the fabric and directions.  It turned out pretty simple although I'm not the best sewer seamstress?  Oh yes, I'm not the best writer either so please forgive me. 

One of my first struggles was marking the fabric to cut it out.  (It would have been threading my machine and getting the bobbin filled if I hadn't gotten lucky with it already being done for me from the last project I did.)  I started out using a special fabric sewing washable marker thing but then realized I measured all my squares, labeled, walked away for a minute and it disapeared.  So then I just grabbed a regular pen.  Didn't seem to cause any trouble at all except for the white felt teeth.  Guess this monster has cavities.

This was the very worst part of the whole project.  The kit said to use webbed fusing or glue to stabalize the small pieces such as the eyes before sewing.  I didn't have any fancy fusing so I used some spray adhesive I had on hand.  Well I guess I over did it a bit and the whole dang thing was so sticky it kept sticking to my machine and bunch up.  This was the second eye I did, I completely ripped out the first one and cut a new, less sticky, piece.  I debated to redo this one too but decided it added a little spunk to my googly monster.  I also decided a monster is a great first project.

Since I've been critiqueing myself so much I thought I should pick out my 'favorite' aspect too.  The sewing quality on this monster is passible at best, meaning it looks like a monster and I think it will stay together for some time even with lots of love.  The tail of this guy is my favorite.  The kit said to sew on a pom pom but 'pom pom' was not listed on the back of the package as items needed.  Apparently all worthy people keep a general stock of pom poms.  Truth be told I think I have some....somewhere, but I had this boa much more handy so I tied it in a knot twice and then sewed the ever living daylights out of it.  Literally think I made at least 20 passes of a zigzag stitch.  I wasn't sure it was going to work and I am giving this to a two year old boy so I was thinking tail needs to be tough.  It looks a little funny but I love the fluff.

After its all said and done I'm really proud of myself not only for getting this done but also for starting my blog.  My daughter, who is 3, requested a pink monster so I'm going to chalk that up as success. 

Now to just decide what to put in the pocket as a bonus present.  We all decided a 'mini' or baby monster in the pocket would be cute but I don't have time.  Future post?  Stay tuned.  If you made it this far that is.