H...hand...sewing...?

I am not good at hand sewing.

I used to take this as a point of pride.  I used to say things like "I hate making clothes with buttons!  Because I hate sewing the buttons on!  Because I hate hand sewing!"  But, then, I got a machine that made a better four-part button hole, and I realized that what I hated was not "the hand sewing of the buttons" as much as it was "the unavoidable confrontation of crap buttonholes." Then I got a buttonholer and I figured out that one of the random presser feet I had was to hold buttons while using the machine to zig-zag 'em in place, and I forgot about my "I don't exactly hate hand sewing after all" epiphany.

So, what this basically means is that, while I might not detest the idea of hand sewing now, I still don't usually think "Oh, I should hand sew that instead of using the machine"...and it means that my hand stitching is not...um...good.

But!

I didn't hesitate to volunteer to hand sew a few little felt thingies for the kiddo's teacher Valentine card.  I'd never made any little hand sewn felt thingies before (...um...obviously...), but I did have this book

which technically does have patterns, but I feel like they're more...suggestions...than the rigorous templates most patterns are.




Using those suggestions, I made these for the teacher

The book's apple and bunny face are on the cover (although the apple is obscured by the title), so you might be able to see that my main deviations were not-embroidering the bunny's mouth and nose (embroidery?  ...that's...that's nothing BUT hand stitching...), adding the hanging loops, and GOOGLY EYES.  The heart was completely free form...and also stitched with the worst-match thread, and if there's one constant I've noticed in my years of sewing, it's the guaranteed way that the less the thread matches what you're sewing, the worse the topstitching will be, and this goes right along with that, I do believe.

Still, these were kinda fun, so I decided to make the penguin (also on the cover) for the kiddo

Plus googly eyes.

The kiddo gave it a big hug when I handed it to him.