My vintage make
A felt ball!
To be clear, in no way am I writing this post to say ‘Hey, I made a felt ball’
I did make a felt ball, from a vintage pattern book. But this wasn’t a pattern book that I found in a charity shop or on eBay. I found it in my own pattern collection.
So it looks as if it was originally published in 1931, and I have the 1959 version. I probably didn’t have a pattern box in 1959, but I may well have had a box labelled ‘Ann’s felt toys’. Somehow, in the course of the last 58 years (actually, I’ve had the book for ages), it made its way from Mum’s pattern box, to mine. But the patterns themselves didn’t. It was only about two months ago that Mum produced a bag of felt bits, and suggested I could make more use of them than she could…. And it was only at the weekend, whilst vaguely thinking that I could maybe make some old fashioned toys for Baby H, (my nephew’s soon to be born child) that I dived into Mum’s old bag of felt bits, and found the pattern pieces, many of which had been neatly cut out and mounted on card. I had no idea that there were pattern pieces in the bag. I was looking for scraps of red felt for something completely different.
Now I can make toys!
First lesson to be learnt – do not draw round the lovely card backed pattern pieces with a blue marker pen. My fingers are covered in blue ink. Hopefully Baby H won’t get covered in blue in ink too, as, the ball being felt, I cannot wash it. Secondly, the instructions say to hand sew. I sewed most of it on the machine. It’s not easy to get all of the 8 points accurately lined up on the machine, but I hand stitched round each end twice, and pulled it all together, and then trimmed any excess. And the opening for the stuffing was hand stitched, although I think that careful stitching with a zipper foot would work.
I probably won’t blog the rest of the toys that I intend to make. I just thought that the story of the pattern would be of interest. Hope you think so too.
3 comments on “My vintage make”
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One Week, One Pattern
Me Made May 2016
Me Made May 2015
Simplicity Competition
Sew Over it Patterns
all my own work by ann 
This was interesting, thank you for sharing
So lovely to see your monkey. 😊
I made the same one at at school. At the age of 14-15. In the early 60s.
Poor thing is spitting at the seams. I would love to mend him
For my daughter. She says he is the only thing she wants of mine. She used to have it as a compforter on the rare occasion I went out, when she was small.
I would love to be able hand him over to her looking well again . He has been in a bag for so many years. Bless him.
Would it be best to take him apart. Reline and restitch. I’ve seen them do it on the repair shop! . But being felt. It’s a bit more tricky.
I would appreciate your comments.
Diana.
Hi Diana. Sorry its taken me so long to reply. I moved house a couple of weeks after your message and this is the first time that i have looked at my blog since then! How wonderful that you have the same monkey. I know the chap that i made the monkey for really likes his, and he is over 60! I’m no expert of fixing things; i am much happier starting from new, but i don’t think i would pull it apart and reline. I think i would just re-stitch the seams, and maybe patch him, perhaps decoratively, if that is possible. Hope that helps. Ann