MaryMack's Blog

Meet Slowpoke, the Funky Friends Sloth.

For April, the Island Batik Ambassadors were asked to choose a Funky Friends pattern to make a stuffed toy. It always makes me smile when I see the above blog logo: I made the Hedgehog and the Squirrel for Island Batik a few years ago. I've also made a butterfly, bunnies and some others.

Pauline creates so many cute toy patterns, you'll have fun finding a few favorites. There's even a free Bear pattern. You purchase online, and download the pattern, so you can start right away. I do suggest you get some safety Craft Eyes, maybe a nose, or find some buttons you want to use, and a bag of Polyfil or similar stuffing.

This time I picked the Sloth. My brother is moving slower than usual, and his friends started calling him a sloth, so he has a window sticker and a few other items they give him as a joke. Also, when the pandemic hit, my new friend Noele and I joked about being sloths. It is such a cute design, so I wanted to make one.

Note, the pattern and fabric were provided by Island Batik and Funky Friends Factory, along with Aurifil thread and Schmetz needles, in my role as ambassador. I provided the eyes and stuffing and hook and loop tape.

First, once you choose your pattern and purchase it, you'll see it's well written, but may not have photos for detailed steps. Pauline has started to write blog posts full of photos for the patterns, so you can see them online, and zoom if needed, plus it saves you some paper. There's a link on the instruction page. I do recommend changing your page margins to the largest length you can get on your printer, or use Legal size paper. I didn't discover this until after I printed the pattern pieces, and the Arm piece was just a little short, the bottom didn't print. I figured out how much to add, but didn't have the markings for matching the Claw sections. Pauline did try to help, but I was away and opted not to reprint just that one page. The others I could draw the lines to connect (it was a square corner or 2). I also printed the directions pages 2 sided, and saved the pattern shape pages for 1 sided.

Pauline also suggests gluing the printed pattern to thin cardboard, and I know others have used Freezer paper. I actually just use the printer paper. Before I was a quilter, I made lots of clothes, so this is similar. Pauline also suggests cutting out one layer at a time, and flipping the patterns to cut the reverse. I fold the fabric right sides together and cut both at once. It saves time. Do what you think is best for you.

For the fabric for Slowpoke, I used some of my signature collection, Local Motion, which is available in some shops now. I loved the colors and tjaps of the ones I picked, and thought it would look "sloth-like". For the applique around the eyes and the nose, I used another from Local Motion, the Gears in dark teal. The nose is actually fussy cut, so it has a little bit of the gear on it. I used Aurifil 50wt in cream for the assembly, a gold color for the buttonhole stitch for the eye applique part, and Aurifloss, 3 strands in a dark brown for the mouth and nose embroidery.

Pauline's patterns have check boxes for keeping track of the steps, and you do need to mark the match points, "leave open" sections and some of the letters, so you know what she means when she says "sew from A to G, H to J" etc. It's well written, and if you start with an easier pattern, you'll soon have a cute toy! Some are more challenging, but she labels them.

You may notice in the photos that I'm not using my Janome 9450, but the Janome 5300, the one I bought for back-up and classes. My big machine is having a Spa day at Pocono Sew & Vac. This machine has a knee lift that came in very handy when sewing the curves, especially the claws. My 9450 has an auto lift, but I made an error placing the bobbin case back after a cleaning, and the machine wasn't happy. I had to travel to Ohio for a family issue, and was going right past Pocono, so I dropped it off. I'm grateful I have the back up machine, as it's lighter and has some great features, including a lot of specialty stitches, and the knee lift.

Anyway, back to the progress. I added some fusible interfacing where the eyes were going, to add stability, since you need to cut holes for the safety eyes to go through. I could have used fusible web for the eye patches, but just pinned them in place, and did the applique stitching.

I also use Pinking Shears to trim the seams and clip curves. Some of the more detailed curves need additional clips, but most of the gentle ones, pinkers work.

Ready to be stuffed!

The best way to get the stuffing into the claws and snout is with a chopstick or pusher. The bags of PolyFil I've used have some pushers in them. You do need lots of stuffing to make the animals stand up, so be generous with it. Then get ready to do the final embroidery and close any of the openings.

Slowpoke wanted to try hanging in the pine tree, but was laughing too hard getting tickled by the pine needles for me to get good photos.

He liked hanging in the other tree better, but really enjoyed sitting on my comfy chair on the deck. Heather joined him for a few minutes.

I hope you've enjoyed reading the adventures of creating Slowpoke the Sloth. I don't plan to give this to Heather, but some of the toys could be made pet safe. I do hope you decide to look at Pauline's many designs and find something to make for someone special in your life. Please also check the other Ambassador blogs to see what they've made. There are some really cute projects.

Brenda Alburl ~ Songbird Designs

Renee Atkinson ~ Pink Tulip Quilting

Megan Best ~ BestQuilter

Pamela Boatright ~ PamelaQuilts

Susan Deshensky ~ Lady Blue Quilts Studio

Brittany Fisher ~ Bobbin with Brittany

Preeti Harris ~ Sew Preeti Quilts

Mania Hatziioannidi ~ Mania for quilts

Jane Hauprich ~ Stitch by Stitch Custom Quilting

Kim Jamieson-Hirst ~ Chatterbox Quilts

Victoria Johnson ~ Forever Quilting for You

Connie Kauffman ~ Kauffman Designs