Blinkies.

And now for something completely unrelated to everything I've been posting about recently! But photos of the blue bubble are to come because I think it may be my favourite handmade item in some time.

Christmas is coming. Eek. I started my Christmas shopping last week, and that makes me feel tremendously more organised than last year. Now that I have the pdf patterns back in my Etsy Shop, I was thinking about cool ways to personalise blinkies for presents. The embroidered blinkies or message blinkies as they were sometimes known, were always the most popular at market stalls and in shops. Sometimes a line from an obscure song would sit there for a month before anyone bought it, but they always did. The right person would see it, and bam! And they would seriously toddle off excited as can be.

So, I trawled through my Flickr photostream, and found some examples. These were always good for new babies too, especially if the parents hadn't found out if they were having a boy or a girl. One of the most popular lines was 'I'm a lover, not a fighter'.








I always used tracksuit material because it was soft, and plain, and I always think it looks better than using 100% cotton, the shape seems to work better, and something special with a small print inside the ears- Japanese linens are great.

People also used to go nuts over handprinted fabrics! It seemed like I just couldn't keep up with this kind of thing. This one is using a stamp that my friend Riyo made, but you could use just about anything.


And then there are stripes! Which always work well with dots. People sure do love stripes!


And Kristyn, a customer, just asked me on the weekend how on earth do you neatly sew the toy up at the end, and I found this really great video on ladder stitch which shows the exact way that I do it. I hope it helps.

B.