Giant Toddler Book Toy & Floor Pillow

Today I’m sharing my first sewing competition entry; I was asked to participate in Challenge Create: Fabric Swap Edition which was so much fun! Audrey and her daughters blog at Skirt Fixation and did a great job hosting the first edition of Challenge Create which focused on women sewing for themselves. 

You can see more photos of the book and some of the chaos that I plowed through to sew it on the Skirt Fixation blog today. Voting is open over at Skirt Fixation – check them all out and chime in with your favorite (hopefully it’s mine )

For this round of competition, each blogger mailed 2 yards of fabric to a partner and sewed up whatever their heart desired. I was intimidated by the (beautiful!) big print of the Amy Butler fabric that Michelle from Handmade Martini sent me, but I settled on making another toddler toy.  You can see the buckle toy and activity mat I’ve made for my toddler recently; his giant numbers book doubles as a floor pillow when it’s folded and snapped shut

I added a ribbon bookmark, just because!

I hand stitched around all the letters and shapes, which gives it some texture and color definition… but took well over 10 hours. Absurd. I’m not sure if I’m the slowest hand stitcher ever, or if that’s par for the course, but I might never embroider again.

We’ve been having the most awful weather and rain, so I’m a little embarrassed about my picture quality! But you can at least tell he is having fun.

A few outtakes, for giggles!

This is the schedule for the rest of the Challenge – there are weekly sew alongs and prizes to be won! I sent two yards of beautiful blue polka-dot sateen to Danica who blogs at The Sewing Sparrow so be sure to click over and see what she made with it, too.