Sea Turtles

For Christmas this year, my interest in sewing simple little "softies" was kindled. Softies in the new name for stuffed animals. Go figure.

Anyway, after making up elephants, manatees, frogs, turtles, and mazes, I thought it might be fun to try a sea turtle on my own. They have flatter shells and more wing-like front feet so I thought it might actually be easier to make them.

Wrong!

I began the process by finding a good line drawing of a sea turtle online and tracing it right from my computer monitor. I then added a 1/4" seam allowance.

Prototype #1, made with muslin because I'm cheap:

His poor front feet didn't get nearly the wing shape I was going for, his head looks like a tail, his tail looks like a pimple, and the shell is puckered. My girls took the opportunity to take markers to it to make it look more festive.

So I modified the pattern to make prototype #2:

The front feet are what I want. I sewed them, turned, then added the extra lines of stitching to keep the feet flat. Then I stuffed (using a chop stick, which works very well). I added small lines of stitching to the back feet to keep those flat, too. I'm considering adding a circle of stitching to the shell to help with puckering and to keep that relatively flat, as well. Perspective in this picture make the head look nicer than it is, but it still needs some work. Crusty, I know I'm being self critical, so let me qualify all of this by saying I love how my sea turtles are evolving! The little girls love them and I can't wait to get my final pattern worked up so I can make this little guy radiantly colorful! I look at them and want to talk like the surfer turtle dudes in Finding Nemo!