Bee-Bah Bee-Bah Emergency tutorial

The emergency is an impending little boys First birthday.

What started out as plan to make a little soft car, grew into a personalised ambulance.

Someone recently told me this was an organic approach to creating.....OK......I just think its cause I make it up as a go along - but organic sounds good doesn't it???

I took a few slap-dash pics as I went along, thinking that I might want to make a few more variations, so if you would like to join me, I present you with the ambulance - a - long!

Draw your idea of a car, truck or bus as seen from the side. Don't get too technical.

With fabric right sides together cut out 2 of these shapes. These measurements include the seam allowance.

Iron some vliesofix, wunder-under or double sided adhesive to the WRONG side of your feature fabrics (i.e the wheels, crosses)

Peel of the backing and iron them into place on your ambulance shape. Leave a little gap around the wheels when you iron them in place - this will get taken up in your seam allowance.

I ironed some stabiliser to the back of my ambulance shape as well to help my stitching sit on top. Sew your pieces in place.

This white piece measure 3 1/4 inches x 13 inches .

add to each end of this a piece in black measuring 3 1/4 x 6 inches. This is the centre panel or body of your ambulance.

With right sides together (yes I stabilised the strip as well), start pinning your strip to the ambulance. Start with the white fabric just above the front wheel. The idea is to have the underside of the ambulance black (so it shows the dirt less).. Really , the whole idea of a white toy is totally stupid and I know that but hey....I'm being organic! (No really I just like red crosses on white)

Keep pinning

Once you have pinned all the way around to the next black piece gently turn the ambulance right sides out.

Now you can mark on some ambulance (or car) features with a water soluble marker. I added doors and indicated where I needed the front bumper and windscreen to be.

Sew those details on and remove the water soluble marker.

The windscreen, is a photo printed onto ink jet printable fabric, vliesofixed into place and covered with a piece of thin clear PVC.

Now simply pin and stitch the strip to the right sides of both sides of your ambulance.

Make sure you start at the same point on both sides and the centre panel so you don't go skewiff.

Sew all the way around , leaving the join in the centre of the two wheels. As you can see the black is a bit long - I was just guessing and I do like to overestimate.

Trim off the excess, leaving at least a 1/4 inch for turning under.

Clip clip clip those seams - I know it is a pain in the butt - but it really does help....

Turn out through the gap in the bottom, stuff and close the gap with a ladder stitch.

The siren/lights thingo is just a rectangle of felt, stuffed and hand-stitched to the roof.

Hmmm, I wonder if he would also like a bus ?

Wouldn't a rocket be cute with a little face looking out a round window?

Herbie the Love bug for newlyweds? .......

A bus with photos of the whole family?

Ok. I'll stop now.