Step 3 - The actual sewing

Step 3.

Certainly for Milton this step was the easiest part of the project. As I said, halfway through the poor fellow almost got abandoned for a new shinier idea but here is he is in all his Milton glory.

The sewing process for Milton was reasonably straight forward I just had to be sure to sew it from the front to the back. That means the black of the eye to the blue of the eye and then the blue to the white and then the white to the face. This means I was only ever sewing through the least number of layers possible.

I started with Milton's face as you saw in the last post because to me, that seemed like it would be the hardest part. I usually start with the bit that I think is going to be hardest, (or the bit I am most excited about) just in case I cannot make it happen. There is nothing worse than spending ages on something only to stuff it up.

Yes, the observant among you will notice he lost his red glasses. He felt he needed something more manly once I put him into a mauve shirt!
(That's a Teflon foot on my machine-especially for sewing plastic stuffs and yes I have just realised how crooked that sewing line on the glasses really was - ! )




(see I unpicked that bit and fixed it)

One of the things I have learnt from doing this little Milton-a-long is how much of my "making" happens before I get anywhere near the sewing machine.

Whilst I still go off on crazy half cooked ideas, I do tend to spend more time preparing for a project than I realised. Apart from the incredible grumpiness I share when something goes wrong, maybe this is part of the time constraint as well. If I am finding the time to make things (and we all know that is often the hardest thing to find) I really do want it to work out.


I also find, that as frustrating as step 2 is, it is often the part I enjoy the most.....I enjoy trying to see if I can make something work and step 2 helps build that crazy library of knowledge that crafters hang on to , the knowledge of what works and what doesn't, which fabric does what - all those things that we learn by trial and error.

Milton, once I got to this step was reasonably straight forward. That is not to say I am totally happy with him or that he can't be improved upon. All that comes in the last and final step.

Onto Step 4- Where did I go wrong- Or the dissection of Milton.

(not for the faint of heart)