Octopus, Octopus, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp! The Rebecca Page FREE Octopus Sewing Pattern

Octopus, Octopus Squiggling in the Water, Gulp, Gulp, Gulp!

Bring your sea squabbling adventures to life with Rebecca Page's adorable and FREE Octopus Sewing Pattern!

She includes several options:
- Embroidered legs
- Add weighted beads to the legs to make her legs poseable
- Sew, Iron, or paint on her eyes and mouth
- Octopus or Spider (or something else?) 

I used some of my felt stash for a nice purple and yellow blend of bright colours. 

Everything is hand sewn, which I find therapeutic and quite enjoy. 

The most tedious part is cutting out the fabric, and then it's clear sailing from that point onwards!

Look how cute her eyes are!  I opted to be lazy and used my glue gun to glue on the felt circles, but you can use iron on fabric, embroider them, use buttons or Googly Eyes, sew the felt on - whichever method you prefer!

The same goes with her mouth, which I opted to embroider on, topping off with some adorable cheek circles. 

I embroidered her legs as per the instructions, and once I did one leg, I just flew through my straight stitches!  It makes a neat effect.  

I think buttons underneath would make them look like suckers and more authentic. Okay, as authentic as a felt octopus is going to be...

Ahol Hoy!  She's ready for adventures in the great sea!

I think she'll just love her enemies until they give in, and bring goodness to all with that big smile!  Kindness can certainly scare the evil away!

Overall, you can't go wrong with this FREE Pattern - get her here now!

Useful Sewing Tool: The Rebecca Page Pattern Weights

I love my rotary cutter and cutting mat. 

I don't love my pattern pieces moving while I'm cutting. 

And I certainly don't love pinning patterns to fabric so I can use my efficient rotary cutter. 

I tried out the new Rebecca Page Pattern Weights, and they are a sewing game changer!

They are perfect for scrap pieces of woven fabric that you still covet (and can now covet in your regular sewing routine!). 

You can use a plethora of different "weight" material. 

I've tried a few different types, and here is my take:

1) Rice: lightweight and not the heaviest for actually weighing down the pattern paper. 

Really annoying to stuff the 1/2" border with.  

I did use a piece of paper formed into a cone shape to help make filling easier for both the rice and stone bead gems. It really makes it easier!

2) Little stone bead gems meant for a fairy garden (a la Dollarama): Husband weighed them out at 1 oz - I thought it was a decent weight, but then he  suggested #3. 

They were a bit tedious to fill with the paper cone, but easier than the rice. 

3) BB Pellets: Husband has a BB Pellet Gun and used it twice. It has been sitting in our trailer for the last 2 years unused, and he gave his blessing for me to use them for the weights.  

They are Ama-y-zing. 2 ounces of weight, and by far my favourite to use.

I just poured them into a shallow container, and just placed them in 5-6 at a time, pushed them through the border, and they were almost the quickest weight material to use. 

4) Old washers from Husband's unorganized collection of nuts/bolts/screws/etc.  He came upstairs while I used these and got mad. Apparently the rusty washers were still useful.  He even tried to show me they paired up with screws in the same container, but failed miserably.  

That's when he suggested the BB Pellets. 

These were the quickest weight material to use.

Stuffing the 1/2" border is the longest part of making these weights, but you only have to do it once, and that's it. 

I just Netflix binged a few shows while stuffing the borders - it was relaxing doing that and I didn't really have to pay attention to what I was doing once the sewing machine part was done. 

Try to make your own Pattern Weights with this FREE pattern (yay FREE!), and let me know how it goes. 

***Affiliate Links Above used - I love these patterns, and without the help of those who love their patterns, marketing would be extremely difficult for the pattern makers we love and learn to love. Affiliate links help with the hours, fabric, and tears that go behind testing each pattern in order to provide a real-person view on the patterns for you (and me!) 

Rawr - Means I Love You in Dinosaur (and the Cutest FREE Rebecca Page Pattern to Date!)

Let me introduce you to Rawr!  The cutest cover model you'll ever meet (seriously - he's the cover of this Rebecca Page Pattern!).

With options for either a Dragon or Dinosaur, your little ones will be training their dragons (or flying them like Daenarys) and snuggling their dinos before you've had a change to finish up your last ladder stitch! 

The perfect FREE pattern for using up scraps of woven fabrics and interfacing - and the perfect partner for the Rebecca Page Unicorn Pillow. 


I mean, one can NEVER have enough pillows.


Okay, I'm an adult. With no kids. And I'm not giving up either my Dragon or Dino - they're just so stinking cute!

The Dinosaur is like a Stegosaurus Brontosaurus mix, and I'd say the most time consuming part is the cutting - so be prepared for little details here.


I used some random lightweight cotton fabric for his body.

His nails, mouth, and eyes are created from iron-on fabric (I purchased mine at Wal Mart - the only place I seem to be able to find it).

I used my Sharpie markers to draw in the red of the mouth (hence cute little teeth), and the colours of his eyes.

Each spike is hand cut with iron on interfacing between to allow them to stand up straight, made of baby fleece fabric.


In total, there are 14 spikes - so a bit of work to cut out, but worth the end result. 


Stagger the spikes as pictured, and voila! 

My dragon is pretty magical - created with some sort of teal galaxy cotton fabric for the main body, and sheer shimmery fabric for the wings.

You can be as creative as you want with either the dino or dragon - and I went all out for Draco the Dragon! 


He seems to appreciate it - just look at the fun he is having! 

His mouth, teeth, and eyes are also made from iron on fabric - the teeth are separate this time to give them that large scary look.

His eyes I drew in with Sharpies, and he has a nice shimmery gold sparkle pen eyeliner that any girl would be jealous of.



His nails are cute and created with velvet scraps - I wanted to keep the shimmery flow throughout my pillow.



And his spikes are made from a purplish shimmery fabric with an inner iron on interfacing to keep them standing upright.  Thankfully there weren't as many spikes as there were with the dino.  I think that's why I spent the time on the little add ons for Draco. 



See how sparkly his wings are?  I added on sparkle lines with glitter pens, and I glue gunned a line of turquoise lace where the wings meet his body.


Do be sure to hide the pillow(s) if you do use glitter pens, as they really ought to dry over night before being handled! 


Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed creativng both pillows - it's a nice change from sewing up clothing.


The instructions were well written and the pictures help a lot for more novice seamstresses.


Go here for your FREE Dinosaur/Dragon pillow pattern, and Rawr it up!


***I sew for the passion, fun, and confidence it gives me. Affiliate links have been used, but I only promote what I believe in and adore ***

Rebecca Page's FREE Unicorn Pillow Sewing Pattern Review

Anyone who knows me, knows I am generally the unicorn in the room - full of mystery, magic, and tries to see the rainbow at the end of the dreary clouds. 


The last year and a half has been a struggle to keep my Unicorn, and I've lost her a few times...but I knew Rebecca Page's newest pattern would help bring her back out again! 

This lovely Unicorn pillow pattern is FREE (I love free!) and is a great way to sew up your sparkly ribbons and fabric with a magical pillow to reward yourself with.

I made a more traditional Unicorn, and a funky Galaxy out of this world Unicorn to bring out my geeky side.

The galaxy unicorn was made with baby fleece fabric from Okee Dokee Fabrics and is SOOOOO soft and snuggly.

It is darker than traditional Unicorns...but I'm a bit of a goofball and dance to my own beat.  I felt this was an appropriate choice.

The Ears are made from iron on fabric and a hairy ribbon I've had for eons from my hardcore scrapbooking days mystery packs. It is PERFECT ear hair for this unicorn!

I just used double sided sticky 1/4" interfacing tape to attach the hair - and the iron on fabric I just ironed on - no sewing for this part! 



The eye is also iron on fabric - making it SOOOOO easy to attach.  They have funky colours and patterns at Walmart, and it makes the small hand sewing of projects like this unicorn pillow SOOOOO much easier to deal with.



The Horn is also a bit of a cheat vs the pattern instructions - I took out my Dewalt Glue Gun (a Christmas gift from Husband - and YES I love tools and other practical equipment for gifts - I'm a weird woman).  I just glued this fun sparkle gem "ribbon" (again, from a random scrapbooking mystery pack eons ago), and it will hold up for some time.

And despite pinning, sewing slowly, and unpicking the head part twice (once as I misplaced where the ears should be, the other because the horn basting seam was showing), the horn just kept showing the basting seams, and I didn't want to unpick the seam in case the horn exploded.   So I took out my trusty glue gun again, and placed a matching ribbon and more sparkly gems at the base of the horn to cover up the seam.

No one knows. Except me and you.



I LOVE this soft shimmery fabric I used for the mane.  Paired with 2" back ribbon, it gives my Unicorn a pure universal appearance! 

My traditional Unicorn Pillow is so pretty and used up some scrap fabric that must of been waiting to be made into something magical.

 

All the fabric is random from unknown sources - and all woven. 

For the horn, I used some rick-rack (and tacked it in every few inches, by hand sewing) - and it looks great.


The mane is a random green/turquoise shimmery fabric that I had just enough of - it must of been fate! 


Sewing the multiple layers of fabric wasn't too difficult, pending your setting on your machine is more forgiving (higher needle setting), you use lots of pins, and you just take your time. It is well worth the effort.


Again, I used iron on fabric for the eye and the nostrils.

And as proof of my love for Unicorns....here is me riding down our river at our cottage lot - it's a 10KM (4-5 hours) ride down the river...and nothing is more magical that doing it in my ergonomically correct unicorn float! 


Get your Unicorn Pillow pattern for free, and let your magic flow!

***I sew for the passion, fun, and confidence it gives me. Affiliate links have been used, but I only promote what I believe in and adore ***

Free Sewing Pattern - Rebecca Page's Animal Pillows

I'm trying to spiff up the trailer for this weekend, as we are having about a dozen guests up for a canoe trip down our river.


SO what do I do?


Sew.


I've had Rebecca Page's Animal Pillow Pattern for eons now, but haven't sewn any up...until last night!

Aren't they cute?


There are 4 choices:
- Bird
- Butterfly
- Cat
- Rabbit


As we are owned by 3 parrots, and butterflies seem to be prolific at the Cabin this year, butterfly and bird it was.


But birds like to be in pairs, so I had to make two.


I added a lace body and rubbon tentacles to the butterfly as per the patterns, and used iron on fabric for the bird eyes (instead of embroidery) and ribbon looped for their tails.

Honestly, the most tedious part was stuffing the pillows. The overall pillows were a quick sew, and the are huggable size.


I used coveted baby fleece  for the turquoise bird, and some cotton fabric I got from my Aunt-in-law (?)'s stash from when she moved recently.


And of course, when I went to move the pillows for a different chair photoshoot, this happened:

So needless to say, Gideon has claimed the blue bird as his own.


They are dog safe though - no eyes or buttons to pull out, thus in turn, are child safe.


Right?

So grab your Animal Pillow pattern for FREE now at Rebecca Page Patterns - you'll be pleased with the end results.


Sew On!