MyLittleMan: Birthday Robot

My friends little boy is One years old at the end of January. I visited them in their new home on Friday, and what a home! They’ve done so much building work, changed the layout and decorated their home to such a high standard. I had to pop my eyes back as they were leaping out on green stalks! I think I can say they have the nicest kitchen I’ve ever been in…and they have a true family home. Magazine standard for sure! It’s been a long time coming for them whilst there’s been a slow market affecting the sale of their first home, so I am so excited to see them settled.

On the drive home my head was buzzing with lots of ideas…and below is the first idea….

I wanted to get her boy a birthday present, but thought…hey…surely I could make something for him?! I toyed with a few ideas, but settled on a personalised picture for his room.

I thought of all things boy… and jumped from idea to idea…but I always came back to a robot theme. I think I’ve been secretly drip-fed robots into my subconscious for the past few months (my little man’s robot bath mat, his new robot plate, my man’s robot toy making kit…)

I got a frame, and got out my fabric stash. I must admit…I went for the felt again. I’m not addicted, but I thought it would give the best effects.

Firstly I drew my Robot design. Thankfully a Robot is full of straight lines…I’m really poor at drawing…

I wanted a friendly Robot, with an element of personalisation so my little mans’ friend has something for himself.

I chose a small 1 on the Robot, and I toyed with adding his name on somewhere…

I then set about cutting out my template and cutting up my material. I chose to hand stitch the heart and body panel using blanket and running stitch… I like the red/blue combo.

I machine straight stitched the body outline…some bits were a bit tricky as the felt kept getting sucked into the machine!

Now…I promise he is not a Stumpy Robot…his legs are covered as you will see later…

Now to add a face…I went with button’s for eyes…these seemed the friendliest button eyes that I had in my stash! I went against a smile in the end…I don’t think he needed it… What do you think? I then embroidered the 1 in place.

For backing I had a choice of plain red/plain blue/blue and white stars…the stars won as backing. I thought I would place the pieces in the frame so my friend could always take it out in the future for use elsewhere if needed/wanted…but as it’s like a box frame the head kept withering when the frame was moved. Cue my first encounter with bondaweb! Well…it worked to stick the robot to the backing fabric. I then pulled the fabric taut and stapled the fabric to the cardboard inside so that it wouldn’t sag through the mount! I did feel a bit like I was “bodging”...but it worked!

I cleaned the glass so excuse the reflection in my pictures. I think he looks super cool.

I then sat and pondered whether to personalise further by adding lettering/letters to the mount. I had a cup of tea and considered… and then considered some more… If I tried and it was rubbish I could chuck it away…so I embroidered his name onto a “name plaque” so to speak…and here is the result….