Star Tiger

I'm yet to post about Sophie's Book Week costume, but her Tiger was an integral part. As you can see though, Tiger is looking a little worse for wear. 

Even more so than when we celebrated his birthday in February. Stuffing is now coming out of almost every paw. I mostly blame the very low quality felt that I originally used for all the white, which was certainly been the first thing to go. But, he has holes in other places too, which were from my inexperience in sewing soft toys. Poor Tiger.

We debated heavily about what to do, but I just couldn't figure out how to resurrect the original without taking him completely apart, and there was no way of telling if the stripy tiger fur would last that and be able to be reused. So in the end, we began again.

I had just enough of the original tiger fur left for another Tiger. For the white, I found a flannel cot sheet with stars on it in the stash, as well as a white t-shirt that we really were not wearing. Sophie loved the idea of her Tiger having stars; sold!

I also decided to line everything with multiple layers. Even if this meant a lot of extra layers to sew, I figured it would help Tiger last the rigors of playing a lot longer than his predecessor. For his tummy, I cut one of the flannel and two layers of T-shirt fabric and stitched them together around the edges. His inner ears are two layers of T-shirt fabric, as are his eyes, and the white patches on his paws are sewn directly over the tiger fur.

I think he looks pretty good, despite some minor errors in sewing. (Time pressure people, I had less than a week!) I feel his white paw parts are a little long, so they really do look like someone has sewn socks on him. Meh. The real problem was when I sewed the eye patches to the face pieces incorrectly, and then had to rotate the face pieces to make the eyes face the same way. Then they weren't fitting into the pattern correctly any more. But I just tucked and eased and made do. His face is definitely a different shape, but he's still a tiger right?

He is fluffy and cute. I am not 100% happy with his eyes, but I had stupidly put moisturizer on my hands before hand sewing them and the needle kept slipping. Doesn't matter. Sophie loves him.

We call him Star Tiger. May he live a long and happy life.