Patchwork Pony Sustainable Sew Along Part 2

Yes it’s yet another pony! You saw the beginnings of this one in the Part 1 post last week and here he is all brought to life and looking gorgeous!

Welcome to Part 2 of the Patchwork Pony Sustainable Sew Along. I hope you are all ready to sew your pony parts together. But if you are still making your panels or are yet to begin then that’s absolutely fine, there is still plenty of time. Please do sew at your own pace!

Please check out the original launch post here or part 1 post here if you haven’t already read them.

Last week’s post included a lot of text and images but for this next stage of pony creation I have recorded a video tutorial which you can watch below.

Just a quick disclaimer before you start… I actually find making these videos super stressful. My style of teaching is relaxed and chatty and I am used to teaching real people who react to what I’m saying and laugh at my silly jokes.  None of that happens when I teach with a video! Instead I am just painfully aware of my inane chatter and how many silly mistakes I am making. And worst of all I have to listen to it all back again afterwards to edit!!

So please do excuse my slightly ‘stream of consciousness’ style of explaining things.

Phew! That was a lot of information and I do hope you found it useful and helpful. If you have any questions then feel free to ask these in the comments below or via the Facebook Group which you can find here.

Now let’s talk about stuffing!

For a long time I have used polyester stuffing and these days it does seem to be mainly made from recycled plastic bottles so a good sustainable option.

But one of the things I’ve loved about making these ponies is using up bags full of batting/wadding trimmings and scraps I’ve been hoarding (as I hate to waste anything).  These trimmings are what’s left once you square a quilt up prior to binding. Now I quilt on my Moxie long arm the trimmings are even bigger!  I sliced these up into small pieces using my rotary cutter and they stuffed the ponies very well, with a lovely firm texture. I do prefer this to the polyester which does flatten somewhat over time.

However I wanted to try out a couple of alternatives for those of you who don’t have ready access to batting trimmings and also because I have run out of batting trimmings with all these ponies!

First of all I tried the recycled wool blend above left called ‘Healthy Natural Wool Craft Filling’ (though I think they need a snappier name!). I bought this from Wool Warehouse here.  I really loved using this one, it comes in a 250g bag and I used about one and a quarter bags for one pony.  The texture feels almost identical to the batting stuffed pony.

I then tried Hooked 100% Recycled Fluffy Cotton Filling from Love Crafts here. The bags seemed smaller than the wool (they don’t seem to include a weight) but it was packed quite tightly so it went further than I expected. I used nearly two bags to stuff a pony.

It worked just as well but was a bit messier than the wool and the lint stuck to the outside of the pony quite a bit. They are quite similarly priced and over all I prefer the wool but would happily use both again.

Of course these brands were bought in the UK and may not be available in your part of the world. Try searching recycled wool toy filling/stuffing and see what comes up.

So that is pretty much all your instructions for this week. Next week we will discuss mane, tail, eyes and horns!

I am loving seeing all your ponies starting to take shape on social media and am delighted that some of you have finished your ponies, or at least got as far as stuffing them! Here are some the first to be shared on Instagram with the hashtag #patchworkponysustainablesewalong, makers named at the bottom.

(clockwise from lop left, Nicole @saphre1964, Lori @kcquilter, Paula @quiltsbypaulajean, Cameron @quiltycam)

Aren’t they all adorable?! It makes me so happy to see these popping up in my feed. I’m also getting some great ideas from these and the other WIP ponies, like using fabric scrap strips for the mane!

I will leave you with this picture of the ponies/unicorns/dala horses so far. They have taken up residence on the sofa in my Schoolhouse Studio and now no one else can sit down! I am considering commissioning hubby to make a stable block 😉

When he saw this he said it looked like they were getting ready for the 2.30 at Kempton Park!!

Happy pony making everybody, see you next week!