Stuffed Animal Storage

Little girls and their stuffed animal, it's a beautiful relationship. Just this morning, all of Gwenny's animals had "sick bellies," and she had to feed them apples and put them to bed. Her room looked like a stuffed animal refugee camp with bears and monkeys and a zebra lying face down covered by play silks.

I love watching my girls practice their nurturing skills on "Monkey" and "ZeeBee" and "G-aff" (notice a theme in these names). Storing all these precious friends is a challenge. They were sitting on top of a bookshelf until I came upstairs to find Gwennan climbing unsteady shelves to reach her bear. That could not continue.


Looking at storage options proved disappointing. We don't have the space for a bean bag or a gigantic stuffed animal cage. Then I remembered the picture of the hanging laundry bag from  One Yard Wonders (a great gift for your favorite seamstress). Exactly what we needed to hang on the attic access door and keep animals off the floor and dust free.

Technically, this project was a breeze. But mentally, well, I pulled the fabric out of my stash last week, and it sat next to the machine nagging me until yesterday. It took a week to find time and courage to begin the bag. My greatest sewing challenge is always starting. Sewing projects overwhelm me until I'm actually pushing fabric through the machine. Instant gratification starts to kick in, and I enjoy my work. Until then, I'm an unsure mess.

 The finished bag holding "Monkey" and "Bear" and about 10 other animals. 

But I did start it, and the result was better than I hoped. I used an upholstery weight fabric from Joann that I picked up for Gwennan's original nursery. All the seams are overcast. The girls could use it as a hammock - it's that strong.

My mental hurdle for this bag (besides cleaning off the kitchen table) was making the bias tape. Prudent Baby's brilliant tutorials gave me the confidence to start. I'm really pleased with the results, plus I better understand the uses of bias tape. Yay! After making several yards, I determined how to spend my Christmas gift card: a bias tape maker. I did all the folding by hand for this. Not at all efficient.

My favorite part of this project: I was able to solve our problems with material we already had rather than a trip to Ikea.com. Not that there is anything wrong with Ikea or organizers. I simply feel more satisfied for having fixed it myself.