Nowadays handmade souvenirs are gaining more and more popularity. Among them, such amazing and cute creatures as attic animals are in demand. All of them have a brownish tint of fabric and a certain decor. All this together gives the impression of an old toy found somewhere in a chest. And such souvenirs are flavored. The pattern of coffee toys is usually very simple, so the product does not require professional sewing skills. Even a beginner needlewoman will cope with the task.
Why is the toy called coffee
All characters made in this style have a brownish tint, which is obtained by lowering into a container or applying a brush with a solution prepared from ground or freeze-dried coffee. A pattern of coffee toys, circled and cut out of fabric, or an already sewn product can be painted. Everyone chooses a method convenient for themselves.
There is still a legend that explains the appearance of these toys. A woman working in a coffee factory sewed a toy for her daughter, whom she often played in the attic over the production facilities, when her mother took her with her for a shift. The girl forgot her toy. Lying for many years in the attic, the doll’s fabric has grown old and saturated with the aroma of coffee, cinnamon and vanilla. This is what modern needlewomen do this souvenir.
Interesting ideas
Coffee toys (photo below) can be very diverse. Most often they are performed in the form of the following characters:
Also sew owls, ducks, mushrooms, houses. Less often you can see hearts, elephants, little men, horses, fish.
The size and shape of toys is chosen by the author at his own discretion or is determined by the existing pattern, if you take the finished one.
The configuration of all the characters in this toy is simplified. The product is made of two identical parts (front and back, conditionally), which are stitched along the perimeter in one seam inside out. The packing hole is sewn on the front side manually. Often these little animals are painted with cheerful emotional
expressions and even write funny original inscriptions on them. So you get nice souvenirs for any holiday.
Materials and Tools
To make such a gift yourself, you will need the following:
- Pattern of coffee toys.
- Natural fabric (linen, calico).
- Coffee, cinnamon, vanilla for coloring and flavoring.
- Capacity for boiling the composition.
- Sieve for filtering.
- Wide brush for applying brown tint.
- Pencil.
- Safety pins.
- Scissors.
- PVA (if you are going to draw a face or decor with acrylic).
- Sewing machine.
- Sintepon or other filler.
- Thin brush.
- Various decorations (ribbons, bows, beads, shreds, buttons, etc.).
The list, it turns out, is not so small, but if you are at least a little engaged in needlework and creativity, all this is in your box. Buying any item will also not be difficult and high material costs.
DIY coffee toys: patterns
If you are making such a souvenir for the first time, use the template - one of the presented in the article or found yourself. To do this, just print the image, cut along the contour and circle it on the fabric, pre-pinned pins.
If you don’t like ready-made schemes or none of what you’ve seen suits you, make your own version of any character.
It is not difficult to build a pattern. In fact, you just need to draw a simplified contour image of the animal. As a rule, its proportions can be any, completely unrealistic. Cats often have long necks, or the animal, on the contrary, takes on the shape of a circle or rectangle. So show your imagination, and drawing skills are not required here. The main thing is that the form is easy to cut out of fabric and just sew. Characters usually consist of one, at most 2-3 separately made
parts: a body, which includes already legs, as well as a tail and ears. The easiest way to make a souvenir as a whole.
Coffee toys: master class
It should be noted right away that the manufacturing sequence may vary slightly. Choose the one that seems most convenient to you. Since you will need to stain the white fabric, you can plan this process before stitching the toy or after. In these cases, the composition is applied with a wide brush on the front side. More precisely, the surface on which the color is applied (before stitching the parts) will be the front. You can dye a whole flap of fabric before cutting out elements with already applied contours or before applying them, but this option is less convenient, since it is difficult to obtain a uniform distribution of the shade over the material and a larger amount of solution will be required.
If you paint the cut parts, they can be dried directly on the surface where the process took place. Usually this is a table with a newspaper or an oilcloth overlaid. To speed up the process, sometimes use a hairdryer. If you apply the solution to stitched toys, it is better to dry them in the oven. To do this, you need pendants, for which you can fix the toy on the grill. And also it will be necessary to carefully control the drying process so that the products do not burn.
So, let’s take a look at the process of creating a coffee souvenir step by step. The sequence of work will be as follows:
- Prepare a paper pattern.
- Pin the cut contour with pins to the double-folded fabric, circle and cut. Remember to consider seam allowances if they were not included in the size of the template.
- Prepare a solution of a mixture of coffee, cinnamon, vanilla. You can choose any proportions. It all depends on the number of toys that you need to be painted, and on the desired shade of fabric. You can start with 2-3 teaspoons of coffee, two - cinnamon, and a bag of vanilla. Next time you can adjust the proportions. If the resulting shade after drying seems too light to you, simply repeat the procedure again (one or more). It is worth noting that natural coffee gives a more persistent pleasant aroma, and instant coffee gives a darker color. If you are going to paint the toy with acrylics, be sure to add PVA glue to the solution . It will serve as a primer for the paint, and it will retain its original color after drying, will not fade and will lie evenly on the material.
- After you boil the solution, it should be filtered so that debris does not stick to the fabric.
- Take a wide brush and spread the color evenly on the parts laid out on the newspaper, let it dry.
- Fold the elements inward with the sides on which you applied the solution, chop with pins and thread with contrasting threads along the entire contour, backing off from the edge about 5 mm. The size of the allowance depends on the size of the toy. For a small souvenir, it is advisable to perform it smaller than for a large one.
- Sew the seam on the machine, leaving a hole for twisting and stuffing.
- Treat the edges with a zigzag seam, if available on your machine. If there is no such function, you can do it manually or leave the edges unprocessed.
- Make small cuts on the allowances in the areas of strong fillets and shape transitions. This will prevent the fabric from contracting in these parts of the toy after eversion. Do this carefully so as not to damage the seam.
- Turn the toy on the front side and fill it with a padding polyester or other filler.
- Sew the hole carefully.
- Decorate your character by adding a facial expression and original decor. Eyes, mouth, nose can be embroidered or drawn. Choose what you like.
Souvenirs to cheer up
Patterns of coffee toys-positives are no different from ordinary ones. Emotion, laughter, positive emotions are caused by painted faces (smiling, with protruding tongue, surprised eyes) and inscriptions. The text can be invented independently, spied on other characters, photographs, or even heard from friends who constantly like to joke. Remember or write down your favorite phrases, and then use them in your creative process.
So, you saw what a pattern of coffee toys is. You can draw such a template yourself or print any blank you like. Sewing this cute thing is not difficult, and the souvenir is very cute and cute.