A day out at the British seaside wouldn’t be complete without a seagull trying to steal your chips, so I loved making Captain Chips the snack stealing seagull this summer! He comes as a kit from Thimble Wood, who sell their sewing kits and digital download patterns via Etsy. The Captain Chips kit costs £23.50 at the moment. I actually purchased my kit from Thimble Wood’s stand at The Stitch Festival earlier this year.
Included in the kit was:
- Selection of fabrics including linen, chambray, cotton, and felt
- Iron-on wadding
- Length of ric rac
- Black embroidery thread
- Wooden star button
- Safety eyes x2
- Toy stuffing
- Paper pattern
The first, and I think the biggest job to do was cutting out all the pieces, making sure you had them the right way round as most of the pattern pieces needed to be reversed. The feet were also a little tricky and had their own instructions. Some knowledge of sewing with patterns is definitely required for a kit like this and I made sure to read through all the instructions before starting to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes.
The pattern is meant to be machine sewed, but my hand sewing skills are much better than my machine skills so I actually thought it would be quicker and neater for me to hand sew it. It probably did take me longer overall to hand sew rather than machine sew, but I think I would have enjoyed the process less if I had used the machine. The longest bit of sewing was around the body and head, which still wasn’t too much, so I definitely think this kit would be suitable for someone who was less confident with the machine or even didn’t have one at all.
I would say the trickiest bits of the project were getting the beak lined up and sewn in nicely, and making the feet and legs, although there was a top tip for turning the thin legs right side out using a straw and a kebab stick, which I will definitely be using again!
I was so pleased with my finished Captain Chips, he was just so lovely! I was tempted to keep him, but my house is already overflowing with craft makes so I decided to give him away and he’s gone off to live in my friend’s home in France.
