Teal It Is!

Perhaps it’s because I’ve only recently become a fan of minky fabrics but I had no idea before now that Shannon Fabrics actually does a “Color of the Year”….and I only found out this year because it’s all over their social media! They have introduced TEAL as their Color of the Year for 2022 and I must say, I’m a fan!! This is the cute picture they used on their website and Blog to introduce the color…..

I just love everything about their picture! I’ve always loved the Fintastic Cuddle print, and would you just look at that sweet but scary little shark they made out of Teal Glacier!!!

Now you’ll know that I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve always loved the color Teal if you’ve been reading my Blog posts for awhile because you’ll perhaps remember that the first minky blanket I made for myself was indeed made using Aqua Sea Galaxy and Teal Blooms and of course, there’s photographic evidence lol:

When I see the color teal, it immediately makes me think of water, the ocean specifically, which in turn makes me feel calmer, so I wasn’t at all surprised when I read one of their reasons for choosing this particular color. They wrote, “Teal brings a sense of calmness and restfulness that reflects mental and spiritual balance (something we could all use a little extra of these days). It’s been said to help with open communication and clarity of thought, too.” AB-SO-LUTE-LY!!!!!!!

So as I’m looking at this awesome picture, can you guess what I was thinking….let’s see how well you know me?!? If you guessed I NEED TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF TEAL, you’d be 100% correct lol! And if you also guessed that I was thinking it absolutely had to be a water loving stuffie animal, well you get 1000 bonus points lol!!!

And so the stuffie pattern search began. Now of course my first idea was to make the same shark that they had made so I headed over to the Funky Friends Factory website and wowzers, do they ever have a lot of patterns, and awesome ones at that!! There I found him, Sammy the Shark, looking oh so cute but unfortunately, the one stopper for me, as usual, was the price!! Perhaps affordable at $12.99 USD, when converted to CDN, it ended up at almost $17 which seems like a lot for a stuffed animal pattern!!!! I didn’t give up immediately, I searched out the private pattern making group on FB and asked to join, hoping there would be a discount code for members to help make it a bit more affordable! I was, however, denied access to the group so that was the final straw for me…..I closed that tab and went off on a search for a more affordable option! Enter ETSY lol!!!

It wasn’t long before I had several much more reasonably priced options on Etsy, I just needed to decide which one to make! My one requirement was I didn’t want a pattern that required me to embroider a face either by machine (because I don’t have one!) or by hand (because I don’t have that skill!) so that soon narrowed my selection down even more and I finally settled on this cute dolphin by Crafty Kooka!

Besides being super cute, it was reasonably priced at $10.04 CDN and she seemed easy enough for a beginner stuffie sewer so I purchased the pattern and all I had left to do was chose a fabric the next day at work, oh, and order eyes! I found some on Amazon, they said they’d be delivered by Saturday so it was perfect! I decided to go with stick on eyes instead of the more permanent safety eyes because let’s face it, this dolphin will end up as a Pug toy and their favourite thing to chew off of stuffies is their eyes….every single time lol!! This way, I’ll take cute pics and then peal them off!

I gathered all our Teal fabrics to make it easier to choose the 2 I’d like to use! As fun as those prints are, I was immediately drawn once again to Aqua Sea Galaxy and then Teal Dimple for the underbelly….ohhhhh, this is getting exciting!!

Friday night I cut out the fabric pieces and then Saturday morning I rose bright and early to commence the sewing! The pattern was super simple to follow, definitely beginner sewer friendly, and within a short period of time, she was done!!

Isn’t she super cute!!! She certainly isn’t perfect…but is anything lol?!? I had lots of fun sewing her, enough so that I might venture to try some other stuffies in the future, just still have to figure out how to avoid embroidered faces….or make friends with someone that has an embroidery machine lol!!

Have you made some stuffies? Do you have some favourite patterns? I’d love to see pictures of your creations too!

Have a great week everyone….stay warm, stay safe and create something amazing!

Shawna