Mollie’s Challenge: Toucan Keyring

Ladies and gentlemen, the craft kit that started it all: the toucan keyring from issue #94 of Mollie Makes.

You know, the back issue I bought because I just had to have it? Because, while flamingos are my official obsession (of tropical theme, anyway), I love toucy-toucies almost as much?

Yeah. And then I let it sit on a shelf for a year.

Oops?

The bucket of freebies from Mollie Makes‘ magazine.

 

I almost left this kit ’til last. There seemed a certain kind of destiny (or irony?) in ending with the kit that started my Mollie Makes subscription in the first place.

Alas, upon sifting through my collection of kits, I determined this would be one of the easier ones to work with and thought it would make for a nice introduction to the more complicated sewing (like the party bear from issue #100) after the easy tracing of the mini pennant from #101.

Boy, was I wrong.

 

What comes in the toucan keyring kit from issue #94 of Mollie Makes?

 

First of all, some of the pieces are tiny — enough to make cutting them out of paper difficult, let alone out of felt.

(I don’t think I’ll be working with anything this small out of felt again if I can help it — but isn’t that part of the point of subscribing to something so varied? That you get to try things out and decide what works for you and what doesn’t?)

 

All the tiny paper pieces cut out.

 

Second of all… I thought the magazine with the instructions in it was still on my shelf, but it turns out it was one of the issues I gave away — so I was making it all up as I went.

I mean, it seems simple enough, really. Cut the pieces out, put them together and sew as the photos show?

 

All the felt pieces cut out. It looks cute already!

 

Well, simple is as simple does (whatever that means) and I managed to put together a very pretty beak… the wrong way around. 🤦‍♀️

That’s okay, I thought. I could make it mostly double-sided and cut out those pieces again to do it right.

Except I ran out of fabric. I had to unpick the beak and try again… better this time around.

 

Beak, tail, wings, belly, eye and cheek all sewn, with a googly eye glued on for good measure!

 

I wasn’t looking forward to sewing those tiny feet, guys, I gotta say!

But for all that I simply could not parse how to use blanket stitch before I worked on the feet (thus the awful stitching on the blue part of the tail), it suddenly just clicked on the feet — which was a very good thing because blanket stitch really helped to round off the fuzzy felt edging on the bird itself when I sewed it all together.

 

All sewed together with the keyring attached — but no eye because the dang thing fell off!

 

Doesn’t it look cute?

Well, it would look even cuter if my glue had worked and the dang eye had stayed put!

I used a different glue to attach the eye this time and, so far, it seems to have worked.

Yay! Toucy-toucy is complete!

 

I seeeeeee youuuuu.

 

Guys. He looks so good on my wall. (I can’t get a good picture, though.)

I keep saying to my PAs, “Have you met Toucy-Toucy yet?” Like, every time they come in, no matter how many times they’ve already seen it. “I made that,” I say, with the kind of glee really only fit for a child.

Or, you know, a near-40 woman who just finished sewing a toucan together.