Toy chest etui by Betsy Morgan: 5 – the last few toys in the toy chest!

Here are the last few toys that I made as sewing accessories to fit inside the toy chest etui. The whole toy chest and accessories are designed by Betsy Morgan of Willing Hands. They were really fun to make!

This cute drum is only about an inch and a half high. It has wooden drumsticks, made from thin dowel and beads, stitched onto the lid.

The drum is decorated at the back with soft silk ribbon, laced up the seam, and then tied in a bow.

The drum is lined with silk fabric. The drum is actually a container for a small cylinder of beeswax, which is useful to wax your threads with before stitching with them (waxing cuts down on static, and controls curled threads). The wax cylinder has metal ends, so that your fingers stay clean!

But this next accessory is my absolute favourite! It’s a box about two inches square, with counted thread patterns all the way round.

On the base, I embroidered my initials and the date.

When you release the loop on the red bead, a little jack-in-the-box pops up! He’s on a spring, and has a ruff made of fine silk ribbon. In the instructions, it said to make the head from a piece of the checked silk fabric, so that it would just be a ball of fabric. I felt that he needed to have a face! So I made him from white cotton, and embroidered his face on once he had been attached to the spring (not easy!). The head is actually a container for emery powder, used to clean needles – to use it, you push the needle in and out of the fabric a few times, and discolouration is removed.

To be honest, I haven’t actually tried using it, although I did fill the head with the emery powder. I am worried that if I did poke needles in and out of his face, he might end up looking as if he’s got a bad case of blackheads  🙂

So, here is the whole toy chest, with all the accessories displayed around it. This took me about four months’ worth of my spare time of concerted effort to get finished. About half of that was the assembly of the pieces.

It’s a really lovely project to do, and I’m so pleased with it – it’s one of my favourite possessions. It was due to getting withdrawal symptoms from finishing this etui set in 2012 that I decided to start the Carolyn Pearce Home Sweet Home one!

If you ever get the chance to take one of Betsy Morgan’s workshops, do make the most of the opportunity. Her designs are so creative, and her instructions are very detailed.

As I’ve said before in this series of blog posts, Betsy doesn’t sell these items as kits direct to the public, but instead you buy the whole project pack as part of the workshops which she offers, which last from a couple of days to a week, depending on the item being made (of course, you don’t *finish* the item in a few days, but Betsy shows you all the steps you’ll need to do, and you get the chance to practice, and ask questions, and get started at least!). Betsy is from the USA, but has been over to England a couple of times. In October 2016 she will be offering classes as part of the Beating Around the Bush stitching event in Adelaide, Australia, organised by Inspirations magazine.

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Toy chest etui by Betsy Morgan: 4 – needle case and pincushion

This lovely little needle case is part of Betsy Morgan’s Toy chest etui. I made it in 2012. It’s a holder for a packet of needles (which slip between the back sections of the silk lined case).

The front is cross stitched with variegated silk thread, and the back is checked silk fabric, with a pocket incorporated in the hinge seam.

When it is open, it looks like a paint box. Isn’t it pretty? The pattern at the end of the initials and date on the inside of the lid is a slot, reinforced with the stitching. Inside the slot, you can keep a flat metal needle-threader. The project pack comes with both the needle-threader and a beautiful enamelled charm of a paint palette, to attach to the end of the cord on the needle-threader.

This is the paint box seen closed, with the needle-threader just poking out:

Another accessory in the toy chest is this pincushion, shaped like a book.

The edges of the ‘pages’ are stitched in rows of backstitch, in white. The cover is stitched in cross stitch and counted thread stitches. Each stitched panel of the pincushion is reinforced with fabric stiffener (a bit like petersham), stuffed lightly, and then slipstitched into a book shape.

These designs are by Betsy Morgan of Willing Hands, and form part of the Toy chest etui set. She doesn’t sell these items as kits, but you buy the whole project pack as part of the workshops which she offers, which last from a couple of days to a week, depending on the item being made (of course, you don’t *finish* the item in a few days, but Betsy shows you all the steps you’ll need to do, and you get the chance to practice, and ask questions, and get started at least!). Betsy is from the USA, but has been over to England a couple of times. If you get the chance, go and have a look at her other items, and list of course dates on her blog. In October 2016 she will be offering classes as part of the Beating Around the Bush stitching event in Adelaide, Australia, organised by Inspirations magazine.

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Toy chest etui by Betsy Morgan: 3 – button box and ‘magic’ needle case

This little button box (measuring just an inch and a half square ) is part of the Toy chest etui by Betsy Morgan of Willing Hands. I made it in 2012, as part of the etui set – a toy box, filled with sewing accessories shaped like toys. The motifs on each side all begin with the letter B: button, bird, bee, erm…….rabbit (or bunny, I suppose!).

Each side has a double border of cross stitches in different colours.

The inside is lined in silk. I filled it with antique Victorian buttons (something else that I collect!).

Then there’s THIS. This is a very special needle case. It has a design on the front and back of acorns and cornflowers. This is the front:

This is the reverse side.

But the special bit is inside. There is a loose piece of felt, which the needles are attached to. In the picture below, they are on the left side, with the holding ribbons straight across the felt. If you close it, and then open it from the other side…..

….the needles have magically moved to the right hand side, and the ribbons are now crossed over them! This fascinates me. I know there’s a simple explanation as to why this works. But I assembled the thing, and I’m still not sure how it does it!!!

These designs are by Betsy Morgan of Willing Hands, and form part of the Toy chest etui set.  She doesn’t sell these items as kits, but you buy the whole project pack as part of the workshops which she offers, which last from a couple of days to a week, depending on the item being made (of course, you don’t *finish* the item in a few days, but Betsy shows you all the steps you’ll need to do, and you get the chance to practice, and ask questions, and get started at least!). Betsy is from the USA, but has been over to England a couple of times. If you get the chance, go and have a look at her other items, and list of course dates on her blog. In October 2016 she will be offering classes as part of the Beating Around the Bush stitching event in Adelaide, Australia, organised by Inspirations magazine.

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Toy chest etui by Betsy Morgan: 2 – scissor case and fob, thimble rattle and hobby horse

Here are some of the sewing accessories from the Toy chest etui set by Betsy Morgan of Willing Hands that fit inside the toy box (see my previous post). I really enjoyed making these.

This is a scissor case made with pictures of an Amish woman on the front, and an Amish man on the back, in the style of Amish dolls. The Amish don’t make images of people, so these faces are left blank intentionally, as those on their dolls are.

The scissor fob is like a pencil case. The ‘box’ part of the case is a basketweave pattern in counted thread stitches. The reverse of the pencil case has a space to put the stitcher’s initials and the date.

This is a baby’s rattle. It has a wooden handle, which is cleverly  fixed into the drum through circular layers of cardboard that have been covered with silk.

The handle is held in place inside the rattle by a kind of tiny cotton reel. A thimble goes inside the rattle, and if you shake it gently, it does actually rattle!

It was really fiddly to get this assembled, but it’s come out really neatly, in the end. Betsy’s instructions are very good!

This is a hobby horse, and the stick is a laying tool. The head shape is double-sided, with a space in between for the laying tool to go. The mane is made from loops of soft silk ribbon.

The whole thing is only four inches long.

The designs are by Betsy Morgan of Willing Hands, and form part of the Toy chest etui set.  She doesn’t sell these items as kits, but you buy the whole project pack as part of the workshops which she offers, which last from a couple of days to a week, depending on the item being made (of course, you don’t *finish* the item in a few days, but Betsy shows you all the steps you’ll need to do, and you get the chance to practice, and ask questions, and get started at least!). Betsy is from the USA, but has been over to England a couple of times. If you get the chance, go and have a look at her other items, and list of course dates on her blog. In October 2016 she will be offering classes as part of the Beating Around the Bush stitching event in Adelaide, Australia, organised by Inspirations magazine.

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