Thursday, September 8, 2011

Go fish!

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I don't think I'm alone in thinking gifts for boys are hard… and even harder when you're trying to come up with something hand made.  So I'm excited to share my latest sewing project with you.  It's a magnetic fishing game I made for one of Minty's little friends who just turned four.  He loves going fishing with his dad and has a boat made out of cardboard boxes permanently set up in their lounge room so I had a feeling this would be perfect for him.  I'm pretty sure I was right!  He seemed genuinely excited with his gift and even stopped mid-party to give it a try.  Minty loved it too and was pretty reluctant to give it away!

The fish are fairly simple, primitive designs.  I just sketched the patterns free-hand but if you wanted to make these yourself and felt nervous I'm sure you'd be able to find some fish templates if you googled around.  I used fabric from my stash - some Heather Ross mendocino, Joelle Hoverson cake rock beach and some other solids and linen I had lying around.  Each fish has a small washer stitched to it's nose.  Originally I was planning on sewing these inside but with all the stuffing and fabric the magnet wasn't strong enough to pick them up.  The rod is made with a dowel and string.  The magnet is glued to the end of the string as the magnet was too hard to drill through.  I also made a simple drawstring bag to store the fish in (don't you just love little drawstring bags for storing little toys?!)
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13 comments:

  1. Wonderful!
    In a spooky coincidence, yesterday I came across a long-lost game while cleaning out the spare room....it's a fishing game, with, you guessed it, rods with magnet-on-a-string, and little fish with magnetic mouths.
    I love your life-size version!
    :-)

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  2. Fantastic. Handmade for boys can be hard.

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  3. Love the idea. Although personally, I wouldn't waste such classy fabric on these for the boys I know... they just wouldn't appreciate it!! hehe

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  4. What a great idea. I love cowes, my husbands grandparents live there. Thanks for popping by my blog and leaving a comment :-)

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  5. Great idea. Love the colours and fabrics you've chosen. I hope some more Cake Rock Beach is made, I'm still kicking myself that I didn't pick some up.

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  6. Gorgeous.
    You know I'm going to steal your idea, it's too good not to. There's lot's of little boys (& girls) just waiting for such an awesome catch.

    You clearly didn't get our weather today... is Minty really wearing a singlet??? Ca-razy.

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  7. Kitty - steal away!! I took the photos on the weekend so no Minty wasn't wearing a singlet today - though she did lie out on the nature strip this morning and told me she was sunbathing!! (I guess I really should be thinking about getting her to be a little more sun smart now that the weather is warming up again!)
    Alisa - I'd love to see a follow up line of cake rock beach - it really has been a favourite of mine.
    Jacinta - I live in the (possibly vain) hope that if I surround little boys with aesthetically pleasing objects they will grow up to have good taste and appreciate beautiful things... as yet the theory is untested we'll have to see what happens when Turi grows up!!

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  8. I've seen lots of paper/cardboard versions of this but the fabric is so lovely.

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  9. What a great idea! I actually went to a fete last week where they had this game (with wooden fish) and I suggested that my husband go home and carve fish from wood (joking!).
    I must try this!

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