Prototyping a floppy teddy bear for summer! I’ve been wanting to sew something with movement that could be placed in many positions for imaginative play for a while now.

#naturalkids #toymaker #handmade #sewing

Part 3 of our avocado pit dyed fabric project: sewing little lamb toys.

I decided to start numbering and signing our tags to remind our customers that the things they buy are made by humans.

Our classic handmade rabbit redesigned for Spring 2025. This edition is made with our classic cotton sherpa fabric hand dyed with black tea, resulting in the warmest, softest brown. This is the third edition of Aster and the first in earthy colors with a bright orange linen collar.

Making Easter Bunnies out of hand dyed fabric using tea. I dyed this 100% organic cotton fabric using tea after pretreating the fabric with soymilk. These bunnies will be available tomorrow!

The avocado pit dye came out as the softest coolest pink. I pretreated the fabric with soymilk to help the dye bond to it but from what I have read we can expect the pink will change a bit when exposed to the sun overtime--it likely will become a warmer, lighter, peachy pink if it sits in the window

This time we're playing around with natural dying techniques. Aster Cottontail will be in a tea dyed fabric (launching next week!) and our first lamb toy will come in both the traditional white and in an avocado pit dyed fabric!

The trickiest part of material research for toys has been finding materials that are all natural. So far we have only found fluffy organic cotton fabric in white. To add color we have used bright colored fabric for the belly and ears in non fuzzy fabrics (much easier to find non synthetic options).

I wanted to share a little progress report for our upcoming Spring launch. We began our Easter prep by designing a relaunch of Aster Cottontail, the first toy we made a year ago. This year's version will be in light earthy tones that feel like the beginning of Spring.

We're prepping for Easter with bunnies, lambs, and natural dyed fabrics!

Part 2 of our avocado pit dying project. It ended up as a lovely cool pink and we can expect that overtime it will fade into a warmer peachy pink. I can’t wait to sew with this.

Part 1 of natural fabric dying with avocado pits. The perfect peachy pink for Valentine’s Day week. Can’t wait to use this for sewing our next toy design. #sewing #naturaldying

Drafting patterns is my favorite part of running a small toy design business. I usually start with a sketch of an idea and then play around with different shapes, seams, and fabrics until I get close to my original idea. #sewing #toymaking

A quiet morning cutting out pieces for toy owls.

#toymaker #smallbatch #naturaltoys

A little peek into the process of sewing our owl toys. Their little faces are shaved by hand.

It's the last day of the first month of 2025 and a good day to let you all know, we have finished our first toy design of the year! We've seen owls in our yard on these quiet snowy days. They feel magical to me. They're soft, calm, and focused, and those qualities feel needed in 2025.

Silly little projects like baking a tiny loaf of bread on our wood stove are the only way for me to stay sane in the winter.

Hi bluesky! I’m a toymaker. Here’s an owl I’ve been prototyping. (Taken in the bathroom because I shaved his little face to get that texture.)