Train Soft Toy Project D – Molly the Yellow Engine

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It has been a while since I last made a train soft toy for Gavin.  I came across a piece of bright yellow felt that I originally bought to make the wings for Gavin’s Bumble Bee costume for his 1 year old birthday and decided to put it to good use.  Since he already had a green train, blue train and red train, I figured it was time to add a yellow train to the collection – besides, Gavin’s been quite fond of Molly, the yellow train lately.

I didn’t have yellow thread, so I used white.  With my stitching improved stitching, I felt braver about using a more conspicuous colour.

I also took up my SIL2’s suggestion about using a button for the couplink so Molly could be separated from her tender – although I’m not sure that Gavin has the manual dexterity to separate them yet.  My only mistake was not making an extra tab to sew the button on – something to remember when I make the next train.

Below: Gavin gives Molly the final inspection.

And she passed with flying colours!  Although, one of these days I think I really should go the extra mile and add more features to the train.  In the meantime, I’ll settle for getting the couplink right first.

Below is Gavin’s entire soft toy train set.  Although they look really nice initially, the biggest pitfall about using felt is that the material starts to look a bit ratty after a while.  It isn’t so noticeable on the green and red trains but I’m sure you can see the balling effect happening on the blue train from the photo below.

Gavin proudly holding his trains…

No matter how bad they look or how ratty they become, it always fills me with a warm glow to see how much my son enjoys playing with the toys I made for him with love.  I guess it also goes to show that you don’t have to spend a lot of money on a child to entertain them – nor do they have to have the best of everything.

I was out to dinner with friends and while I was entertaining Gavin by drawing a picture of a train for him, one of our dinner companions made a remark about my train drawing.  I told him that the best part about children is that they aren’t very critical about your artwork.  As long as you get the colour right and remember to draw all the necessary features (e.g. the right train number, smoke from the funnel, railway tracks under the train, coal in the tender, etc.) it really doesn’t matter how bad your picture is.  It could be a rectangle with wheels and your child will still know what you’re drawing.

Likewise, I can slap any two pieces of felt together with rough stitching and cotton wool and Gavin will still be delighted by it.  Whenever I feel unaccomplished, all I have to do is draw a train for my toddler and suddenly I’m Picasso.

For instructions on how to make a soft toy, I have detailed instructions in my first post on the topic.

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Other posts that might interest you:

• Train Soft Toys – Project C
• Making a Soft Toy – Project B
• The Bumblebee Costume Part 2
• Sights and Sounds: Puffing Billy
• Art and Craft: Foam Zone Mini 3D Kit

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