Heather Bailey Happy Stacker Review

Heather Baily Store and Happy Stacker Pattern

Preface this by saying this has nothing to do with the creator of the pattern Heather Bailey nor her actual pattern itself. These are just photos of the one I was making which was semi-confusing to me at first so I wanted to help out other sewers who want to make this....





























So this is as I did it with the exception of one picture I meant to get but I will add it later. This project is really fun and cute when completed but I had a really hard time reading the pattern itself and figuring out the turning. That and I should have known but I did not have it in my head for some reason that my machine was gonna get some down time because it was mostly hand sewing and twisting and turning lol

I love to try new things and the first one I made in the boyish fabrics was the tester for this pattern for me personally....the one I make next is going to be the sample for HipStitch out of the stripey fabric since they sell the pattern it is nice for the customers to be able to see what it looks like in real life.

Of course I want to encourage everyone to try something new and not give up because you did not do it all the way the directions said or make a mistake...I hope that by seeing the Happy Stacker in person people will brave the pattern and go for it....and won't the recipients of this cute gift be soooo impressed with them they will never realize how long you agonized over the directions or messed it up by flipping it wrong lol.


This is not a whole tutorial just the tricky parts that I found funky....most of the stuff is self explanatory in the directions.

I used a med quality white muslin for my interfacing and it did not slip around as much as I expected. I did not want to use any iron on stuff so that it was chewable for babies or gummable lol.


This helped me and I hope it helps you......Trace your patterns--every piece. Cut out and organize by donut size putting each piece that goes with each pattern together.

Cut out tracings and then apply to wrong side of fabrics marking all impt seam points and lines--esp mark the inner 'donut hole' THIS IS IMPT they must be CENTERED!! Also mark the inner donut hole dashed seams.































HINT WORK ON THE SMALLEST DONUT FIRST!!! I DID ALL THE STEPS ON EACH DONUT AND COMPLETED IT BEFORE MOVING ON TO THE NEXT ONE...I might not have wanted to finish it if I had done it one step at a time


Trim the donut holes, clipping inner seam from hole to dashed lines. Then when you are stitching the donut to the hole put your fingers into it and keep it almost taut (but not too tight) just enough to be able to stitch a nice strong even line --sorry for the brightness a photog I am not















OK so you have now sewn one donut top to the hole and now you have to sew the second one.....REMEMBER to check the pattern cause you have to sew it on so that the raw edges go inside and then you have to flip it through the hole so it looks like this AND REMEMBER the donut hole has the right side of the fabric to the hole's inside!



























This is the easy part lol...you just machine sew the edge of the donut all the way around ONLY on one side so it looks like this--in the photo with showing the side that you did NOT sew the edge to take note because it is impt to understanding the next step





















OK wrap your brain around this...take the FAR printed side of the donut side (think opposite of where my fingers are on the bottom hole layer, the one towards the table) the one you DID NOT sew the edge to, pull it up and over the entire donut so that it touches the printed side of the edging you just sewed--folding it into itself like a fabric taco and if you did it right the hole should be open to the bottom of the 'taco' and all you will see right now is the interfacing and none of the printed side of the fabric
























Yea did you get that???? Seriously just chuckle and let the breathe out cause it was not that hard lol lol.....really it was hard but once you do it once or twice you will get it!! Trust me!

At this point you will have had enough of hand stitching (and I like handstitching lol) so machine sew your fabric 'taco' half as much around the semi circle that is exposed as you can


















Then pull the stuffed in part of the taco out and it will magically appear as a donut ring as Ms. Bailey states in her pattern--no really it will...it is very cool after you just wrassled with it to this point and so here you have one unstuffed donut then of course you get to stuff, turn the hem in and hand stitch--I also went back and hand stitched the inner donut on the outside too just to give it more support because it was very hard to get good tight hand stitches on those in the early stages






















No really look how cute it is sitting their in it's ready to be played with by a baby innocence...I gave this guy some cute decorative hand stitches...we don't have to tell this little donut he was seam ripped a few times and cursed at do we?

Who would believe this toy is over a foot tall ????? LOL I will post pics of the stripey one when I finish it this week!



















And after all that would I do it again, heck yea it turned out to be a good brain exercise and really cute in the end. I would say it is a intermediate sewer pattern but easy once you figure it out.....does that make sense? You are welcome to contact me if you need help or email the creator herself Heather Bailey a rockin mom who makes some really gorgeous fabric designs and as well as this great pattern and MORE!!