Need advice for mending childhood plush

[u/dragonarrow2776]

Hi guys! I need some help.

I've been through a lot in my life and my Rosie has been with me through it all. I stopped sleeping with her a couple of years ago because I was worried about her falling apart. I don't think she'll ever be strong enough for that again, so I'm mostly okay with her sitting on a shelf once she's repaired but I would like to cuddle her occasionally.

I was thinking that mending Rosie could help me heal a part of my inner child. While I've gone through a lot of therapy for my trauma, I still feel disconnected from my childhood. I think spending time mending Rosie and making her whole again would help me reconnect with it.

I'm just not sure where to start. I've sewn my whole life, but mending is new to me. She's quite threadbare in places and her body fabric is quite thin. I'm thinking her fabric may need to be reinforced, but I'm not sure how to go about that without taking her entirely apart lol. (If I have to I will, but that seems really scary tbh).

So, tl;dr: how do I go about mending Rosie? I'm not sure where to start but I want to do it myself to help heal my inner child. ❤️

[u/icephoenix821]

Make her a cute outfit and stitch it permanently on, ruffled cuffs can cover the seams between the body and the limbs/head.

I can't quite tell where that furry area is, maybe between the eye and ear? Give her a coordinating headband or hat.

[u/dragonarrow2776 → u/icephoenix821]

The furry area is an inch or so from her eye that goes up from the the neck to the ear.

That's not a terrible idea though. The flowers on her are special to me, but maybe I could find some similar fabric to use for something like that.

[u/beezeebeehazcatz → u/dragonarrow2776]

I still wanted to see the original fabric, so I used a very fine, soft mesh fabric to make a new body and stitched it over the top. I haven’t tried washing him since the repair, but I’m not worried about bits of him falling off anymore.