Fluffyland Craft & Sewing Blog

Tagged: plushie

the beastie!

At the end of September, I received a delightful email request from Collyn (pronounced Colleen) in Canada. She and her best friend came up with a small creature, nicknamed “The Beastie”. In her words, “this furry creature is a symbol of all the wonder and amazement over the small experiences in life that only children and kids could feel”. Since they attend separate universities now, they send letters back and forth to each other (because snail mail is awesome!) and they often doodle the little guy on notes and such.

For Christmas*, she decided a plush beastie would be the absolute perfect gift for her friend. Of course, I was absolutely flattered to be chosen for the challenge.

She sent me a few scanned doodles, along with his preferred color: gray with pink and yellow accents. I spent a few weeks hunting down the most perfectly soft fur I could find, and then it was sewing time.

from this... (doodles of the beastie)

...to this. (the finished, super huggable beastie.)

From the tips of his stripey horns to the bottom of his soft belly, it sure was hard to let him go! I’d forgotten how much I absolutely love fleece applique, how fun it is to sew on little details and make sure everything is exactly perfect. I hadn’t done anything of the sort since Bloo, or the goomba before him. I’d forgotten that, even though I can’t draw, I can make anything as long as I’ve got some scissors. This was a great stretching project for me, a great creative exercise.

the beastie!

But of course, above all, it felt so good to be able to give these friends a real, soft, huggable beastie.

*side note… she asked me to start on a Christmas present in september! so awesome! it’s nice to know there are people in the world who know how long things can take :)

why, hello there!

I hope your 2011 has been going along nicely. Mine, so far, has started slowly. This January, for me, has been a month of observing.

I’m typically a do-er, a producer. I sew and photograph and blog. But in these last couple weeks, I’ve been listening, reading, and observing instead; I’ve been quieting myself down a bit so I can hear what’s going on in the outside world. All of it has been a nice respite from the pre-Christmas narwhal frenzy… even though I’m still making plenty.

But I don’t want to sit in my quiet little world forever. And now that Christmas gift-time is over, I can share some pictures of the custom narwhals that were requested over the holidays.

giant stuffed narwhal
A double-size narwhal! These were requested by multiple separate people, which I found interesting… maybe they should become a permanent Fluffyland fixture? They were definitely fun to make… it felt awesome to be making such large plush.

blue stuffed narwhal
A blue narwhal! I’ve considered adding an option to choose narwhals in other colors, but for now it’s by request only. It would make inventory considerably more difficult with a rainbow palette… so we’ll see how that looks in the future.

stuffed narwhal with a purple heart
And a stuffed narwhal with a little purple heart! I much prefer applique to embroidery. I didn’t have time to do any name embroideries this Christmas, plus they’re really not something I like to do. But every once in awhile, a narwhal just needs a little extra something and I understand that.

That certainly wasn’t all the special Christmas sewing I did… there were also the more exciting, out-of-the-box, completely narwhal-unrelated projects that I took on. I’ll post pictures of those tomorrow!


p.s.
I’m currently wearing this woot shirt. It was a Christmas gift from my brother, and it matches this post quite well. ;)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ninja bear!

ninja bear - made from "peg bear" pattern in One Yard Wonders

The creators of the book One Yard Wonders are producing a sequel, and are currently asking for project submissions. The deadline is April 1st (i know! sorry!) extended to April 11! but if you’ve got a pattern that you’ve been itching to publish, this could be your chance!

I decided to submit a pattern, but before finalizing I had to see the first book to make sure I was on the right track. So I picked it up from the library… it’s a darling book! Great pictures, some very cute projects, and the two things that every craft book should have but not nearly enough do: spiral bound pages and patterns printed on tissue and presented in an envelope.

Even though I had borrowed the book in order to use it as a guide, I couldn’t pass up a chance to make something as adorable as the “Peg Bear” pattern. So, shoving homework aside, I stitched up this little guy who is now affectionately referred to as Ninja Bear! Stuffed to the brink of explosion, he’s quite heavy, very huggable, and incredibly sneaky.