Tagged: plush

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. ;)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

adventurous whales

I just realized that, for the last week, I’ve had a picture of me with a mustache as the top entry. oops! Let’s slide that one down a bit…

And now I can tell you all about what the little vinyl circles, and the blue polar fleece “mustache”, and the surprises were all about! I was asked to send along a few pieces to be part of a gallery show, “Get Stuffed“, at SPACES gallery in downtown Cleveland!

Of course, I sent over a Narwhal. But I wanted to take this opportunity to make something really awesome and unique… so I came up with some Adventurous Whales.

Adventurous Whales – Friendly Seas
friendly seas - the submarine whale

friendly seas - the submarine whale

friendly seas - the submarine whale

Adventurous Whales – Friendly Skies
friendly skies - the airplane whale

friendly skies - the airplane whale

friendly skies - the airplane whale

They’re both made from polar fleece for the main body, with vinyl and pleather accents and appliques. They each have pleather bellies. I couldn’t have done this without my trusty teflon foot… sewing all that vinyl is tricky! It’s especially hard to work with since it manages to be both slippery and sticky, plus once you’ve poked a hole in it you can’t change your mind!

I’m very happy with how they turned out, and I’m still brainstorming more “adventurous whales” for the future! With only a week to work on it, I had to stick to two (and even that was a lot!). The gallery opened last night, but I haven’t been over yet to see how they look with all the other plush. It’s definitely good to sew something super unique every once in awhile… something that makes you say, “well, that’s awesome, but i’m never making another one of those!”

p.s. can you find the mustache?