Something Different

Just kidding, it's more plush! I'm having nightmares about stuffing again. I'm still working on commissions from Heroes Con. Isn't that crazy? The answer is yes.
Anyway, I've gotten a lot of the simpler characters out of the way and I'm starting to work on dolls that require some pattern drafting. Does anyone else have a skill that some days you feel like the DaVinci of whatever and some days it seems like somebody snuck in at night and stole the part of your brain that knows how to do that thing? That could totally happen, I'm an insanely heavy sleeper. That's me and pattern drafting. Sometimes I draw something and sew it together and stuff it and it's like "Hi, I look exactly how you wanted! You should go have some ice cream for being so cool!" Sometimes I sew something and stuff it and immediately unstuff it and hide it under the table and pretend that it never happened.

V.I.N.CENT from Disney's The Black Hole started as a hide under the table kind of project. The little round body base and feet weren't too bad, just some sizing issues. Those little arm things were terrible! I might have made my boyfriend come help and then been kind of mean about it because I was grumpy about the terribleness. Luckily I got it in the end and he turned out really cute and his recipient was super happy and danced around a little. That's what matters.

Choopie from the The Perhapanauts was a totally different story. I think I did his head twice to get the size I wanted. Other than that, the tweaked patterns for his arms and legs worked perfectly. Aw, and he has a little wings and bright green nipples. Adorbs. For some reason I love putting little nipples on dolls.

I'm almost done with the dolls for Stitch Wars Strikes Back at Bear and Bird Boutique. I'll get some pictures and gush about them. Excited!

Nifty Thrifty: The Thriftening

Anyone who knows me even a little, or just looks at my Flickr account, can tell I am a big fan of thrifting. It seems it's gaining in popularity, what with vintage fashion experiencing a surge in popularity and also everyone being poor. Prepare for hipsterness; I did it before it was cool. My childhood Saturday mornings, my parents and I would head to the big AmVets thrift store in downtown Fresno. I think the building has since been torn down for baseball stadium parking, which is lame because it was an awesome old building full of little nooks and cranies and hilarious crap. My mom and I would take turns suggesting hideous sweaters to each other and giggling while my dad looked for random junk and the most embarrassing pants he could find. He had a thing for knock off Zumba pants with geckos and chili peppers.  Now you know where I get my fabulous fashion sense. Oh, yeah. 

Since thrifting holds a special place in my cheap little heart and Saturday is my traditional thrifting day, every Saturday is Nifty Thrifty! I'll be showcasing my recent finds and older acquisitions, as well as cool stuff other people have thrifted. I'll also be including tips for thrifting, projects for thrifted goods, and probably some other stuff. Yay stuff!

The first installment of Nifty Thrifty is going to be dedicated to some of my favorite thrifted clothing. Clothing is most of what I thrift, and I have to say it has totally spoiled me when I shop in real stores. I was seriously debating buying a $30 dress at Target. THIRTY WHOLE DOLLARS I CAN GET LIKE 20 SKIRTS FOR THAT. But it was super cute and the last one, so I'll deal.

This outfit is all thrifted and has some of my favorite pieces. I got the summery little dress last year, but the denim vest is a more recent acquisition that I'm predicting will get massive amounts of wear. Want to know why?

Check out the sweet rainbow studs; it's like hardcore adorable. I'm pretty sure this is a little kids vest and I don't care. It's all soft and stretchy and broken in, which is another good thing about thrifted clothes. Also, it makes my boyfriend roll his eyes which I enjoy because we basically live to annoy each other. We're mature.

Speaking of vests, I made this one sort of. I was having trouble finding a vest I liked, and then I remembered vests are just blazers with no sleeves. So I thrfited a blazer and cut off the sleeves. If you want to make a blazer into a vest, cut the sleeves off about an inch below the shoulder seam. Fold a double 1/2" seam and sew. Magic!

These are some more of my favorites. The dress is super cutesy and fun to pair with less girly things like wide belts, black tights, and boots. Here's a better view of the top of the dress. I also wear the crap out of this giant scarf when it's chilly because it's basically like wearing a small blanket around your neck, except you look slighly less crazy.

It seems I'm developing a proclivity for clothing with big birds on it. Two of my all time favorite finds are the owly skirt and the peacock dress. The owl on the owly skirt is a pocket, and skirts with pockets are automatic win. It also has little built in shorts from lining material so I don't flash people when I fall over. Which is often.



Dresses with giant peacocks on them are totally versatile



Then, of course, there is the peacock dress. My cost per wear, even after having to translant the peacock to a new dress, is probably below $1 at this point. If I had to describe my style in one word, that word would be "peacockdress". Because I am a cheater. But also because I love this dress like chocolate cupcakes and adorable piglets and I am going to cry when this poor peacock is too beat up to wear anymore. I might make a montage video with sad music too, we'll see.

A Long, Long Time Ago...

Star Wars is probably my longest running nerd love. I used to watch the all day marathons of the Original Trilogy with my dad during the holidays. For a long time I had no idea what order things went in as I would wander in and out. I have the attention span of a goldfish. An easily distracted goldfish who likes shiny string. I did always love it though, and even more so when I actually sat down and watched the movies through. I even met my boyfriend on a Star Wars forum.

So of course I had to bring some cuddly friends from a galaxy far away to Hereos Con with me.

They want to hug you or eat your face, they haven't decided yet

These little Hutts were a last minute addition and sold very well. At about a foot tall they're a great way to use up smaller scraps of  browns, greens, and greys. I love their nubby little arms!

It's not a trap, it's a doll!

 
Guess how many times I heard, "It's a trap!" over Heroes Con weekend. A MILLION that's how many. Apparently this is a nerd reflex. Tap your knee in the right spot and your leg will switch, when you're in danger you have a flight or fight response, see Admiral Ackbar in any form and you must yell "It's a trap!" Seriously, I had a lot of fun making this little guy. The bulging eyes are extra cute and mouth looks vaguely like a moustache. Some of them were Señor Ackbar.

The Star Wars love continued after the convention as well with several custom orders.

I made a Boba Fett a long, long time ago as part of a Secret Santa exchange on a forum. I think this little guy turned out very well for my second attempt at everyone's favorite bounty hunter.



My backpack's got jets

There was some love for the Jedi too. I was also commissioned to make this cuddly Kit Fisto, which I had to wrestle away from my boyfriend to get in the mail. This was one of those ones that was incredibly hard to put in a box and send away, and I am definitely making more of him.

These are all going to be good practice for my first ever gallery show! I was invited to participate in Bear and Bird's second Stitch Wars gallery show and of course jumped at the chance. It was amazing to see all the talented people involved in and the beautiful artwork that was part of the first Stitch Wars show. I'm so excited to be part of the second show! I'll be posting progress pictures and updates as I get my submissions finished over the next few weeks.

You're My Hero

Preparing for HeroesCon and subsequently recovering from it kept me super busy, but it was completely worth it!

I've gone to HeroesCon for several years; it was actually my first "official" date with Bats. (We also met on a Star Wars forum. Oh yeah, super sexy.) I always have a great time spending money on toys and tee shirts, seeing friends, and generally geeking out. The last two years I've brought a doll with me during the day, and actually gotten a few custom orders from it. After the all the positive response both online and off I took the leap and bought an artist table for this year.


The Handmade Stuffs table

I've never been a vendor at anything this well attended and never sold at a comic convention period. In the month and a half preceding Heroes, I spent the most of my free time lately basically chained to my sewing machine. I made sixty dolls in a just over month. Yeah, SIXTY. That doesn't include thirty little plush skulls and twelve Huttlets. I had nightmares about drowning in stuffing and had to climb over dolls to get to my sewing table.

Behold the majesty of the Tower of Plush

I lucked out with a fairly good spot and a wonderful neighbor. Cassie Hart's adorable art was a great compliment, although it was really hard to not continually run over there every time I made a sale. I did trade a zombie for an awesome owl pillow. My favorite zombie too, just so you can understand how cool she is. Go visit her website and buy things. Now! (Well finish reading this, then you can go.)



Super lady



Bats was largely in charge of character selection, so the dolls I brought had a definite 70's and 80's tilt. I had some He-Mans (He-Men?) and Skeletors, Lion-O from Thundercats, Admiral Ackbar from Star Wars, and cuddly little Mr. T's. I also had some little Cobra Troopers and Destro from G.I.Joe.

Which lead to probably my favorite picture for the whole weekend, Cobra Commander with his wee minion.


This makes me happy forever

I donated one of my little Lion-O's to the charity auction held on the first night of the convention. He went for a $100 and apparently was a big hit, yay! Lion-O hung out at the top of plush tower most of the weekend, holding his teeny sword aloft.

Thunder...Thunder...Thundercats! Ho!

Skeletor was probably the most popular for the weekend. What's not to love about a muscely blue guy with a skull head? I've made Skeletor before, but this time I had some little plush He-Men so they could have epic battles.

Sup guys?

One He-Man sold by himself, but luckily the rest went home with a Skeletor friend to play with.

I don't have many pictures of the actual convention as I was stuck at my table most of the time. (I'm hesitant to leave my very gruff boyfriend behind a pile of cute dollies for too long.) I still had a metric ton of fun talking to people passing by and watching people's faces light up when they saw the dolls. I was even able to overlook the eight hundred times a day I heard "It's a trap!" in references to the Admiral Ackbar dolls and "I pity the fool!" in reference to the Mr. T's. Comic conventions are looking like a whole new market for me and I'm really excited about the potential.

Now back to working on the twenty plus custom orders I have to do...

The Cuddling Dead

I have been absolutely BURIED in commissions. (Buried, get it?) A feature on Comics Alliance brought in a ton of work and I have been sewing my little fingers to the bone. Watch out for more pictures this week!
I'm also getting ready for Heroes Con in June and having a mild panic attack. While I've attended Heroes for several years, this will be my first year as a vendor. I've never done anything with this many people and I'm super excited. On that note, here is the first batch of little guys for the convention. Of course they're plush zombies, silly.

Mr. Skully Face

Each one has little intestines that can be pulled out or stuffed into a tummy pocket. Nothing says "snuggle me" like evisceration, right?

Mr. Head Trauma

 Each one also has a different design, with hand sewn blood splatters and wounds.

Mr. Eyeball

I'm going to do similiar ones in several different colors. I'm thinking dank, olive green and a lifeless pale blue.


Mr Decomposer and Worm Friend

I hate to play favorites with my undead sweeties, but I totally love this little guy with his wormy friend peeking out of his chest.

Mr. Decomposer Detail

  Wallpaper sized images are available for Mr. Decomposer and Mr. Skully Face on my Flickr.

For the Birds

I'm taking a little non-embroidery themed interruption for a good cause. My lastest project is for a charity auction for Journey Towards Sustainability to pay for Eco-N-Motion  mobile education. The mobile classroom will travel to schools and other venues in the Charlotte area to teach kids
about sustainability and the enviornment.

The theme is based around birdhouses and I knew when I decided to participate that I wanted to make a cuddly tree friend similiar to this plush I made is 2008. I made a few updated and changes to the design and I am really happy with how it turned out.



Birdie lives in his cute blue house, protected by Tree Friend. The house is attached to the base, which is covered in green faux fur "grass". Birdie has a bit of velcro on his tummy so he can sit on his house or be taken off for play. Tree Friend has velcro on his leaf hands so he can hold Birdie or hug with his long branch arms. When not being played with, he can wrap around Birdie's house to protect it.

Birdie's house is decorated with buttons and cute felt shingles. The felt is made from recycled plastic bottles!

Birdie was based off a pattern from Fun Dolls by Aranzi Aronzo. I made the chest a different color and used fleece instead of jersey. The beak and eyes are beads. I really love how cute he turned out and I want to make more! I also really like how Tree Friend's "branch" nose turned out. I rolled and stitched together two long, thin strips of brown felt. His leaf hair is made from fleece stitched between two pieces of cotton.

If you're in the Charlotte area, tickets are $20 and the fundraiser is March 31. You can find more information here. (The submission date has been changed from January 25th to February 15th.)

Embroidery 101: Supplies

Embroidery is great for the newly crafty for a myriad of reasons, one being that it's so easy and cheap to get started. There are very few materials needed and all are fairly inexpensive.

Your most important tool is a good hoop. An embroidery hoop is actually made of two hoops, a solid inner one and an adjustable outer one. To use, lay your fabric (nice side facing you) over the top of the inner hoop. The outer hoop then goes over the fabric and inner hoop, trapping the fabric. Put the fabric taut and tighten the screw on the outer hoop to keep everything in place.
Embroidery hoops are available in many sizes. I find an 8" hoop the easiest to work with, but you will want to consider the size of your project to avoid too much waste fabric. Hoops come in wood (usually around $1) or colored plastic (around $2-3). The plastic will be a little sturdier and some have a "lip" to help hold the fabric.

Important tool number two is a good needle. There are many different types of needles that work for embroidery; you may want to experiment a little to find the one that feels most comfortable. Look for embroidery, chenille, and upholstery needles. Avoid cross stitch needles and other needles with dull points. Remember to size your needle to the thread or floss you are using. If the eye is too small, it will be difficult to thread and pulling the thread through your fabric will cause wear. If the needle is too large, you’ll have big holes at the ends of your stitches. The package should have a number on it corresponding to the needle size. The higher the number, the thinner the needle.
There are two basic kinds of thread, or “floss”, used in embroidery. The first is six strand floss, which is generally made of mercanized cotton. This is the type you’re probably familiar with; it comes in little skeins in approximately a million colors. Six strand can be pulled apart to make thinner strands.
The other main type of floss is a cotton perl. The cotton perl is twisted together. You can’t pull it apart to make different widths, but the trade off is that it tends to fray and tangle less.
In addition to these you can find specialty flosses in linen, metallic, variegated colors, satin, and rayon. Remember to test your floss for color fastness if you plan to wash your finished project.

Of course you'll also need something to embroider onto. You can embroidery on most anything you can pierce with a needle. When first starting out, avoid stretchy or very flimsy fabrics until you get the hang of stitch tension. Quilter cotton, like Kona cotton, is a good fabric to practice on and usually pretty inexpensive.

If you’re fabric feels a little thin, you can stabilize it one of several ways. The first is to use either water soluble or tear away stabilizer. These can be purchased with the interfacings at the fabric or craft store. The water soluble will turn sort of gooey and melt when submerged in warm water. The tear away needs to be trimmed away with small scissors. (Tear away is the kind you'll most often see on commerical machine embroidery.) If you don’t mind the stabilizer remaining, use a lightweight or mediumwight fabric interfacing or a spare piece of cloth to add some strength.

Now that you have all our supplies, you’ll need a design to embroider. There are many pre-printed hot iron transfers available. In stores, most of the ones you’ll see with be Aunt Martha’s, but you may also find some from Sublime Stitching. You can also find or draw your own patterns. Below are some places I like to try, but many designs and pictures translate well into embroidery.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/341081@N20/pool/
http://www.needlecrafter.com/patterns.html
http://www.stencilry.org/
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/

Ready to get started? I'll be going into transfer methods in the next post.

March All Arts Market

If you're in the Charlotte area, come see me next month at the Nodarioty All Arts Market. I had a great time at the December one, and I'm gearing up to start sewing some new stuff for the next one. I'll be introducing some embroidery kits and pattern packs as well. Excited!

Holy Smokes, Batman!

Sometimes the hardest part of making commissioned dolls is sending them off when they're done. This is one of those times.

Man, do I want to keep this little Batman and Robin for my very own! They have tiny little belts and tiny little boots and I want them to be with me always to protect me from kitschy and ineffective evildoers. But alas, duty calls and they must hurry off to fight evil someplace else.

Here they come...

...and there they go. Good luck, Dynamic Duo!

Embroidery, Embroiderah!

The January Make Out was an absolute blast and definitely something I'd love to do again. It was wonderful to see so many people invovled in and excited about a craft that I enjoy so much. But there is still so much to learn about embroidery that there just wasn't enough time to go over. On that note, this month I'll be posting some basics tips, tricks, and techniques. (Hopefully with videos if I can bribe my boyfriend into some cinemotgraphy.)

While I'm plotting, I'd love to know if there are any specific questions that anyone would like answered about embroidery. Tools, techniques, how to do certain stitches and when to use them, transferring patterns, whatever! I've had a few questions on the Make Out post and I'm happy to answer more.