The swap was to make a Valentine themed softie/stuffed toy.
My swap partner likes zombies so this happened.
Zombie Cupid!
His front view and. . .
Back view.
Aww, he's a happy fella!
I wanted to make it icky but not disgusting. My original thought was to make a zombie like the ones on Bob's Burgers (since my swap partner loves that too--can you blame them, it's a great show). The zombies Tina dreams about are definitely zombies but they aren't super disgusting and are very cartoony.
So I needed to show some "blood and guts" but not very graphic or realistic.
I was going to have an eyeball hanging out but it seemed a little over the top. That and working with such a small space it would have looked more like a bead on a string than an eyeball on a nerve. So I opted for a missing eye with a little scar (under the bangs). Ric Rac mouth to keep it silly and because I love ric rac.
Some of the "gore".
Exposed leg bone with some rotting flesh and a bit of red "blood". (the bloody fluff was actually the bits of trimmed off ric rac just torn apart)
Exposed flesh on the arm (there's a spot on the other arm, too).
Exposed body cavity with ribs, bloody gut fluff, and a big ole heart. Hey, it's valentines day so you need a classic heart on there.
Let me pause to mention how much I love those hearts. I found some v-day themed ribbon in the dollar zone at Target (I think I mentioned this already now that I'm thinking about it) and one of the strips was felted cut out hearts. They cut apart so neatly and are just fabulous for crafting (yes, I did mention this before when I showed off the v-day patches).
Exposed brain.
Ok, for all you anatomy buffs out there I know that's not exactly the proper placement for the brain. The back wouldn't show so much of the swirly brain matter (but would be more stem--right?) but this is a cartoony zombie so we can just go with it. I really just wanted an excuse to use stem stitch to make brain swirls. This is now the second time I've embroidered brain swirls (the first was on the scarecrow dotee that I'm sure terrified the person I sent it to--it was freaky).
Quiver with arrows.
I'm particularly proud of the quiver, arrows and bow (which I just realized I forgot to get a stand alone picture of, but you can see it in the top pic). I had to freehand them all and they turned out really nice.
The bow was just three strips of felt glued together then trimmed down to the curved shape. I wrapped pink embroidery thread around the middle for the grip and then strung it with three strands of embroidery floss. It ended up a little droopy so I had to loop it over one end again and then glue it down (then it was nice and taut).
The quiver is just a tube. Nothing that special, really. The pizzaz is in the stripe (which was more of that Target ribbon) and the strap holding it over the body. Have I mentioned I love baker's twine and use it for sewing? It's a pain in the butt sometimes (I had to enlarge the hole I wanted to sew through so the eye of the bigger needle crammed with twine could go through) but I always get nice results.
The arrows are toothpicks with hearts glued/sewed on the top.
Originally I wanted to get those frilly toothpicks (like you get in a club sandwich) but I couldn't find any (at two different stores--and then I gave up looking). I needed toothpicks anyway so I grabbed the round ones and that was that.
The whole doll was hand sewn using embroidery floss and I used some glue (ok, quite a bit of glue--I'm really becoming a convert to using glue--it's a very helpful tool).
I LOVE how this turned out and can't wait for my partner to get it.
Oh, the body pattern is from Nuno Life (really, she has great free patterns, such a generous and creative person!).
No comments:
Post a Comment