Monday, September 28, 2015

For a Swap: Disney Patches (G, H, I)

Finally DONE (and about to be mailed this week).

I dragged my feet on these for a while.  I'm like that.  I make a good go at a project then just stop on it (usually when I only have a few steps to go to be done).  What's that about?  That's where swaps help because I have deadlines.

Anyway. . .

These are for the next round of Disney theme patches (for letters G, H, and I).

I'm on an embroidery kick and I'm totally fine with it.


I had a deliberate Fantasia theme for these.

I love Fantasia.

I'm not going to show them off in alphabetical order. I'm going to show them off least to most fancy (in my opinion).

First up is for H.


This represents the ballerina Hippos from Fantasia.  I had an image of the hippo but it was really large and I already had a very large patch in this set so I decided to do a more symbolic patch for this (that and I didn't want to do crayon tinting again and the idea of fully stitching out the hippo made me bored and tired).

So you get a pair of toe shoes (in felt) with vintage ribbon ties and a wee little tu-tu in netting.  (Eugene totally tried to eat it, too.  I was sitting right at the table doing the pics and he jumped up and without missing a beat opened his mouth to give it a gnaw--so bad!  He did not bite it at all because I grabbed him and put him on the floor)


The back.  I knew I had to use this cute ballerina fabric for this patch.

Next up is for I.



Ice fairies from Fantasia.

I took a tiny bit of liberty on this since technically they are always referred to as "winter fairies".  But they are making ice as they skate, so they are ice fairies to me.


I used some winter fabric that had the shiny snowflakes printed on it then made some tiny little fairy type forms next to them (so the flakes look a bit like wings, though that fairy on the left looks kind of like the flake is crashing down on him, poor guy).  Then I added some little icy skate marks using some shiny floss.  I really like how this one turned out.  It's a little bit weird, which I really like.


The back (a different shiny snowflake fabric).

Last is my favorite of the group, it's for G.


The sultry goldfish from Fantasia.

This is pulled from a still from the movie (that I found online).  Not traced, though.  I cut the body of the fish from the image to get the body size/shape right for the felt body.  Then I freehanded the fins (with a disappearing fabric marker) then stitched them.


Varigated (too lazy to check that spelling) floss for the ends of the fins.

Close up time!


Free handed the face, too, which I think turned out REALLY well.  The eye is definitely sultry.  The lips aren't quite as puckery as the real fish, but still really good.

For the end of the body (where the tail begins) I took a metal bristle brush (yes, my cats brush but it was clean) and fuzzed out the felt to get the smudged color appearance.

The body is stitched down (versus glue--I used glue for the ballet shoes).


The back.  How freaking cute is that fabric?  Right!?  So perfect.

I have to admit, I'm really proud of my fabric stash for this set.  All the backing fabrics work perfectly with their subjects.

What am I up to next?  Well I have a few Halloween/fall themed swaps to do and then the next round of Disney patches (I only have an idea for one of them).  I also need to get caught up on Fluff sewing (I have a pile of in progress stuff I just need to finish, but I already discussed how that's my pattern).

Thursday, September 24, 2015

For Swaps: Patch and an Art Doll

Damn, I meant to post this sooner but all the sudden I have to WORK at my job (what?!) so I have next to no goof off time.  I decided to just make posting this one of my "to do" items so I'd get it done.

OK, here we go.

First up, a patch (for the monthly swap I do all the time)


Super simple.  My partner likes skeletons and all that, so I just trotted out some of my favorite fabric and added a tiny bit of embellishment.  The fabric is so cool I wanted to just let it speak for itself.

The back:


That was just a scrap from my scrap bin but it really works with the front fabric.  I swear, sometimes I spend more time figuring out the backing fabric than making the front!

Next up is the art doll I made for the HallowMuertes Art Doll swap.  For that swap you could make it halloween or dios de los muertos themed.


Hello Mr. Skeleton man!


He's mostly a Dios de los Muertos skeleton guy but he's not a mariachi or anything special like that.  Just a guy in a suit.  Kind of Jack Skellington but not.

I used a pattern someone sent me in a swap from years ago.  I've used this pattern before to make an art doll but I never painted a doll.  This guy is totally painted.

I made the body in scraps of cotton and muslin (which is technically cotton) and then gave them all a base coat with white paint mixed with fabric medium.  Then I put on the top coat of black (with no medium) then added the embellishments using paint pens.


Smile for the camera!

He has a cute face that's very simple in design.  I didn't want to mess it up so I kept it simple.


The black paint pen is just shiny enough that it stands out against the more matte acrylic black paint.  So I could use it to make the shaping of the coat.  I debated giving him lapels but there wasn't really enough room on the body to make them turn out well, so I decided against it.


His limbs are button joints and do move.  They also scrape against the body a bit so over time there should be some nice wear as the limbs rub the paint along the body.  I didn't seal the whole doll for two reasons.  One, I wasn't sure exactly the best product to use and I didn't want to mess up the doll after I had him all finished (sewing the limbs on was literally painful--my fingers were sore jabbing the needle through the painted fabric).  Second reason not to seal was I wanted the doll to show wear as it happened.  I could have distressed it before hand but I'm lazy and (well, that's mostly the reason) I like the idea of the doll showing natural wear, just like an olden days doll!

I LOVED making this dolls (except attaching the limbs, I put that step off for ever because I knew it would be boring and annoying--it wasn't as bad as I thought but it was boring as hell).

I love how he turned out and after working with this pattern again I think I could edit this pattern a bit to make different body shapes (I'd start by trimming those feet down a bit--this pattern was for an "acrobat" doll so I get why the feet are super huge and it's not bad for this dolls but smaller would be better).

Both of these are off to their new homes Friday.

What else am I up to?  I need to get my latest round of Disney patches done (they are going to turn out very nice) and get my Fluff sewing done (have a bunch of stuff started, very little finished. . .story of my life) and then some other swaps.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

Let's Book It: September (and an item for a swap)

No, I didn't forget about the Let's Book It Challenge.  I just had to put it on the back burner because I didn't have time to make random things from books.  I need to be able to double dip for this challenge to work for me.

(wait, I just realized I have been double dipping with some of the Fluff Project stuff but. . .well, a lot of those are "books" but freebies I printed out from the internet so. . .eh, it doesn't matter).

THIS project was from an actual book I paid actual money for so it really fits the Book part of the Book It Challenge.  So I'm feeling all official n'at.


That's the aforementioned book.

Let me just pause to say it is one of the cutest things I have ever had the privilege to look upon.  And I look at tons of cute all the dang time, so that's saying something.  This book made my sister lament that she needed to learn to embroider.  Yeah, it's THAT kind of book.

And when they say "teeny tiny" they ain't blowing smoke up your skirt.


That's the embroidered merit badge I made for a swap next to the image I used (and edited) from the book.

I made my cat into a cool hoola hooping puss.  Because that's how I am.


EXTREME CLOSE UP!

That bad boy is a mere 2 inches in size.  TWO STINKING INCHES!!  See, that's teeny tiny.

The edge stitching is a little rough but I'll improve on that (this was the first time I ever made a badge like this).


What?  You have to wear it so it has to have a pin on the back.

The only downside of this book?  Now I want to embroider every thing in my life with teeny tiny animals.  EVERY THING!

For a Swap: Ninni w/a Costume

This is getting mailed out this week.

Ninni in a costume.


A very rare mer-ninni.



Naked ninni!

The tail is (as the pic shows) removable.

(oh and fun fact, these are fabrics left over from the very first giant squid I ever made--I love that sushi fabric so much!)


The tail is lined with linen to give it a bit more stability for all the scallop stitching (machine stitches for the win!).


I was going to attempt an elastic waist but after I got it almost done I realized it didn't need it (which was a relief).  I was also planning a bra top but the ninni's body is so squat there just simply wasn't room.

This was fun to figure out and not that frustrating.  I made a test one in linen first and I think that made all the difference.