A little bunny says hi

I drafted a simple pattern of a rabbit several weeks back, and left it. I never got down to sewing the rabbit because I had so many other things distracting me. After much procrastination, I finally got down to sewing the rabbit. Since this was my first time drafting a pattern from scratch with no reference, my measurements were somewhat off.

I traced the template out onto a piece of felt I had lying around, and began cutting away. A good half hour later, I had the rabbit laid out. Or rather the different parts laid out. I took a pretty long time with the cutting and trimming because, as usual, I was distracted by the boyfriend, the cat running around downstairs, and my brothers running in and out of the room.

Also, I was trying to trim the shape right. I never knew how to cut properly in a straight line. I supposed it’s my personality to some degree because I tend to be careless.

After cutting and trimming, I had to figure out what I wanted to stuff the rabbit with. I still had a lot of leftover cotton from my previous projects, but I was reluctant to use it. I felt that cotton tend to flatten over time, and plushies ended up shapeless. Hence, I decided that cotton wasn’t a good stuffing medium for this. Since I still had a lot of quilt batting left, I decided to use those in place of cotton stuffing. I spent the next hour tracing and cutting out the batting, deciding that I should use the “sandwich” method for sewing. That should, technically, result in a more even looking rabbit.

Another hour sewing, and then finally this:

I’m pretty proud of this creation. However, as you can see from the picture, the sewing are still very messy at certain parts. But stitching this has helped me figured out some things, and I’ll probably be doing a second rabbit tomorrow evening or something.

I also decided to skip the arms and legs for the rabbit. My boyfriend said it was pure laziness on my part but I told him the addition makes the rabbit looks very odd since I had cut the fabric a little smaller than I had calculated.

The rabbit is also quite floppy at the moment, so I’ll probably need to stuff it even more. I’m thinking of a rounder bottom… so it’s back to the drawing board for rabbit #2.

What do you think?

BJD Wig Sewing

So on Saturday afternoon, I went down to the local craft store and got myself some craft fur. I had two ideas in mind — one, to create fluffy pom pom earrings; and, two, to sew a wig for my BJDs.

I own two BJDs — a Luna Pukifee, and a Bisou Littlefee. My Bisou is supposed to be a boy, but over the years, EVERYONE including my mom insisted on dressing the doll as a girl. So, I guess Pip is a girl (with a boy part) now… >.<

 So anyway, I got started on sewing a wig, based on a simple tutorial I found online. One thing about myself is that I can’t quite follow patterns very well, so it was a blessing when someone posted up a tutorial on making BJD wigs on DoA (Den of Angels, a forum for fellow BJD lovers). The tutorial was very easy to follow; just a couple of measurements here and there, and you basically ended up with 3 pieces of fur in the right shape, and supposedly right size. I had decided to get a piece of white craft fur because I was thinking that I could probably dye the wig after I was done. I still have a lot of Special Effects dye left over from my wild hair days, so why not?

Anyway, after 30 minutes of mad sewing, this was the result. Bear in mind, this was before I hemmed the wig and made minor adjustments to fit my doll’s head.

It was a nope.

First, the wig was a little too big — maybe about half a centimetre, or less. But more appallingly, the craft fur was shedding while I was sewing. I had been quite careful while cutting, so I don’t think it’s an error in cutting. Also, the wig was ridiculously thin.

I was quite disappointed. Then again, there was also this sense of pride that I actually managed to sew something for my doll, albeit fail. Somewhat.

So, I guess it’s back to sewing from scratch again — I’m probably going to get a new piece of craft fur, this time from another place. And then, I’m going to attempt wig #2.

What am I going to do with the remaining craft fur from this piece? I’ll use it for practise, I guess. No good wasting stuff!

Tofu: UPSIZED

Remember several posts back, I wrote about creating a series of tofus?

Well, I decided to re-work the tofus, and this time, I “upgraded” the design. The tofu is now bigger than before, with fabric eyes. I also changed the stuffing. Previously, I used cotton. This time round, I got some quilt batting, made a little sandwich and popped it into the tofu. The result was a fuller tofu plushie, and a tad more squishier.

I LIKE!

Charity Sale and first sale

This post was ridiculously late. I had meant to put it up way earlier, but I never got down to doing it.

On 1 June, there was a charity sale in some Buddhist organisation that majority of my family are involved in. I don’t, usually, because of personal reasons, but this year, I decided to attempt to pitch some of my creations during the charity sale — just to see how that works out.

It started with a few rather miserable and sorry looking cat plushies, because, you know, I’m still pretty new at sewing. And then it progressed. I was actually quite pleased.

These were some of my works.

There were 5 of these. My aunt sewed a couple of them as well, so that the standards of these kitties aren’t subpar. I took about an hour and half to cut and sew them because I wasn’t quite used to sewing then. Believe me, there were times when I got ridiculously impatient and I started making my stitches extra big so that I could finish up faster. I had lots to learn. Eventually though, these kitties taught me to be patient.

Once I was patient and confident enough, I began to venture into other things. I attempted to make other plushies. Since I like tofu and odd-shaped animals, I tried making some other animals in cube-shaped. They were easier to make but the sewing itself was highly repetitive. Again, I had to learn to be patient.

It was quite an experience making these — I had envision them to be something so there were a bit of problems solving skills required here when it comes to getting certain ideas across. I had really enjoyed making these little critters and they make me very happy just looking at them.

Eventually, these 4 critters expand to include a monkey and a bat. The bat was actually quite popular with kids and I had to make another one on the spot, during the charity sale itself.

I was superbly pleased.

The only problem was the stuffing. I tend to under-stuff the plushies, if that makes sense. Also, I have yet to find a promising material for stuffing. My dad suggested using quilt batting, so that the plushies don’t deflate over time. I’m not quite sure about it but I do have a pack of quilt stuffing I intend to use for making Alice bows and alphabet appliques, I had originally bought that quilt batting for an alphabet set I was making for a colleague’s niece, but that turned out to be a bad idea.

Ending the post with the bat, standing on my bedpost.

Never knew he would be Mr. Popular eh?