Two Smaller Projects – Tiny Bat and Heat-Up Owl

I figured I would go ahead and post both of these projects together, since they are smaller things that I’ve been working on off-and-on between bigger projects. Neither of them are anything big or special, but I think they’re cute little guys.

The first of the two was this little bat. I got the pattern off of Etsy (link at the end of post). For the most part, it was pretty straight-forward and easy to follow. There were a couple of alterations I made as I went though, to try to get the look that I wanted. Though in the end, I was reminded how difficult it is to do detail work on plushies this small. 

I used this as an opportunity to test out some broadcloth cotton that I picked up on sale. I probably won’t be using it again, unless it is doubled-up. It was so thin, and had a bad tendency to fray at the edges. Oh well, lesson learned! In the end, this guy is super tiny, but very cute sitting up on the shelf.

Next up was a project I’ve been wanting to try for awhile. This guy is stuffed with a bag filled with rice, buffered with cotton trimmings. Because everything used is microwave safe, he can be put in the microwave and heated up to be a cozy, snuggly heating pad. 

I’m really happy with how this turned out. At least conceptually — the detail work is pretty derpy, and the wings didn’t want to attach properly, and again the fabric was pretty thin and frayed. BUT, this is one of the BEST, most cuddly heating pads in the history of ever! The shape is perfect for a heating pad. I think I’m going to try to make more of these, but with better material, and in different varieties of animal cuddle-buddies.  If things turn out well, they might be the first thing worth going up on an Etsy shop! Fingers crossed.

Links:

Little Bat Pattern

Microwaveable Owl Instructions  (This one doesn’t really have a pattern, but does have instructions and discusses various options for stuffing.)

Still Not Dead! The Latest Big Project – Banette

I know it’s been a bit of a stretch since I posted, and I don’t feel good about that. I’ve still been working on my plushies, and I have lots of projects that I need to get posted on here. But things have been hectic, so I haven’t gotten around to posting much. But I’m hoping to change that over the next couple of days, and we’ll start with the biggest project I’ve been working on — a Banette!

This one was requested by a friend. I wasn’t familiar with this particular Pokemon, so I did some research to figure out what I was in for. There were several things that had me worried — the head shape, the head-piece in the back, the facial features in general. I couldn’t find any ready-made patterns online, so this was one I had to put together myself. Which is ALWAYS terrifying. But through the magic of reference images, minky fabric, and sheer stubbornness, I was able to put something together that I’m pretty pleased with.

The head shape came as a total surprise. At first I tried making it as a three-paneled sideways sphere. I wasn’t pleased with the shape that came from that, so I decided to add a fourth panel to see what would happen. I made the panels “fatter” around the middle to try to get the proper structure. The result was 100% not was I was going for, but I was really happy with it.

The head-piece off the back was tricky, but turned out alright. The trick seemed to be understuffing it so that it would lay correctly, rather than just sticking straight out the back. The body and arms were pretty straight-forward. I put a dart in the belly-piece to give it the right shape. 

The face, on the other hand, was quite tricky. I decided early on to do an applique zipper, and not an actual zipper. I feel like that keeps the cartoon-ish look of the design. Otherwise, it wasn’t very difficult to shape and apply the face, but getting the proportions was difficult. In the various Pokemon that I’ve been making, that is a problem that I have found to be pretty universal — in turning a 2D cartoon character into a three-dimensional plushie, it is nearly impossible to get the facial features to look right. For the most part, with a bit of fiddling, you can get it pretty close to right. But this one did give me a lot of trouble. I pinned the features in a lot of different ways, and they just never quite looked right. Eventually I settled on the placement you see now. To cap things off, my fabric paint did NOT want to stick this time around. It was strange, because this paint has worked fine on minky before, so I don’t know what happened there.

Pardon the messed up tablecloth in the back. It’s the cat’s fault.

So, finished product! In the end, I’m happy with how it turned out. My friend who requested it was disappointed with the face, and that’s never a fun thing to hear. Because of the fabric paint outline on the eyes, I can’t just pull them and replace them, so I may end up redoing the whole head. We’ll see what happens with that.

But otherwise, this guy is SUPER cuddly! The size and shape is excellent for snuggling, which is a great quality to have for a plush. This is also easily the biggest plush I have made so far, as well as the most complex. I feel like I learned a lot, and it’s good to know that I can pull off something of this caliber. Even if the face still irks me.  

My Second Request, a Shuppet

After I posted pictures of my Pokemon party favor plushes, a friend of mine quickly contacted me with a request, asking if it would be possible for me to make them a Shuppet. Being less familiar with the later-gen games, I had to look that one up, and I was a little hesitant at first. The structure and design is much different than anything I have done before. But I decided to give it a try, because that’s how you learn things, right?

It ended up going much more smoothly than I had anticipated. The head construction was a simple sphere, and I added the spike to the top. In hindsight, I do think I could have made the spike larger, but this one is alright. The minky made attaching the spike very easy, because as has been established, minky is the best thing.

“I don’t always pose with in-progress plushies, but when I do, I shed all over them.”

The skirt-like body of the Shuppet was more of a challenge. I first tried a square-based construction, and I have no idea why I thought that would work. I stitched the two panels together and attached them to the Shuppet before I realized that it just wasn’t going to work. As I was griping about making stupid mistakes and wasting fabric, my husband looked over at the failed Shuppet “skirt” and stated, “It looks a lot like a throw pillow. Could you make it a throw pillow?”

Pictured: An Accident

So I did! I was quite happy with how this particular accident turned out. Since it’s minky fabric, it took to stuffing extremely well. And the hem-work that I had already done for the Shuppet gives it quite a nice look. 

But back to the Shuppet! In my second attempt at the skirt, I cut a large oval instead of a square, and instead of doing a two-panel piece I just hemmed the one panel itself before attaching it to the head. It looked MUCH better!  That just left the face. I toyed with the idea of embroidering the eyes, but decided against Shuppet eyes being my first attempt at embroidery. That will be saved for a different project with much smaller eyes! 

I am very pleased with the finished product. It is difficult to get good pictures of it, considering the fact that the body is just the floaty skirt. But it does look much better than I had been anticipating, and it is super cuddly (can I tell you about our lord and savior, minky fabric?). My friend was super pleased with it. Their reaction when they got it was just over-the-moon excitement. That is always the best part of these things 🙂

Found that the little guy fit quite well on one of our lamps. Totally not a fire hazard, I’m sure…

 

I have several other projects in the works right now — two smaller things that I have been working on in between other projects, and a new request that I will start working on once the fabric order arrives. So expect to see more posts in the near future!

The Critters and the Pokemon Favors – Pictures

A few days ago I made my big super-post about the Pokemon party favor shenanigans, but left out pictures of Zia and Mac and their “assistance” throughout the project. Well, here for your amusement, are my partners in crime. It looks like I took fewer pictures than I thought — and even fewer of Zia, because she generally kept her nose out of things for this one — but here is what I have!

“Mom, this seems like a lot of work. How about we sleep for you?”

Supervising Jigglypuff reference images.

“Human, what is this? Nothing you’ve made looks anything like this.” “Shut up, Cat.”

“What? I’m helping. With my judgement.”

“String? String!”

“My string now, human!”

*to the tune of Firefly* “You can’t take the string from me!”