DIY Fluffies

DIY Fluffies is an amazing shop that I bought my elephant pattern from. I just found out that I can sell the products I make using her pattern in my Etsy store. Of course I now have to find time to get my dad to take the pictures so that they look halfway decent. I don't have a steady enough hand for photography anymore. I did when I took the basic coarses in high school but now I don't. If you're interested in making your own stuffed animals I really suggest you check her out. She has some of the best patterns and I still don't have all of them. I have the elephant and the dragon, both which I have modified a bit to fit my tastes. But if you're a beginner like I was when I bought the elephant and dragon patterns they are great, easy to follow, they have pictures, and the pattern itself is really easy to understand. I mean, I hate it when the person who makes a pattern dissects parts of the pattern into odd pieces and just expects you to understand it.

So my sewing has taken on a characteristic of alchemy. Equivalent exchange. For every goal I meet, I get a can of Coca Cola (my favorite drink excluding milk and chocolate milk). So here's the first mini elephant that I'm going to be selling and I just love how the pattern, which is a flowerish pattern that I call pink lemonade, just pieced itself together among all the different pieces of the elephant.

mini elephant and regular elephant comparason

So I realized you didn't know how different the two elephant sizes would be so I took this picture

the green elephant is Tabasco. Here's some of her pictures

Cecil

Alright, so I finished the mini elephant prototype and he turned out wonderful. His name is Cecil and here are his pictures.

Now I can't give you the pattern I'm using because I bought it but you can buy your own elephant pattern here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/58751275/love-elephant-plushie-pdf-sewing-pattern?ref=shop_home_active_16

For the mini elephants I shrunk the pattern down to 75% and copied it right off my computer screen. Now, I have also modified the pattern a bit so that I'm able to sell these elephants at my booths so don't expect yours to turn out looking exactly like mine. 

mini elephants

As you can see from the title, I'm still on the elephant phase. I have made a smaller version of my pattern and am making mini elephants. I'm kinda excited to see how they turn out, I'm still working on the prototype so I don't know if it's going to work. I'll post pictures of the first when I finish it tonight or tomorrow morning. It should work since I just shrunk the pattern I was using before but math isn't my strong suit so I'm not sure if I got the ratio correct. I think I did.

Elephants

So this week I have been making a lot of elephants for my booths. I need to make a lot because they are the cutest thing and my best sellers. They also take two days of long hours to make. Now in the craft world that's not a lot of time. Some things that people sell takes a lot more time than that. But my elephants only take two days of long hours. So today I finished the third elephant and decided to keep it. I named him Tabasco. He's not red. In fact, he's green. He's the exact shade of green as the writing on the label of the Tabasco bottles. But back to the fact that I've been making elephants all week. Making one thing over and over is tedious work and that can cause problems like slowing down of the process. I'm not a machine, I can't spit out the same thing every two days and not get bored. So I pay myself. Not with money but with soda, one of my biggest vices. I get one can of Coca Cola if I can make an elephant in two days and I don't get it if I go over. It keeps production going and I get my soda. I'm also thinking about making little clay elephants. If you can't tell, my thoughts have been on the elephant a lot this week. I think that's because I made three of them this week. I'm taking tomorrow off and will start back up on Sunday. Then I'll do the same thing next week. Though I might need a break from elephants soon. Maybe I'll make a few dolphins and hippos. Or a cat or two. I've filled my quota of dinosaurs; at least the brontosauruses. I still have to make a few more stegos. I also have to make some bears because hey, who doesn't like a bear. Who knows what I'll make next week actually. I love my elephants though. I read a book by Jodi Picoult called 'Leaving Time'. I would suggest if you like reading books that have a twist you pick it up. It's pretty good. Anyways, the mother in the book is a elephant researcher. I guess I've always liked elephants. Elephants are cool.

STUFFED

So there's this magazine called STUFFED the crafting of softies that showcases different artists and their softies. I want to be in it. It all started when I went to JoAnns today to get cloth. I ended up getting the magazine and gushed over it on the way home. I really want to be in it but I have no idea what to send them. I'm going to think about it for a while and then find something that I'm really good at.

Tentative Booths

So sorry I haven't been updating this blog. I have been SUPER busy. I reopened my Etsy store but I don't have all my inventory up there because A) that would be really expensive and B) I'm trying to keep up stock for two tentative booths that are going to hopefully be happening in December. I'm really excited about them. Anyways, I have made a prototype giraffe that my mom utterly destroyed verbally with things that needed fixing. Here are some pictures. I named the giraffe Pumpkin.

She's a working progress and I'm hoping that my second attempt at the pattern works better. For now I'll keep sewing.

Making a crocodile

So, last time I only finished the lizard and got nothing else done. But now I'm working on the crocodile. I'm using the same pattern as the lizard, I'm just moving the eye placement and seeing how it looks. If I don't like it I'm going to find or create a new pattern. Anyways, off to work!

So, I've been a bit more that a little bit crafty these past few days but I made a promise to myself that I would sew more. So today I made Grover the lizard.

Isn't he cute? I just love him. I found the pattern a while ago but it's in Japanese I think. Anyway, I found the instruction page to the pattern and everything made a lot more sense so I decided to try it out.  Here's both pages:

For those who skills do not lay in the area of sewing I will be selling some of these cuties in my store when I get it open. I'll be sure to let you know when that is.  Anyway, Chou! 

Baby Octopus

So here is the pattern for my baby octopus. It's really simple and I don't mind if you try to copy it.

I just doodled it out in boredom. So here is the pattern cut out in cloth

Then it pinned together

I don't have a picture of one sewn together but not stuffed so the next picture is the finished project

All done. I'm going to make tons of these and put them in a bucket or basket on the table when I do a booth. They aren't really worth putting up in a shop.

Bear

Here again. Yesterday I was very productive. I made that manatee that I already posted and I made a blue bear that I'm going to show in this post and I made a baby octopus pattern and stuffie which I'll do a separate post about because I want to show you every step of production. Anyway, here is the pictures of the bear:

The patten is here. I didn't make it but it works really well.
http://twoowls.typepad.co.uk/two_owls_design/polar-bear.html 

Manatee

So instead of doing one of the things on my list I made a manatee. It was also on my list but kinda far down. My psychiatrist is in a group that watch manatees so he's been kinda bugging me to make a manatee plush so that I can sell some to his group. It's a sound business venture, I know he's going to buy at least one. Anyway, I accidentally put one flipper on upside down but it's just the prototype and my mom has claimed it for herself so I don't mind. However next time I'm going to be more careful about that sort of thing. Here's the pictures, they aren't that good. I can't find my camera so I had to take them with my phone.

The pattern on the manatee if a flower and I used a soft purple that matched one of the flowers color for the belly and bottom of the flippers. I used a base pattern here

but made a lot of adjustments on the height and length of all the pieces. Plus rounded out the tail a little bit more. All in all I think it was a successful pattern and plush. Probably I will put the plush in my store when I get it up and running.

Doing to much

I have nothing new to show. I feel like I have been doing, or at least trying to do, too much and failing at everything. So I'm working on a elephant pattern (my own design), a giraffe pattern (also my own design), a elephant for my mom (with an older pattern), and working on learning how to crochet. And that's only my craft stuff. I've also got to work (I babysit a little boy every weekend for all of Saturday) and school plus I do like to do things that aren't crafts. I'm also am trying to expand my business by painting little wooden storage boxes that you can get at craft stores. Luckily I just finished my summer class and won't have another until the fall semester. Maybe then I can focus on some of my many projects. I want to learn how to make amigurumi stuff. I'm really excited.

Foot rest

So today I decided to use my sewing machine and make myself a foot rest. I figured that a rectangle and a square would make a good template. So I did. And here was the results.

It's a little flatter than I wanted but it is okay. It was a good first attempt

Hi

This is my sewing blog where I show you the cool shit that I decided to show. First up, a octopus. I have made two patterns and I'll show you a pic of both of the plushies that were made. I like the second one better and it's newer. I've actually been sewing for a year but I just decided that I would blog about it. Anyway, old octopus

New octopus