hello alligator!

I've been playing around with the idea for an alligator plush in my head ever since Kinsey and I went to South Carolina a few months ago.  Kinsey really wanted to see a "real life" alligator in the wild and we were almost finished with our trip and had yet to see one.  We even headed to one of the state parks that I had seen some at during a prior visit or two, but none were to be found.

We were visiting my grandparents and went out to dinner at the Chestnut Hill Restaurant that was right on a small lake and known to be a place to see gators.  (If you go here, get the homemade chips!  Mmmm!)  We had a window table and saw all kinds of turtles swimming right by us.  This was nice enough, but Kinsey wanted to see a gator.   The staff periodically throws bread out in the water to attract the alligators and during our visit one was hiding out right below the restaurant deck's not wanting to come out.  My grandfather being the wonderful and helpful host of the "bed and breakfast" we were staying at and wanting to make his guests happy, made sure that Kinsey would get his wish.  Sure enough, the alligator appeared right in front of where we were eating and hung out for a while.  Mission accomplished!  Kinsey now believes that there are alligators in South Carolina. 

The great thing about this gator (and completely unintentional when I designed it) is that it's legs can support the body so it stands up on its own.   It's wonderful to have sitting around and fun for playing!  I have a few other alligators I made with different fabrics, but this is probably my favorite.  I love the bright green color and how it looks against the yellow back spikes.  These are now available in my shop and will be available at the Summerfair show this Saturday.  

progress and working...

I've been pretty busy working on a variety of different projects as well as restocking more of my plush designs for online and craft shows coming up.  Our soonest craft show will be SummerFair in Carlisle, PA.  We've never been to this show before, but have heard from other people it's worth it.  It will be the largest space we've ever had...20'x20'!  Kinsey and I will be sharing a space, so we'll each have plenty of room for our things.  If you're local to Carlisle, please come out and say hello!  The show is Saturday, July 7th!

Below are some partially finished boy heads (sounds rather disturbing, don't you think?).  After I embroider the facial features, sew everything up, and right before I turn them right side out, I always like to stop and take a look.  I really like how the embroidery looks from the backside with the faces.  You can clearly see the facial details, but it's kind of in a skewed way.  It reminds me a lot of vintage embroidered dolls and how the stitches have begun to fade and warp slightly.  

The next picture (sorry it's a little fuzzy) is of a massive pile of half finished pieces and well, body parts of dolls and animals.  (See the random arms?)  I have a lot of pieces like this around my work space.  I'm starting to try to get it a little more under control and have cleared this pile down significantly.  

This last picture I wanted to share, does NOT include random arms or heads removed from their body.   This is Thomas the Sailor.  He's the newest plush doll in my shop.  I finished him today and not to play favorites, but I like him a lot!   Instead of my usual felt buttons I sew on the shirts, I opted for a hand embroidered anchor emblem.  The colors really pop beautifully!  I actually have done this anchor emblem before on a handful of plushes, but have only sold those at craft shows or at brick and mortar shops.  

What kinds of projects have you been up to lately?

that's a lot of boys....and elephants

I spent the better part of last week working on filling some orders for a few new stores.  I sold almost all of the boys, elephants, and rockets at my last craft show, so I needed to make more.  A lot more.
These pictures are just a small fraction of what all I made (and don't even show many elephants or the new rocket ships!), but it gets the idea across.
Luckily, I made some extras for my shop which I started to list new things in yesterday and today.  

Yesterday,  Kinsey and I dropped off some of my plushes at a shop in Reading, PA called Hello Bluebird.  I had known about the store for some time, but never was in it before.  I would highly recommend stopping in if you're ever in the area.  They have some really beautiful and fun things for sale.  I think we could have bought half the shop if we were able to afford it!  Also, some of my plushes will be for sale at the Hello Bluebird table at this weekend's Art Star Craft Bazaar.  This is a wonderful show and I hope to someday be a vendor here.  We're planning on stopping by one of the days and are looking forward to all the awesome things we'll see!

rattle, rattle

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I recently have begun sewing soft rattles.  I've often seen rattles in some of my craft books and always thought they seemed simple enough, but never really gave them a try.  Then I found myself with less than a week to go before Spring Bada Bing and felt like I needed a smaller plush item for sale.  Something fairly quick to do (seeing as I like to have at least 10 of all my items at shows), interesting, fun, and inexpensive.  Enter the soft rattle:

I chose to create a pattern that was reminiscent of an animal, without doing the entire body of an animal.  I'm calling the shape a giraffe head, however a horse head fits the bill (or rattle in this case) as well.  The rest of the rattle tapers out slightly, but is really simple.  

These rattles gave me the opportunity to use some of the many fabrics I've been saving for "that special" project.  The "special" project you always plan to use all the fabric that you're afraid to cut and mess up and waste on something common.  For me, I've been hoarding pretty fabrics for "the quilt" I've been planning to make for my bed for 3 years now.  Well, I'm no closer to that quilt than I was when I made that promise.  However, I have increased my "pretty" fabric collection much.  Kinsey got me some really great fabrics this past Christmas and I had yet to use them.  

This rattles gave me the perfect reason to try some of my fabrics out!  They're small enough so they don't take a ton of fabric and the fabric really makes the rattles.  

Most of the fabrics I've been using are 100% organic cotton...another bonus for something that will be chewed and drooled upon.  

I'm really pleased with how they turned out and they sold very well at the show.  I'm already planning more shapes and styles.   They are currently available in the shop.  

new clutches....

I recently took a little break from making plush toys and went back to sewing clutches.  I used to make almost solely clutches, which usually included trees and grassy hills.  I still make them, but not as much.   However, once I made one of these, I knew I had to make more.

The fabric that lines the clutches is one that I've had for quite a while.  Kinsey saw it at our local fabric outlet and thought we should get at least 2 yards (I think it was really cheaply priced...maybe $1.98 a yard?).  I wasn't quite into the colors and wasn't sure, but I went ahead and got a few yards.  It sat untouched for some time.  Then I found it again.  And loved it.  Moral: Always listen to your husband in the fabric store even if you think his selection is a little off.  (Kinsey always picks out great prints, even if I don't think much of them at the time.)

I really like the off center jellyfish next to the small fabric circles and french knots.  These clutches just came together really fast and quite beautifully.  I'll be keeping one for myself.

I've done jellyfish clutches before, but these really stand out to me.  These are currently available in the shop.

great rocket ships!

These could quite possibly be one of the coolest things I've done.  Plush rocket ships!

I really am not a huge space fan or that in to astronomy.  Although, I did go through a brief time in 6th grade where I thought I wanted to study planets.  (This was back when Pluto was considered a planet.)  But after seeing (and buying) this fabric:

I knew I had to make a rocket ship. 

Sometimes, a new plush design takes me a while to make.  Days, weeks, or even in some cases months!  I usually start by sketching out what I want and then cutting templates out of paper.  Most times I have to make multiple trial runs of a design, but this one just clicked.  

Just listed in the shop.  Perfect for future astronauts or star gazers.

new fabrics and Christmas

Now that all the holiday rush is over, I thought I'd share some of the things I got for Christmas.  Kinsey gave me this wonderful fox necklace from boygirlparty.

I've loved this store for quite some time and have various prints and cards from her.  I've been wearing this necklace everyday it seems.

He also gave me fabric.  Lots of fabric, which I love.  A few are from illustrator,  Julia Rothman, whose work we both admire much.  I can't wait to start using some of these!  The green hill one on the far right, I'm planning a octopus or squid plush with it.  I can see it now.

So great!

Also, on the subject of Julia Rothman, he got me this wonderfully illustrated book she did.  

We saw a review on designsponge a while ago, but I completely forgot about the book.  The illustrations inside are beautiful!

You may be wondering what I got Kinsey since he got me all these and more awesome things? 

Here's one more thing he can cross off his list for his new business.... an iMac!  (I must admit though, I've been using this a little bit and LOVE it.  It's so much easier to use for photo editing and updating than our rather old laptop.)

In addition to my Christmas fabrics, I stopped by our local fabric outlet and picked up some great finds.  First, this rocket ship fabric.

It caught my eye across the room and I fell in love.  Not completely sure what I'll do with it, but it DID inspire a new plush design.  Any ideas?  (Coming soon!)

On the $1.98 a yard table, I found this crazy circus fabric.  Once again, I have no idea what my plan for it is, but I couldn't resist getting half a yard.  

And finally, from the .99 cents table:

I've actually seen this before there, but for some reason never purchased any.  It's a pretty thin cotton, but such a lovely print.  

Obviously, I'll be keeping busy!

handmade Christmas ornaments for 2011

It should be no surprise that we like to make things.  Christmas theme things are no exception.  Our tree (Dougie Wonderfir) this year looked like this:

Project #1:  Garland

This year, I was set on making some sort of garland.  I had thought about going the paper circles looped together route, but then I looked at my scalloped circle hole punch.  And my massive world atlas I came across for free.  And my garland was born.

I started by punching out hundreds (really!) of circles from different maps.  Then I simply starting sewing a long line without cutting the thread.  I was left with a really long chain of garland.  I ended up making 2 different chains for my tree.

It really couldn't have been easier and faster.  This project reminded me of how much I love garlands.  This could also be a year round decoration.  

Total cost: $0

Project #2: Felt Circle Trees

I found these circle felt trees at Target a few weeks before Christmas.

I loved them.  I wanted them for my tree.  $3 was pretty cheap, but I knew I could make them without much effort.  

I did not have the thicker felt the store bought trees had, but I do have just about every color of felt under the sun.  The end result:

My trees ended up having a bit more movement and I opted to not included the rolled up felt for the trunk.  Or the circle topper.  I used plastic beads I've had forever and spaced two beads between each layer of felt.

Simple, colorful, and fun.  

Total cost: $0.

Coming this Wednesday....

Meet the elephants! These ellie-guys and ellie-girls with be in the shop on Wednesday.

They're all decked out in their finest....

...and getting in shape in the meantime.

the campfire...in felt!

You may remember me gushing about this book on this post.

After completing two additional african violets, I finally made my way to the campfire.  Who doesn't love a good campfire?  They really go hand in hand with the summer season.  Here is the finished result:

First, I sewed the three logs.  Each log has hand embroidered "knots" for a more realistic appearance.




Surprisingly, these went pretty fast.  I enjoyed free embroidering the bark lines and was surprised by how much they resembled logs after being sewn up and stuffed.  Quite frankly, I could've stopped there.   (I do have plans in my head of doing an original tree stump in the near future!)

Here's the three finished logs all sewn and stuffed.

Next, came the final piece, the flame.  I opted for standard fire colors of bright yellow, orange, and red.  The flame is actually three separate pieces with three different colors per piece.  

Here's a close up of the flame.  Each felt piece is blanket stitched around the edges and together.  I used red thread for all the colors instead of matching the felt for a little added detail.  Crazy, I know.

Here's a shot from above, showing the three sections sewn together.  The directions have you gluing the three complete flame sections together and then sewing the edges together.  I found the glue to be rather messy and well, my fabric glue was rock hard.  So I skipped this step for the most part.  Instead of gluing, I just used some trusty sewing pins and pinned the three finished flame pieces together and stitched the edges to join everything.  I found this to work great.  

Another view of the three sides.

Overall, I really love this project.  It's easy (I found it a lot easier and faster to finish then the african violets...although, I did make 3 of the violets in a fairly short amount of time, so I may have just really liked the change!)

All that's missing is the s'mores! (Which actually there is a project for them in the book too!)  This would be fun to put in a fireplace you don't use or in a corner of a room.  Maybe even outside for a little non working fire pit for a summer gathering.

My new favorite craftbook

About a month ago, I was reading a few different craft blogs and kept seeing the same book everywhere- Big Little Felt Universe.   The cover instantly caught my attention.  There's just something about apples and felt that makes me get really excited.  So I decided to look into this book.  

One of the first project pages I saw was the camping set.  Yes, that's a campfire and a lantern and a s'more made from felt.  Clearly, this was my kind of book!  

(above book photos courtesy of this great blog)

Then I laid my excited eyes on this photo.  Bamboo, african violets, and a cactus.  Really, who wouldn't want these lined along their windows?  No watering needed!  So I placed my order and waited for my book to arrive.  It took a week and then the package arrived.  The only downside was I was about a week and a half away from Spring Bada Bing. 

I really needed to focus on that show so I had to put my new favorite craft book aside.

Luckily, this past weekend, I was able to try my first felt project from the book.  I knew it would be a plant, I just couldn't decide which one.  In the end I went with the African Violet.

All the projects in the book are hand sewn, so you can really work on them everywhere.  Which is exactly what I did.  I took the leaves to work to sew during lunch, worked a little on the flowers outside, and constructed the pot in the wee morning hours in my craft room.

Oh, and did I mention that you can take the plant out of the pot?  This kills me.  How cool is that? 

Here's my newest plant soaking in a little sun in the bedroom.  

Up next, I'm leaning towards the cactus.  But first I'm planning on making two more of these for two lucky people for gifts.  I really loved sewing three dimensionally with the felt.  I usually do flat work, (with the exception of my owls) and liked the feeling of building something you could use or give to someone to play with or just feel. 

There's over 70 projects in the book and I doubt I'll make all of them, but it's definitely inspiring!