A Peek into the Process of a Custom Plush Commission

Two weeks ago I received another custom plush commission and a young girl's "Googly Eyeball Lady" drawing arrived in my inbox:

I have to admit, as adorable and imaginative as she is, I was a bit intimidated by the task of recreating this 32-eyeballed lady. When I do a custom plush commission, it's important to me to stay as true to the child's work as possible. Since this was a very detailed line drawing, I did this custom plush a little different than others I've done - I copied it. Here's how:

First, I enlarged it in Photoshop and printed it out in three parts which I then taped back together:

 Then, since the line drawing was faint, I traced it with a Sharpie:

and place it under white fabric and traced it with a pencil:

  You can barely see the pencil lines here without the drawing underneath:

First, I ironed on some stabilizer to give it added strength. Next, I referred to the original often as I sewed over the lines with an embroidery stitch on my sewing machine. When the stitching was completed, I ironed another layer of thin stabilizer onto the back to seal it and secure any loose stitches.

Here's a picture in progress I sent to to my customer so she could select a fabric for the back:

 

She chose this one:

And here's the finished product:

The Googly Eyeball Lady is now a Huggable Cuddly Googly Eyeball Lady.