I never saw a hot pink cow... till now.

My latest custom plush commission started with this drawing by a little girl in Oregon.

Its name is "Marly" and it's a cow. I immediately thought of the old nursery rhyme:

I never saw a purple cow.

I hope I never see one.

But I can tell you anyhow,

I'd rather see than be one.

When I went to the fabric store though, the hot pink fleece matched the color of the drawing better than any of the purple fleece, so I went with the best match. Fast forward two weeks and here it is in huggable form:

Sometimes it's tricky interpreting the back of a child's drawing. The difficult tasks with this one were figuring out a way to make supportive legs and devising a skinny, yet supportive neck.

I did it by giving the cow a triangular rump and inserting a sewn tube of vinyl that extends diagonally from the base through the neck and into the head, then hand-stitching the back part, front legs, and head together.

Soon it will be sitting on the bed of the little girl who designed it.

I never saw a hot pink cow

But now I'm glad I did.

I took a drawing, flat and small

And made it plush and big.

Kokoleo Windows and Craft Camp

Well it seems I failed in that  that resolution to blog at least 10 times a month. I promise to better this month though. Oh wait, this month is already half over. Where does the time go?

Last month I spent a lot of my time preparing for this:

An all-kokoleo display in the windows of happy delusions in downtown Renton. That's the inside view, here it is from the outside:

I said windows plural because directly across from this is another huge window that I decorated as well:

And in the middle is another big window.

It was fun filling these spaces with my stuff. Mary, the owner of happy delusions, gave me free reign to do what I want with them. On the day I decorated them, McKenna didn't have preschool and I worried she would get restless but she was an awesome helper – handing me nails, clothes pins, and glue dots. She said, “Some day I'm going to work here. I'm going to sew things and sell them here like you do.” Since I technically don't have a real job, it was as close as a “Take Your Daughter to Work” day as I'll get.

The following night was "First Friday," a downtown art walk where some of the businesses stay open late and the community comes together to enjoy wine and cookies and art. My friend Dacia, who owns the Old Renton Book Exchange came and purchased this shirt for her boy Bo off my clothesline display. How cute is this kid?

To kick off my Spring Break Kids Craft Camp that I was going to be teaching at the store the following week, I offered to set up a table in front of the shop and let people make some of the projects I have planned for my class. 

 

The results were adorable. Here are just a few:

 

And here are some pics of last week's Craft Camp. Monday was Fun with Puppets:

 

Tuesday was Monster Mania:

Wednesday was Puffball Power:

Thursday was No-Sew Pillows and Totes:

And Friday was Arty Party:

Turnout was great and we're even thinking about doing it again this summer and possibly next winter break as well. Stay tuned!

Raggedy Barbie

Yesterday, inspired by a call for submissions for an Altered Barbie art show at happy delusions, I spent a rainy Seattle afternoon holed up in my studio making this:

I call it Raggedy Barbie.

I printed the face onto photo transfer paper, ironed it onto canvas material and using McKenna's Raggedy Ann doll as a reference, cut out all the body parts like this:

 Then stuffed it, sewed on yarn hair, and made a patchwork print dress and ribbon belt.

Here's a close-up. 

I probably spent over 6 hours making it. Minus the Barbie face, it looks a lot like a rag doll I had when I was little - her name was Minneapolis and she had yellow yarn hair and a patchwork dress. In college, I made several rag doll-related works of art including a 3-dimensional fabric collage atop an antique quilt titled Annabelle Lives in A Patchwork World. It was a girl (composed of my clothes) with yellow yarn hair leaning against a fabric tree. I also made a painting of Raggedy Anne all grown up and stuck in a toy box.

 It hangs in McKenna's room now. I suppose rag dolls are a theme for me, which is why when I thought about how to alter Barbie I instantly thought of making a her into a traditional rag doll. Barbies are usually sexy and stylish. Rag dolls? Not so much. The juxtaposition of the two is a wee bit off-putting. When I was nearly finished making it McKenna walked in, looked at it, screamed! and said, "That's a creepy doll mom!"

 Ha! She warmed up to her though.

And now they're friends.

Shroom Decor

  Look what I grew in my studio:

A couple of plush mushrooms. They're currently transplanted downtown at Happy Delusions but I can grow more. I'm going to try a few more color combos and offer some custom plush shrooms on Etsy soon. Try saying some custom plush shrooms 10 times fast. It's hard!

Save the Owls

I made this pincushion the other day:

I found the ceramic owl and trunk vase at Value Village and though I try to avoid acquiring knick-knacks at thrift stores, this guy spoke to me. It was something to the effect of , "Whoo whooo... hey yooou... take me home and make me into something newww!" So I did.

It originally held a tiny bouquet of ugly fake flowers which I immediately tossed. I filled the empty trunk with beans and hot glue to give it weight and attached a plush patchwork sphere on the top.

I also made this guy...

 

Who who whooo needs a place to put their pins? They'll be flying into my Etsy shop soon.

(terrible)Tutorial Tuesday: Tin Can Mushroom Pincushion

This is what I made my mom for Mother's Day.

Oops, I just ruined the surprise. Oh well. I think she'll like it even more knowing it once starred on my blog in cyberspace. I meant to write a nice tutorial to share with you, but it was one of those projects that didn't turn out quite the way I thought it would.

For example, when you sew together shapes like these:


They make a shape like this:


Which is not mushroomy at all. I considered turning it into a strawberry or maybe a gnome's hat, but instead, I reworked it into a dome shape. (This is where the tutorial started to fall apart and my photographing became sporadic.)

Next, I went upstairs and got a pickle jar top out of the recycling bin and emptied out a tomato paste can, washed and dried it, and filled it with dried pinto beans (for weight). I then sewed a muslin tube with a flat circle bottom and inserted the can.


Later, Erik questioned why there was a Tupperware container with tomato paste in it in the refrigerator, to which I sheepishly admitted, "Because I needed the can for a craft project."

Next, I stuffed the mushroom top:


then inserted the pickle jar top and stitched it shut.

Then I placed the mushroom cap on top of the tall ribbed can and it looked like a penis so I gave up on it for a while. (Though now that I think of it, there may be a market for penis-shaped pincushions, but not for Mother's Day.) Today, I decided to try to make it less phallic and more whimsical. I ironed some HeatnBond to green fabric, cut it out in the shape of grass,

and ironed it on the the can. It worked, but I wouldn't recommend doing it this way. I warned you this tutorial would be convoluted.

Next, I squirted hot glue on the stalk and attached the cap:

but it wasn't really secure and I didn't want to use more hot glue so I sewed it together around the edge. Stitches are better than hot glue anyway.

Then I pulled a wooden ladybug off an Ikea clothespin and glued it on to the side.


And finally got it kind of how I envisioned it.

I entered this mushroom in a pin cushion blog hop on the Arrow Sewing Cabinets' blog. You may have hopped over here from the Posh Girl Friday blog... next stop on the blog hop is Dustpan Diary. Check out all the cool pin cushions people are making!

Tutorial Tuesday: Plush Bunny Pattern

 A few years ago at a church bazaar in North Hollywood, I got McKenna this bunny:

 

He's a little dingy now and his hand-embroidered eyes and whiskers have snagged but he's still one of her favorite friends. I bought him for six dollars. Six dollars! Being used to indie craft markets where prices tend to reflect the amount of time and effort put into a project, I couldn't believe the price tag said $6.00. That's Made in China sweatshop prices! I've made many a stuffed monster in my day and I would be a fool to sell something that took me 2+ hours to make for only $6.00. Who works for 3 dollars an hour?  I didn't argue though, but I did ask the old lady at the checkout how she could sell her handcrafted item so cheaply. She said, "Oh honey, it just makes me happy to know you want it. I don't really care about the money." And the award for sweetest old lady in the world... goes to her.

Inspired by that bunny, I made my own version. And in honor of that generous crafty grandma I included a pattern for you to make your own too.

These are the pieces you'll need:

 

(Click on the image to enlarge and print.)

Cut 2 bodies, 4 ears, 4 arms, 4 legs, 2 tails, 2 eyeballs, and one nose. First, sew on the tail, eyeballs, nose and mouth using a zig-zag or satin stitch on your machine. Next, sew on button pupils.

Stitch together the arms and legs and (not pictured) ears.

Turn them right-side-out and stuff the extremities half-way.

Straight-stitch a line across the middle and continue stuffing, leaving a half an inch at the end. Rather than stuffing the ears, simply turn them right-side out and iron flat.

Next, stitch all extremities to the front of your bunny body.

Fold the ears and arms inward and place the back of your body on top, tail-side in. Starting at the top of the head, stitch the body parts together down the edge of one side. The other side will be a bit trickier since you have the ears and arms crammed in. Once you have the top and both side stitched, turn it right-side out through the bottom. It should look like this:

Now fold the bottom in and carefully hand-stitch closed. Ta-da!

 Finally, give it some whiskers:

Happy Spring!

(psst... next week I'll show you how to make a patchwork carrot. These bunnies get hungry!)