Beartato Pillow

Hey everyone. So I was watching Project Runway... which always makes me want to sew something. So I tackled one of the smaller projects I had lying around the house waiting to be done... I love this web comic called Nedroid. It is delightfully strange and silly. One of the characters is named Beartato, and he is my favorite after Bartholomew. T shirts recently became available and as soon as I saw the design I knew I needed one, not because I need more shirts, but because it would be TOO easy to make into a plushy/pillow. Starting with the shirt flat on your table... Cut off the sleeves along the seam. Cut straight across from armpit to armpit, to get the shoulders and neck off. Cut some off the bottom so he's about the right size tall. I cut the sides off as well at the 6th tooth from the middle. This left me with two squares (one from the front, one from the back of the shirt) with his face in the middle. I rounded the edges of my square Beartato. I used the sleeves/scrap t-shirt to make ears. I had some black fabric leftover from something else and cut out arms and legs. I sewed up the arms, legs and ears. Then I stuffed the ears. His arms and legs aren't stuffed because they are too thin/small. Plus his arms are floppy and I kind of like it that way. I put it all together inside out and sewed it around the edges of the body.I left a hole at the bottom where he sits so that I had a place to stuff it full. I hand sewed up the bottom hole after I was done stuffing. Tah-Dah! Beartato! I would say that he is about 16 inches wide and 12 inches tall. I was trying to get him rounder, since he is in the comic, but I'm happy with him the way he is. He is by far the cutest pillow on my couch!

A study of dumb little vampies

I used this website to make these. It has different settings that can be messed with to create different looks for how the brush works. Kinda cool. Certainly a great time waster.

Jason Throws Whiskey

Did a quick logo for my fiance's friend's band, named Jason Throws Whiskey. You can find them on facebook if you look.

I manipulated a font that was already chunky in Illustrator. Added a vector hand and a border from a vector illustration of vintage train stamps.

Dumbest Little Vampy

So lately whenever I've been bored this little guy shows up on whatever paper is around. I used Nancy Lorenz's sheet, which I saw one day when looking through google images for anime faces... you can find that here. Anyway he's all over my notebooks. One day I'll start scanning them all in. He lives in an old mailbox and has a rat friend. He's my dumb lil' vampy.

Kitsune from xxxHolic

Yet another project just completed. This is from a pattern off deviant art as well. It is a pipe fox (kitsune) from xxxHolic (the anime). It was pretty tough to make for something that looks so simple. I hand sewed the entire thing. (don't think I will next time though) It is made from one 40inch long tube that was stuffed with a second 40 inch long tube that contains the fluff and a strong beading wire so that it can be posed. Stuffing the thing was the hardest part. Basically I couldn't simply shove the stuffing tube into the other one since it was a tight fit and it was sooooo long, so I had to open the tail, insert a bent hanger, attach it to a hoop on the end of the tail of the inside stuffing tube and pull it through the outside body tube (like they do when putting wires underground). Then the head was sewn on. I really ended up liking the fabric i picked too, its not the same fur as the tutorial called for, but it's really soft and the back side of it is this suede brown so the underside of the ears is cute! He's my new favorite scarf!

Brain Slug Hat

I have been awful crafty of late... This is a good friend of mine modeling a new hat I created. I made a bunch of tiny crocheted brain slugs from a pattern off deviant art for my friends... this hat resulted from a request to make a large one that could eat your whole head. All I did was make the pattern really big and sized to fit. (And of course I left the bottom off so that it could go over ones head) Pretty cute. Sucks that most of the things I've made lately have been for others.

Socktopus

Socktopus is my latest completed project. Took me about a month total to crochet all parts of this toy. I saw a post somewhere on the internet about an octopus with socks on his feet. Its basically a good leftover yarn consuming project. Each leg has a different sock. And, No, there is no pattern for this because I made it up as I went along. Each leg I think is 10sc around except for where I decreased and increased to make it look like a sucker pad on the end of the legs... they are slightly different lengths, but you can't tell, at least I hope you cannot. After I did the first I simply held the rest next to it to get the length. I also found it was easier to stuff as I went along rather than try to shove fluff all the way down the tube. For the head I followed a sphere pattern I found online and doubled the sc until I felt it would be big enough. I did most of the circle stuffed it and then sewed the legs on with more of the same yarn around the hole at the bottom of the head sphere. Then after all the legs were on I began to crochet again, after stuffing it full, starting at the head then doing a couple crochets through a leg, then back into the head, then in a couple in the next leg... etc... all the way around. That way the legs and the head became more of one piece. After that, since this toy was given as a baby toy to a friend of mine, I decided to sew the legs and head together more just so the legs cant be too easily ripped off. In the end I think it turned out pretty well. And now of course I want one, so I guess another will be in order...eventually.