Beezedchurger

He/They

[surrealbirthdaycake]

Don't talk to me or my son ever again...

[surrealbirthdaycake]

BEHOLD. The Goob Squad™

Both using the Cotton Kitten pattern by Daftpatience. I wanna make more of these little guys in the future, they're about the size of my hand, and I have so many buttons that are the perfect size for the eyes.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

Never uploaded the gooby version I made of Mr. Skitters. I used the Cotton Kitten pattern from Daftpatience. His stripes, face, and toe beans were all hand-embroidered. I tried moving his mouth up and out a little more than the original pattern suggested in an attempt to make him more "smug," but it doesn't quite come across imo. The combination of struggling to keep the embroidery even, the paw patches being whipstitched on, and the fabric used, this guy is SKRUNKLY. It sorta adds to his charm, in a way...

[surrealbirthdaycake]

It's nice that I actually got some decent progress pictures for this project, since I got to yap about my process in more detail. If nothing else, it's a good resource for me to check later

[surrealbirthdaycake]

His tail on it's own was one of the most difficult parts of this whole project. The character, Mr. Skitters, has a bendy straw for a tail. I wanted to make sure that you could see "into" the tail, and really push the straw illusion. I used a Choly Knight Mimikyu tail pattern upscaled at 140%. I probably could have just had the single bend on it, but for some reason I was set on it being as bendy as possible. I hand embroidered the stripes on both tail pattern pieces. I went ahead and stitched the tail together, leaving both the top and bottom ends open, trimmed and turned it, and left it a tube. Once I stuffed it I decided that it was too long, and I didn't really like how the bottom of the tail came out, so I cut off about an inch or so excess and tucked the raw edges into the tail. At the top, I drafted and cut out a little thin plastic disk for structure, and basted the raw edges of the top of the tail down. I then made a brown disk in felt, ideal because it's stiffer and holds its shape better, and tucked it into the open tail hole on top of the plastic. I then ladder stitched the disk in, hiding the seam allowance. Once it was all stitched in, I added a final straight stitch around the hang-off at the top to give it a little more of an "edge." I "sculpted" the ridges to make it a "bendy straw" by locking my stitch, making a running stitch and pulling tight, and then wrapping the thread a few more times per ridge, and locking my stitch back into the fabric. I'm not 100% happy with how the tail came out, but it gets the effect across, I think.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

This delightful creature was a kitbash, the most convoluted one I've done so far.

For his body, I used a Choly Knight Luna & Artemis Pattern, upscaled to 150%. I cut two sets of the front and back pieces of the front paws in both white and orange, and modified them to make just his paws orange.

His head base and the poly pellet pouch is from the Cinamoroll Plush Pattern (the medium size, specifically.)

The tail base is from the Mimikyu Plush Pattern, upscaled at 140% (I also cut it down from the base when I attached it to the body, so it's also modified.)

His forehead fluff was from the Eeveelution Espeon Plush, but upsized a little by increasing the seam allowance.

His cheek fluff, (which I have dubbed his "cheek meat") was from the Cheshire Cat Pattern as a base and modified.

The :3 mouth I just traced from the Witch Kitty Plush Pattern, but just removed the nose

I originally just wanted to make cone patterns for his ears, but I wasn't really satisfied with my attempts, and I was losing steam, so I just took the front piece from the ear in the Bluey Pattern, and extended it about a half an inch.

His eye bases, irises, tail "hole" and orange patches were drafted by hand.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

One of the interesting things about this project is that I tried a new technique for the first time. I saw a video online (9rotto on Instagram) where they used freezer paper to cut out felt patterns. Even though this is fleece, I decided to give it a shot, since tracing out and cutting patterns in fleece ALWAYS manage to get warped, plus marking certain colors in fleece has been an issue for me in the past. (stained one project with colored chalk, and another project the fabric was too dark to use marker.)

Not only did it work, it was the easiest and most satisfying time I've ever had cutting out fleece. Essentially, you use freezer paper, tracing out your patterns on the matte side. I used gel pen, which felt the smoothest while being the most precise. Once it's traced, you iron the paper on to your fabric shiny side down, and iron on a low to medium heat, which makes the paper stick temporarily. I didn't find this technique to leave any sort of residue on the fabric, but you could always wash it when you're done if you're worried about it. I found that leaving the blank space on the freezer paper, and cutting through both the fabric and the paper at the same time made it easier to get the shapes even, however that could be brutal on your fabric scissors, and can waste a bit of fabric. You could also cut the freezer paper out and iron it piece by piece to the fabric, allowing you to get spacing as close as possible, as long as you include the seam allowance in your pattern pieces. Either method is valid and helpful, depends on the person. You can reuse the freezer paper patterns about once or twice more, if you'd like. You could also label the pieces and leave the freezer paper on the fabric until you need it in order to keep your pieces organized

[surrealbirthdaycake]

His face took a little longer than I would have liked, honestly. I went through a few different iterations, as pictured here, since I didn't have the same rich dark purple that Max (the character's owner) uses in her lineart in fleece. I cut out the patterns for his eyes, both in a navy blue and the light purple I owned, but determined to get a more accurate color, I tried using felt, and whip stitched around the entire eye, and tried a brick/long and short stitch to fill in the pupil. (couldn't keep it consistent enough.) Unfortunately, I hated this result, and scrapped it. My main concern was if I used the light purple for the outline and pupil of the eye, the fleece iris pieces would stick too far out and give the illusion that the white/turquoise was the pupil instead.

As a sort of compromise, I used felt for the irises, but stitched embroidery thread over the whole thing to hide the texture of the craft felt, and hopefully improve quality by decreasing pilling. I think I might reuse this technique, as I really like the "textural" difference between the iris and pupil.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

His front paws were a little challenging, since I REALLY wanted them to be symmetrical/even in the front and back. I ended up tracing the pattern on both white and orange fabric, embroidered the paws on the orange pieces, eyeballed about how long the orange pieces should be (measured around 3") and cut it across as evenly as I could after tracing a line across. Once I roughly stitched the paws on upside down with a basting stitch, I cut the excess white pieces, and clipped the connected piece between the paws in the orange. I went ahead and ran it under my machine, though, so the seam would be more durable. The final result was fairly symmetrical on the final plush, at least.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

For his toe beans, I went ahead and traced out the paw patterns, excluding seam allowance, and drew out about where I wanted the toes to be. I used a box cutter and carefully cut the paper to be a template. I placed it on the pattern pieces and filled in the shapes with white chalk. I used a satin stitch on the pad of his paw after tracing the shape out with a backstitch, and just used three or four stitches per toe bean. I don't think I'll use a satin stitch for the pads again, though. The backstitch I did traced the shape really well, but the satin stitch kinda warped the shapes, since the fleece is stretchy, and even though the shapes are fairly small, there's still a risk of the threads catching on something.

I kinda wish I used a different thread, since the day after I started the embroidery, I got to the store and found a thread that contrasted better, but a friend of mine pointed out that I should just commit to finishing projects rather than just making them "perfect." Eh, it is what it is. I'll use the newer thread I found in another project someday.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

Some detail shots. His toe beans and his irises are hand embroidered, and the appliques on his face and back are hand stitched on with a whip stitch

[surrealbirthdaycake]

Some non-holiday themed photos of the guy, if you're about that sorta thing. Didn't really wanna use these as the "official" photos, since the white-on-white low contrast doesn't really do him any favors...

[surrealbirthdaycake]

Mr. Skitters!!! he is a cat and also his tail is a straw

[surrealbirthdaycake]

A singular wip of the Gooby

[surrealbirthdaycake]

This little guy's unofficial name is "Gooby"

She was pretty straightforward project, no modifications. Just a little kitten following DaftPatience's "Cotton Kitten" pattern and hand stitched.

I used a cheap flannel from Walmart or Meijer (can't remember) and some buttons I had laying around.

The photos don't do her justice, she's only just larger than my palm, just a tiny little creature...

[surrealbirthdaycake]

I'm not gonna lie, this project was tough to get through. It took about 28 hours. (that I could remember to track, anyway...)

I started with a Choly Knight Arcanine plush pattern that I scaled up to be EXTRA huggable. (Around 130%, I think?)

The eyes were a custom shape (that were REALLY difficult to place even somewhat even) and his ears are just scaled up from Choly Knight's Wolf Link plush, because yknow. Wolf ears. I switched out the belly panel to an ivory color to mimic a sea turtle shell, like the character. Each line on the belly was a backstitch, all done by hand. I originally considered doing those by machine, but I'm not confident they would have been very even, as my machine moves FAST. I sorta regret the contrasting thread on the face and paws, since it REALLY sticks out. I was hoping it would be more subtle than it was.

Definitely the hardest part for me was the shell. I drafted it myself. I ended up making a practice shell out of scrap fabric (not pictured) and had to redo the outer shell part because it was uneven (and it STILL WAS.) Placing the hexagons was frustrating as well, as getting them even was a TASK.

I really underestimated how much work it would take. My main issue, especially with the plushes I make, is that I want SO DESPERATELY for them to look factory done. Crisp embroidery lines, symmetry, even seams. But unfortunately I'm only human, and even with the aid of machinery I can only go so far. I gotta learn to let my art be as it is and not try to brute force my way into what I envisioned, because I only exhaust and disappoint myself.

I don't wanna sit here and just complain about the process. I'm really touched and grateful that anyone liked my work enough to commission me, and it was a birthday gift for a mutual friend. Parts of it were really satisfying, and I got to challenge myself in ways I normally wouldn't with a project (I've never used iron on interfacing, for example.)

But I do have to acknowledge that I also learned some things the hard way about my process, and hopefully I'll learn to be kinder to myself in the future.

[surrealbirthdaycake]

Here she is