the way you customize plush is so cute and unique, i'm in love.. it reminds me of what I would do as a child. but as children we weren't scared to mess up our expensive toys lol D: do you have a link/tutorial on how you made the shiny jolteon & vaporeon? they look amazing. thank you in advance :o
Thank you! I love doing it, it's so much fun and the result is so satisfying c:
I do not currently have a tutorial written out, so I'll just do that now I guess!
First, I unstuffed the plush. completely. For jolteon, I undid the neck seam to remove the white neck ruff. For vaporeon, I undid the seam in the middle of the head to remove the frill. I then undid the outer seam to separate the white from the blue. Then I removed the head fins, and separated the yellow from the blue. I set aside the white parts (and the yellow for vaporeon).
I filled my dye pot (if you dye plush, you need a separate pot that you ONLY use for dye because once you dye in a pot it is no longer food safe) 3/4 full with water. Bring it to a boil (or at least a simmer). Then add the dye. For jolteon I ended up using a full bottle of Kentucky sky (but that was the second dyebath, the first one I mixed yellow and blue and he was this weird yellow-but-maybe-some-green color). For vaporeon, I used about half a bottle of super pink. I started out with maybe a quarter bottle but it didn't do anything, so I just added a little more at a time and then suddenly it was REALLY PURPLE so I was like "damn" and didn't add any more.
For each bath, you leave them in for between half an hour and 45 minutes (I usually get tired of stirring after like half an hour) stirring continuously so the color is even. A trick I use to see if I can stop is, I fill a glass with cold water, lift up a little bit of the fabric in the pot, and trickle some water onto it. If the color runs right out of that spot, y'ain't done. If it stays mostly the same color, you should be fine. I've only tried this trick with minky though so idk how reliable it is for other fabrics. Also, the more "furlike" fabric tends to change texture on the high heat so I think next time I dye one I'll do it on lower heat.
Aaanyway, once the heat is off, take the pot and pour it into the sink, plush and all. IF YOUR SINK IS WHITE IT'LL PROBABLY STAIN so maybe use a utility sink if you have one in your laundry room? Rinse the pot and set it aside. Now you're gonna rinse the plush in warm/hot water until the water runs clear. Then, you're gonna fill the sink a little bit with water, add a little detergent, and wash the plush. A lot more dye will come out, it's fine. Once you've washed it, rinse again until the water is clear. Drain the water, fill it again a little bit (filling the whole sink would be really wasteful), add a little detergent, wash and rinse again. Once the water runs clear, squeeze out as much water as you can (don't wring! It'll stretch the fabric weird and make it wrinkle and it'll dry goofy lookin) and lay it out to dry.
Once it's dry, you'll need to sew them back together. With jolteon, the head opening and neck opening stretched so they were way wider than the hole in the center of the neck ruff. So what I did was, I just sewed his head to his neck. I stuffed his head, and his neck. Then I widened the hole in the neck ruff so I could slide it on over his body up to his neck. Then I ladder stitched the ruff to the base of his neck, right up by his head. Then I stuffed the rest of him. Idk if other people will have the same issue, I've no idea why I had that problem so you might not. If you don't, just pin the ruff to the neck and baste it, then pin the head to the neck and ruff and sew all 3 layers together.
For vaporeon, first you'll have to sew the yellow bits back to the tops of the fins, and sew them back into place on the front of the head. Then sew the white part of the frill to the colored part. Once the frill is back together, baste it to the front of the head. Then pin the face and frill to the back of the head and sew all 3 layers together. Once that's done, stuff it and you're done!
