Animal Crossed Patchwork Bomber

I have recently started playing Animal Crossing Wild World for the first time, and I have read enough to know that I'll need to interact with someone else who has the game to be able to get the final version of the Nook store.  I have a local friend who had been thinking of starting Wild World for the first time, too, and we'll help each other with that store interaction.  

To thank the friend, I made this

 

 which contains a smattering of licensed Animal Crossing fabric

Eggplant Man

I have made several Mado Monogatari/Puyo Puyo Carbuncle plush for the kiddo [link to the cutest] because I think the character design is so cute.  A lot of the characters in Mado Monogatari/Puyo Puyo are cute, albeit in a baffling way (Mado Monogatari is a satire), but most of their character designs are a bit complicated

...but not Nasu Grave, an eggplant who wears glasses.

So I threw together a quick little felt version

First, I cut the 'glasses' from foiled silver knit, and glued them on with white glue, edges touched up with Fabri-tac. I machine sewed around most of the body, catching the arms and legs in the stitching, notched the seams, turned right-side-out, stuffed with a pinch of Polyfil, realized I should make a simple stitch to represent the glasses bridge, then hand stitched the top closed.  I attached the leaves with a line of whip stitching through the center (is it still whip stitching if it's not on the edge?), then whip stitched the bottom of the stem over that line of stitching.

I may or may not make a larger, more-spherical version--I have an entirely suitable low pile purple plush fabric, but the kiddo doesn't think an eggplant should be fuzzy.  We'll see what happens, whenever it happens, if it happens.

Klax!

The kiddo is a big fan of somewhat obscure older games, and a bigger fan of art for those games rendered in dubious style.

I had cut out pieces for a sweatshirt for him in November, and did not want to make another plain gray garment for him, so I asked him what graphic he wanted for the front.  I figured I'd make another freezer paper stencil, whatever it was.

Time passed and I asked if he'd chosen an image yet; he had not.  This repeated a few times, until I got an all caps email, subject line AWESOME, text PUT THIS ON THE SHIRT

So I opened the email and was confronted with...this

He likes Klax a lot, so I wasn't surprised he chose a graphic related to it...but...that it was this, and not the simple "highly stylized hand held up vaguely like the letter K" graphics that are more common...yeah.  I wasn't going to do this with freezer paper stencils.

Granted, I was willing to try, but I knew it wouldn't go well.  However!  I have a hobby friend who has access to direct transfer film printing and set me up with a professionally printed image fused to black synthetic knit.

Now...I hurried a bit in my eagerness to get the graphic sewn to the front piece.  But!  I did get it centered, so that's something my experience has improved over the years, and then I sewed the shirt together in no time

Gengar Square

Another favor asked of a friend, another thing sewn as thanks (along with a thing baked as additional thanks, since friend's spouse also helped.)

I made it in a rush last night, and it definitely is, let's say, charmingly off-model (even aside from the squareness) But! There's no question that it's Gengar.

Oh, Look: Another Carbuncle

 I had thought I was finished making Madou Monogatori / Puyo Puyo Carbuncle plushes, but then I saw this post and said...oooh.  That's a Very Good Carbuncle Shape.

I sketched it immediately, then had it it in the back of my mind for a while, and impulsively made it yesterday, using the last bits of fleece from a previous Carbuncle attempt.

And, yes, once again, there was no pattern involved.

He is, as the kids say, scrunkly.

Carbuncle Again...Again

 So last night I picked apart the second Carbuncle's face and tried changing some things.

Structurally, I cut the upper piece in half to make a seam so the forehead would be narrower when it was sewn, then changed the lower center front seam to be the same width to match.

I pressed the knit used for the mouth, then used fusible webbing to attach heavy embroidery stabilizer to the back.  I trimmed the curved edges, both because I realized the mouth should be smaller and also  because the original edge was in rough shape after having the zigzagging removed.

It was very awkward to sew the mouth back on, since the overall body was still sewn.  The first round of zigzagging went badly; I left that in place, so I wouldn't need to deal with straight pins again, while I went around the mouth edge more carefully.

There are still a lot of problems--as well as some new problems, caused largely by not even thinking about the possibility of the replaced mouth not aligning with the "can't move them, there're holes in the fabric" eyes--but I think the little changes helped a lot

Carbuncle Again

 This time, I made a pattern.

It's not a good pattern but, if I want to keep trying to make Carbuncles, the pattern will give me a starting point for future changes, and oh, does it need changes, because I very much overcompensated.

Another Carbuncle

 So in November I made a simple little felt Puyo Puyo Carbuncle for the kiddo.  As I am not much of a plush maker, it turned out...oddly.

That, however, did not stop me from trying again, on a larger scale.

 

 I am still not much of a plush maker.

Blue GuGuu

 The kiddo was bored at a school in-person testing day (he's still doing remote school, so he doesn't have many chances to be bored at school) and drew a very sarcastic picture of Puyo Puyo Carbuncle.  I thought the drawing was fantastic so recently copied it onto freezer paper to make a stencil...which ended up not sticking well to this Walmart mill-end precut synthetic fabric, so my copy ended up with Issues.  I did consider adding more decoration to obscure it, but decided not to over-complicate things.

I turned to the Puyo Nexus Wiki to reference how to write the various forms of "goo" that Carbuncle says, drew the hiragana really fast, and made another freezer paper stencil...which I tried tacking on with masking tape.  The masking tape stuck fine to the slick back of the freezer paper, but not to the fabric, so I ended up holding the paper down with various paint pots.  I did a base layer of white paint for both, and used fabric medium, and still made a mess.  The kiddo thinks it's funny, and that's all that matters.

Carbuncle Continues

 The kiddo still adores Puyo Puyo Carbuncle (the older, unstarred version), as featured on half of the split shirt I made for him a few months ago.  About a week ago, I impulsively started sculpting a little Carby from Aves Apoxie epoxy putty, which is a drawn-out process because I have to let the putty cure between steps (and some of those steps are [ugh] sanding), and also I am not strong at sculpting, so I have no idea how long that will take to finish.

This, though, took about an hour (minus glue drying time)

And, yes, that is hand stitching.  I love my kid enough for hand stitching (a little bit.)

I probably should have tried to figure out how to stitch on the pompoms, but I went with glue instead. E6000 doesn't seem to want to stick to so much polyester, but I think everything's firmly in place now that it's drying.

And the pompom tail works as a tripod with the feet so he can stand.

(When I gave this Carbuncle to the kiddo, he was very confused because he thought it was the Carbuncle I'm sculpting, and he was wondering, without wanting to seem rude, how it got so inaccurate.  He absolutely had not expected me to make another Carbuncle.  I won't mention to him my plan to maybe make a larger, fluffier version, constructed like a proper plush, from what I still have of the high pile felt I used for the collar on this coat.  That one, at least, should be obviously not the sculpted version.  I hope.)

Marimo Faux

 I saw these plush marimo moss (yes, I know, they're really algae) balls online a few months ago http://kumamushisan.shop-pro.jp/?pid=80450747 and realized that the fake fur I used for the ridiculous green coat would be perfect to use to make my own version of fake marimo, and, eventually, I did!

I freehand cut circles from the fabric and sewed them mostly closed with the sewing machine.  I stuffed them with bits and pieces cut off of the fake fur and roughly hand sewed (hiss) them closed. I brushed the fur out of the seams with the wire brush I use for doll hair, and here they are. (I'll eventually find a jar for them.  Maybe.)

Switch It Up

 I do have another buttoned shirt cut out and ready to sew, but I made a slight diversion today to sew a quick protective case for our Nintendo Switch

This is a super basic zip bag, with the outside made of a vintage mass-produced machine-quilted sheer tricot that screams Early 1970s, and lined with a proper lining fabric.  There was enough batting left from the unusable edge of the quilted piece to add as another layer behind the lining.

I cut the fabric by laying the Switch on it and cutting with approximate width for seam allowances, using the pattern of the quilting as a cutting guide. 

I initially sewed the side seam allowances too wide, and the Switch didn't quite fit, so I re-sewed and picked a lot of stitches.  Now it's just right!

It's not a super robust item, but it's definitely more padding than the Switch would otherwise have when leaving the house.

Hat! Video!

 Finally edited together the video files recorded when I made the black wool crepe newsboy hat:

it was...so boring to edit, mostly because I talked a lot and that meant I couldn't do the fast edits like in the previous sewing video experiment.  Next time I feel like doing a sewing video experiment, I'm probably gonna plan to (figure out how to) do voice overs.

Whenever that may be.

As with most of my recent videos, this is not meant to be watched!  It's meant to provide hobby-adjacent background noise, for the times when that's the kind of thing you want.

Shrek Shirt

Happenstance found a "terrible in the way that only older screen printed fabric renderings of people can be" bit of woven Shrek yardage in a thrift store.  I didn't buy it, and I mentioned to the kiddo that evening.  He has never seen any of the Shrek movies, but, as a ten year old in 2019, he's all about the memes, so after confirming that he would indeed like to have something sewn from it--even without seeing it--I went back for it the next day.

There was just over a yard, I believe--definitely not enough to make a regular button-up shirt, since it was also absolutely directional.  Also, I wasn't sure if I wanted to put "button up shirt effort" into what might very be a phase that had passed by the time I finally made it?  So I pondered several possibilities for how to make a woven pull-over shirt and finally settled on fusing the general shape of Burda 9419 with the placket insert of Simplicity 1286

I looked at loads of instructions online for how to create and sew partial placket pieces, but my brain completely refused to understand what it was being shown, so I was very happy to rediscover this thrifted Simplicity pattern, which had been shuffled deep into the 'kid' pattern stash because the kiddo is too big for the kid sizes in this, yet still too small for the smallest adult size it offers.  Which, of course, didn't matter when all I needed was the placket guidance.

And a few weekends ago I finally got into working on it, and here it is!

Mostly.

Why do we all have to wear these ridiculous ties?

The kiddo currently has an unexpected affinity for older video games, and the absolute favorite is the Half Life series, and his favorite characters in that series are the scientists. ("They have the best memes," he says.)

So, when it was time to choose a Halloween costume, Half Life Scientist it was, no hesitation.  I had been prepared for it to be a HEV suit, which...I'm stubborn enough that I would have figured it out, but, in terms of knowing I can make it, scientist was a relief.  If you don't know how a Half Life scientist looks, here's the pertinent wiki page  http://half-life.wikia.com/wiki/Black_Mesa_Science_Team (which has a note, as I type this, that it'll be migrating to another domain soon, so apologies if the link is bad.)

I'm sure all the pieces could be purchased commercially--there are places to order lab coats for kids, and the price is surprisingly low, but, y'know...I sew.

Force Shorts

This is another thing I made a while ago but hadn'r blogged--the only reason I'm doing it now is because I want to get the pattern of of my desk (it was only on my desk to remind me to blog it...)

Anyway.

I thrifted Butterick 5090 a while ago, thinking only of using the kid size coat to make something for the kiddo.  Who, it turns out, was already too large for the kid sizes included in the pattern.  I mean...that didn't actually stop me from using the smallest adult size as the base of a jacket for him.

A very nice person has sent me a lot of cloth, including a few bits intended for the kiddo, including about a yard of Clone Wars Prequel era Start Wars print.  The kiddo, though...well, yes, he knows and watches Star Wars stuff, but Star Wars is nothing special to him.  It's just...there.

So I decided I'd use that bit of cloth to eke out a pair of pajama shorts for me, using the pants pattern part of Butterick 5090, and here they are

Pockets!  They're big enough for the 3DS

And near pattern matching!  That was, if I remember correctly, unintentional, and, with how little cloth I had to work with, something I didn't even think was possible.

The cloth has a lot of printing flaws, but that's fine for pajamas.

The accidental near pattern matching continued on the back, too.  So...uh...yay.

Roblagx

The kiddo has accumulated a lot of Roblox action figures.  He's also losing interest in Roblox, so those figures had been accumulating a lot of dust.  In retrospect, we could have found a nice box for all of them, but precedent had been set by the Terraria bag, so a Roblox bag was decreed.

The main difference is that I actually like Terraria, so put a modicum of effort into that project.  This one, though...pfft, just get it done.  Don't measure anything.  Don't double check the angle of the iconic square O logo.  Get it all wrong, whatever, just get it done.

And I did!

As mentioned, I tilted the square O in the wrong direction, but it's still recognizably Roblox.  We might even be able to call this the non-copyright-infringing homage version.

As with the Terraria bag, there's a big zippered pocket on the back, using the same "Mom got a good deal on a good deal of zippers in 1980" yellow zippers.

The lining on this bag isn't as exciting as the lining used in the Terraria bag.  The choices of fabric for the outside and the lining were both made from the big pile of cloth beside my desk that came from thrifted fabric grab bags.  (I have a weakness, OK?)  I have a vague plan to use up a lot of that cloth in random projects like this, especially in stuff for the kiddo.  (I just ordered some thread to that end.  Sometimes you do indeed have to spend money to be able to use the stuff you got for a great price, right?)

I took extra time to make sure the lining cloth was as out of the way as possible when I topstitched around the zippers.  I have a history of fighting with lining that likes to jump into zipper pulls.

The cloth for the square/tilting-the-wrong-way O came from my doll cloth stash.  Yes, it's the wrong color.  Yes, it's a bit large and the corners were lost in the seam allowance.  Yes, there's a bit of raw edge threads peeking out of the inner corners.

I'm still really happy with how the actual appliqué process went, especially considering there's no stabilizer of any kinds (and hooboy do I not lack for stabilizer, thanks to a different thrift store sewing supply grab bag find.)    I get a perverse satisfaction from zigzagging--tiny zigzagging--within in the bounds of my straight stitch foot.  Having a pretty good thread match helps.

Inside is a single simple pocket, intended to hold the package background cards and fold-out catalog leaflets.

Everything fit inside the bag with ease.  Now to see what fills in that empty shelf space over his computer...

Don't be so angry little bird

I've decided--once again--that it's maybe time to stop acquiring random cloth and patterns and to start actually making things (well...non-doll things.  I'm still always sewing for dolls, as my Flickr shows.)

So, of course, I start with a re-fashioning of a thing I made a year ago...  The kiddo likes big piles of blankets, which is something we have in common, and I go through phases where I'm happy to sew lots of blankets.  I decided I'd use his too-small Angry Birds and Bad Piggies t-shirts to make a little t-shirt quilt...only...yeah.  I rushed it, and not a thing was on grain, and I tried to force it to align with the backing cloth...and it didn't...no matter how much stitching I did through all layers...

I don't think I ever showed it here, so...taadaa:

...and looking relatively nonwonky thanks to the magic of photography.  The camera lies.

I presented it to him and he immediately forgot about it, so I eventually--quietly--removed it from his blanket stash.  I didn't know what I'd do with it, but the time I'd taken to make the patchwork seemed to make it worth saving.

Since he loves jackets as much as he loves blankets, I decided I'd see if I could squeeze a jacket out of it, once the backing was removed, and I chose this pattern

which is from 1977 (and which I acquired in that gigantic grab bag'o'patterns from the summer.)  The kiddo likes hoodies, so I went with view 2...well...more or less...

Angry Bag

I made the Angry Birds storage bag today--not as involved as the Terraria bag, and also conveniently emblazoned with an Angry Birds print, so no inclination to improvisational appliqué.

That didn't keep me from doing it entirely simply, of course.

Square bag for a square game

Well, Terraria isn't as overwhelmingly square as Minecraft, but...um...

Yeah.

I made another bag.

I can hear the music now (I mean, not just because it's playing on a computer in the next room.)