I always appreciate it when other plush artists post about their creative process. And though I am far from an artist and my process is quite random, I did make a few drawings for some animals I want to make. Since I saw this bear, I’ve been thinking about making a doll from a pair of pants. I think this elephant looks a little like an old timey strong man from the circus, except for his puny arms I guess (I’m not very good at limbs). But we’ll see how he turns out because I’m still new to pattern making. The idea of making toys from clothes is really exciting–not just using the fabric, but integrating the look of the shirt or dress or hell the whole outfit into the finished doll. It would be like the feature Domino magazine had where they took an outfit and turned it into a room, do they still do that? I always thought that was such a clever idea, but they never seemed to get it right somehow.

I’m rambling. Here is an actual artist who makes some mighty fine plush stuff: sien keegan.

a quick note to tell you there are new diggers and a couple bears are for sale in my shoppe.  The sale went well, thanks for asking.  It’s hard to sell handmade things right next to a secondhand sale, but I made more than I spent (at the sale) so we’ll just call that a success.  And it was such a treat to see how people react to my stuff, so I’m sure I’ll do it again.  There will be pillowcase dresses and kiddy messenger bags and toy bags in the shop as soon as I get my shit together, which I’m guessing will be tuesday.  see you then.

I finished sewing a few things for the sale and I thought I’d pop in and show you. The bears are made from felted sweaters and printed cotton. I drew a simple bear then stitched, stuffed, and sewed on the features. Easy peasy. The denim and cashmere one is my favorite. I think it would be perfect for a little baby boy, but I have no idea if people will even buy these. I’m not much of a shopper (except for thrift stores and target) so I don’t really know what people buy or how much they pay for things. So how much would you pay for a bear like this ? They are a little under a foot tall (1 foot = 30 cm), machine washable, and super soft.

These are all the pillowcase dresses I’ve finished so far, but there are a few more cut and ready to go in my studio. I wasn’t going to make so many, but a showed a few to my friends and they were quite taken with them, so I whipped up some more. It doesn’t hurt that they are dead easy to make. And you can make them to fit girls from 6 months to 5 or 6 years old. For these I’m thinking 16 dollars a pop, what do you think? I haven’t sold stuff from a booth since my lemonade days, so I’m a little nervous about all of this. Tagging, pricing, talking up the things I’ve made. And this sale is the first of it’s kind so there could be a couple people there or hundreds. Nobody knows.

this was a lot harder than it looks.  And even though it only needs a few buttons (wheels, headlights, tail lights) I can’t bring myself to finish it.  I thought I’d move on from diggers and try my hand at dump trucks.  The body of the truck wasn’t so bad–a lot of confusing parts, but it worked out okay.  But the actually dumping part (I have to learn me some technical terms if I’m going to keep making these things) was pretty damn frustrating.  I used timtex (well something like timtex but fusable–it was all they had–and I just fused both sides to cotton batting) and holy crap is that stuff hard to deal with.  Granted I probably shouldn’t be using it on something so small, but I couldn’t figure out how to make all the sides of the dumper sturdy.  It comes together just like a bag with a lining would, except if your bag has an extra thick layer of stiff as hell interfacing then it turns out that the inside is smaller than the outside and the lining you made has to be remade smaller (but whoops not that small, make it again).  Turning that sucker out was such a pain that I had to take a break half way through.  But now that I’m looking at it a day later (and complaining all over the place about it) I’m starting to like it again.  So really I have to rethink the pattern–any suggestions?  But I am happy about on thing: it dumps.

I am very excited to announce that my shop is up and running!  The little diggers have been in bits and pieces all week, but I finally sat down with all the parts today.  And as my daughter built tower after tower after tower with her blocks, I sewed button joint after button joint right next to her.  Setting up an etsy shop was a little intimidating at first, not because of the site itself–it’s fantastic–but because I had to sit down and describe myself and what I make.  And make people want to buy it.  I have no idea how to do this, so I went with boring ol’ descriptions of the first three then when I got to the pink digger I laid it on thick.  I was only going to make three to start with anyway, but then I saw this little bit of hot! pink! vintage! linen in my scrap bag I cut into it without thinking twice.  Because how fantastic would it be if a cute indie rock boy out there gave his cute indie rock girlfriend my pink digger for valentine’s day.   I guess that’s an odd daydream to have, but I think that’s what mothers of small children do: daydream.  Most of what we say could be recorded and just played back over and over again all day, “Stop. stop. sit down. sit down. don’t play with your food. don’t rub your toast on your head. don’t put playdough in your brother’s ears.” I always wondered why I had to say, “MOM!” so many times before she heard me.  Now I don’t hear my daughter until the third or fourth mom.  So (to get out of this tangent) I’ve been day dreaming about this little shop all week and now here it is!  yay.