What Happened To Creativity????

My god, an internet google search on ‘stuffed toys’ yields so little creativity!  It’s like 90% of people making stuffed toys are locked into the 1950’s or 1960’s patterns yet.  It’s been 50 years since then, skills in designing should have vastly improved by now!  Yet the majority still put up stuff you could find in craft magazines back when Raggedy Ann was at the height of popularity.  It’s so sad.

Put in the words soft sculpture and you get more of the same, along with baby dolls usually made from nylon stockings or knits.  I  initially had hope for the magazine Soft Dolls And Animals, but even that’s gravitated back to the old fashioned baby dolls for the most part.  It’s a rare treat to come across something like this --  http://www.elfwood.com/~plieger/Fantus-the-Ice-Dragon.3123875.html

Or this -- http://wormsandbones.deviantart.com/gallery/

 

Thank god for those who push the envelope!

My Jointed Fox Doll

 

Hmm, looks like the images got a little squashed.  Sorry.

 

I can still find the white and black craft fur, although it isn’t $6 a yard anymore (try more like $10 for the ‘cheap stuff’) but the red/rust color has disappeared off the market so bye bye fox…. They stood about 24 inches tall, I was selling them for $25 and each one came with a corded belt that had a simple drawstring pouch on it, which contained his ‘lunch’ of one white mouse with red eyes and a little pink tail.  I used my catnip mouse pattern for that and hey, it was a GREAT selling point for this item.  I had several adults dragged into our tent by their kids who excitedly showed them that the fox had his meal with him.  When I pointed it out to adults who didn’t have kids with them they all smiled big and had to look inside the pouch to see what the mouse looked like.

 

The arms and legs were straight with one joint at the elbow and knee, just a straight line of stitching across the area, I kept it simple.  They got safety lock yellow cats eyes, and the head was a separate piece attached by hand.  Ears went on last.  The tail had a white tip.  Today’s prices would run me about $18 to make one so my selling cost would have to be at least twice that now.  It’s probably a good thing that I can’t get the fur anymore.

What Makes Good Whiskers?

FISHING LINE!  I get 8 lb. test white or clear fishing line. The 8 lb. version takes being knotted without having the knots come loose, and it doesn't snap and break like the thinner type. You can also get fishing line in a green, which looks sort of gray when you use it, or in black. I prefer the clear type which is cheap and easy to find anywhere, including Kmart.

 

I used it on these two Siamese cats.  Their eyes are too big for the pattern, I only made a few of them and then changed the pattern for something different (didn't like the front legs being so floppy either).  But yes, fishing line works really nicely as whiskers. 

 

You cut a long strand, put only the tip of it through the needle because the needle will put a kink in the line where it presses, take a small stitch, pull the line evenly through it, tie two knots, then rethread the needle with the end of one of the pieces and take another stitch so it comes out in a different place. That gives you two whiskers for one strand.  Once you're done, pull all the whiskers forward in your hand and trim them all evenly in one slice of the scissors.

One Of The FEW Cat Toys That Never Sold Well

Sometimes you get a dud.  Not often, but yes, I've had a few that never took off.  Chipmunks were one of them, I'm not sure why.  People would pick one up out of the basket and look puzzled, ask 'racing stripes?' and waggle it in the air.  It's like nobody knew what a chipmunk looked like.   Ahh well....

So here is my 'dud' and I won't do any more of them.  Even though the cats did like the long bodies and soft feel.

My ONE Foray Into Flag Making

For Pennsic War we needed a flag or standard for our booth space, it was required to sell there.  Most people had their business name done up on fabric or went with something ultra simple.  Since my booth was called The Falcons Mew I wanted a falcon, on something that could be seen way down the aisle at a distance. There's so much GREEN there with the trees and grass (well the grass at the START of the 10 day event is green, by day 5 it's all worn down to dirt in the aisles like you see here) so a green was out, as was most darker colors.  Purple isn't noticeable. Gold would be nice but too many others used gold, white, tan and pale blue.

 

So I settled for red as a background.  The falcon is done Egyptian style to fit into a vertical space. Medieval falcons are shown spread eagled or on a diagonal.  It's actually centered better than it looks here, the wind puffs it back and forth, which is why I put bells on the bottom tabs, they added a bit of weight.  The flag is folded in half, both sides have a bird on it and the channel I sewed across the top is where the bar goes in to attach it to the pole.

 

 

Come night fall we lift the pole out of the four footed base and just take it inside the tent.  The base is attached to the ground with two tent stakes.  It made for an easy breakdown and setup on dirt. Would not work so well on concrete though.

 

Given that we used the sign for 15 years it's really nice that the red didn't fade out in the intense sun that we got there.  Rain didn't affect it much either.  The bird is done in velours, the lines and nails are painted in black acrylic, the eye is a sew on faceted gold glass jewel.  The red is rip stop nylon.

 

You can see a trio of Cthulhu dolls and a tiger in the left front of the picture. It took a while to sell the tiger (two events), I had it priced at $25 so I'm not sure why it was with us as long as it was.

Mummified Catnip Mice

Another picture from a past Pennsic War event. I sell them for $2 each now, same good grade of catnip (home picked) and nice hieroglyphic print fabric.  The fabric print was discontinued at Hancock's which is horrible, it was gorgeous and the blue had a metallic gold applied on it.  Very nice stuff!!!! 

 

Each Mouse was implied inside the square, properly mummified to ancient Egyptian specifications.  Only the tail hangs out.  Riiiiiiight............  LOL

 

They were fun and looked great, sold fast, and cats loved them.  Just another way of being creative to get the cat owners laughing and in the mood to pick up and buy something.  If you can get it into their hand, that's halfway to making a sale.

Blast From The Past.....

Wow, looking through some of my older digital pictures I came across my Pond Scum!  These started out as Semi-Mobile Sentient Plants, when I was selling at science fiction conventions back in the 1990's, but they didn't move at all at Pennsic War for four days.  It was only when I renamed them Pond Scum that they took off like crazy, I sold over 55 of them in the next three days.

 

Go figure.  Simple name change, nothing else.  People are weird.

 



 

They were baseball sized, a 'leaf' on the bottom, one or two eyestalks, and a bit of fake fur around the base of the eye stalks.  I just got so tired of making those that I stopped.

 

The other things in the picture - in the back right are bags of juggling balls (rice stuffed for weight on the three balls), and the silver glittery things on the left are Leeches in metallic looking armor (that confetti metallic fabric).  Those sold at $2 each, no lie.  Leeches were a 'must have' item at the SCA event every year we went.  I stared with plain ones, then when a guy came up to show me his costumed leech....OMG.... it had a tiny crown on it's head, an ermine trimmed red cape and a tunic and belt.  After that I had to start making half my leeches with little outfits.

 

I had belly dance leeches, royal leeches, mummified leeches, fighter leeches, Scottish leeches in kilts with tiny sporrans, and even plague leeches.  People loved them. They started buying a different kind every year and 'collected' them like merit badges.

Fiberfill Stuffing In Bulk

You know, after a time it's just not WORTH paying retail for those bags of stuffing at the fabric store.  When you go through 20 lbs. or more at a time on projects it's worth looking around for a better deal.

 

I'm fortunate to be within 75 miles of a place that sells it by the huge 'body bag' size at wholesale costs.  They have two grades, A and C (yes, they did have a B a few years ago).  The A is soft, white and sort of 'greasy' feeling.  It compresses down to nothing and it's more expensive than the grade C.

 

The grade C is yellow, a bit coarser, and compacts nicely to do a solid feel inside a toy.  I love the stuff, I get it usually 10 bags at a time, 20 lbs per bag, for $1.19 a pound.   The yellow shade is pale and doesn't make a difference inside due to it's color unless you're stuffing something semi-see through that's white. 

 

Monterey Mills Fabric Outlet is down in Janesville, WI.

http://www.montereymills.com/Products/Craft/FiberfilStuffing.aspx 

 

They carry a ton of different fake furs, ones you can't find at the average fabric store, and they do ship via UPS/Fed-Ex too.  I recommend them, I've been getting my stuffing from them for over 18 years.

Catnip - Single Serving

Every time I fill an order for cat toys I want to add in something extra. Sometimes it's a mini-comic, sometimes it's a zip lock bag of catnip.  But I want to find something easy to make that looks more like a gift, so I've been scouring the internet images and Pinterest for ideas on 'creative packaging'. 

While I do like the little cardboard triangular boxes a LOT, getting a reliable source of the right kind of cardboard would be difficult.   My next best choice was off another Blogger's site, they had a tutorial for a cardboard emery board holder as a sort of fancy gift box.
http://sherrysimpleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/tutorial-for-emery-board-holder.html

I think I can do the same type of thing with felt and fabric and have it be stiff enough for a certain amount of bagged catnip to go into it.  Anyway I'm going to play around with that idea for a bit and see what I can come up with using this as a first step.

Old Pattern, New Request

Figures, once I discontinue a product someone remembers it and wants it back.  This time it was tacos as a cat toy.  I don't even have the pattern for that anymore, it's been over 6 years since I made them last time but given all the 'felt food' patterns out there I just googled it and clicked on 'images' and looked through what's being sewn now and did up a pattern with scratch paper again.

One of my old so-called mistakes way back when we were maybe doing our second Pennsic War was I'd cut a circle out of gray velour and a smaller circle to act as a belly for making hamsters as cat toys.  Well, I did it from memory but when I sewed and stuffed the things they were these giant bloated baseball sized creatures with tiny ears and tiny bead eyes.... I had maybe 20 of them and figured I'd just put them out and sell them, once they're gone then I make the right sized type.

I stuck a dumb name on them -- Giant Parisian Hamsters.  Do you know HOW MANY PEOPLE asked me for years if I had any more of the Giant Parisian Hamsters?????  They were a mistake that sure made an impression.  Since they were all hand sewn at that time I didn't do up any more, I stuck with the smaller version both to save on stuffing and space, they really were too large for a cat to play with.  But wow, everyone thought they were fun.

It's A Squid Kind Of Day

One hour sewing squid bodies and tentacles, two and a half hours stuffing 120 tentacles, three hours assembling the parts = 20 finished squid.  Sometimes things are really time consuming even when you use a production line format to do it all as efficiently as possible.

I actually cut out 24 bodies but miscounted on the sets of legs so I have 4 bodies here yet that need their tentacle sets but I'm out of the right print of fabric so that's one more trip to the fabric store today.  Which is ok actually, I need black fake fur for making bats and don't have enough to do the bat order I'm working on.

Cthulhu Spawnettes

These sell like hotcakes (or potato chips) as cat toys.  I've made them for at least 10 years. Any green printed fabric works well, though I stick with no-stretch fabrics like cotton and cotton blends.  The eyes are 8mm black beads, the 'leaf' on the back is green felt or green polar fleece and the opening that they're stuffed through is on the back, hidden by the leaf once that part is attached.

I'd tried 4 tentacles but three worked better.  You can vary how wide the face tentacles spread.  I make sure to indent the bead eyes when sewing them on to avoid any issues of a cat chewing them off because they're too loose.  The leaf is cut jaggedly all the way around to mimic seaweed or a fin frill.  Felt is easier to hand sew through than polar fleece. 

Supplies -- Eyes And Mouse Tails

My local craft store has had issues getting in the safety lock eyes, both the round pupil and the cat's eye pupil, in ANY size. I had to go looking online for them and yes, did find a place that carries them all the time.  Not only that, they have extra colors, a very vivid green and a beautiful gold.  They sell them in bags of 2 or in packs of 50 for the round pupil, for $12 in the 18mm size I need, or packs of 100 cats eye pupil in 18mm for $18.  I've ordered from them three times now, and they ship promptly.

 

Here's their URL 

http://www.crscraft.com 

 

And the mouse tails, I use a #1 lightweight silky rayon which they carry on rolls of 144 yards for $18, which Marascos has also not been able to get through their supplier. I'm glad I looked online, not only am I paying half the price as what was charged at Marascos, I have a wider color range. The only downside is that these big rolls take a long time to go through so I went with a purple, a blue and a pink as those are the colors I use the most.

 

Here's their URL

http://www.satincord.com 

 

They carry a thicker rat tail cording also, but it's harder to tie a knot in that one, the knots tend to slip and pull loose. The thinner one holds a knot just fine.

Today Is Squid Day

I spent a good portion of the afternoon cutting and machine sewing my squid for selling at the Bristol Renaissance Festival in July.  The ones below are already sold off, they're down in Missouri at a different festival, so I had to do up an entire new batch.  Mostly I was using polar fleece in different patterns, with a black fleece underbelly, and the legs done in the same fabric as the top.  They get 18mm safety lock eyes.  The HARDEST part is to turn and stuff 6 tentacle legs for each.  Yes, I know squid have 8 legs, however with the width at the bottom you can't squeeze 8 in there, but six do fit.  When you do 10 squid that's 60 tentacles you have to sit there and stuff.  I try to do it when I'm watching TV, it makes thing go faster.

 



It doesn't show up in the picture, but each one gets an 'eyebrow' shelf over the eyes, to give them character.  And I put different colored felt circles around each eye.  They do stand up nicely.  These are 13" long in the body plus another 9" for the tentacles.   These are popular with the Steampunk crowd.  I do small squid also, as cat toys, each of those are about 4" long.  Last year the small ones ended up being pinned to a lot of people's hats as decoration, and weren't given to cats at all.  I didn't mind.  In fact, I could probably turn them into Christmas ornaments as well.

Those Felt Food Tutorials Online - Pumpkin Pie

Last fall I wanted to make some fall specific cat toys, did a lot of looking around on the internet and under the 'images' in a google search I found pumpkin pie slices that looked pretty nifty.   I could get the right colors in polar fleece and felt, and gave it a try with the pattern I found on this site:
http://smashedpeasandcarrots.com/felt-pumpkin-pie-with-whipped-cream-tutorial/

The whipped cream dollop makes the entire thing work!  Without it there's not as much oomph.  I know that there's another way to do the whipped cream, it's with a sort of flower starburst that you do a gather with on the tips.  Here's the tutorial:
http://helloashleyann.com/?p=377

Between the two, the more NATURAL look is the whipped cream from the first website.  I tried both, then went with the first one.  The only issue is to make sure your white square is large enough when you start, do it too small and it's not very impressive.  Putzing with the stitching on it does take almost as much time as machine sewing the rest of the pie, so there is a certain amount of time that has to be taken to make these.  They're not very quick items to make.

I had to size the original pattern down, since the pattern dimensions make for a real life standard pie slice.  That's just too big for a cat toy.  Making them smaller increases the 'cute' factor.  They use felt for both colors, but if you use orange polar fleece, that gives it a more soft/silky look.  But either way works.

Time To Make The Mice

My mainstay, for cat toys, is the standard catnip Mouse.  I use a simple design now. In the past I had a 3 piece pattern that I used but after a few years I tried a 2 piece pattern and liked the looks of them much better.  Not only was it quicker to sew, closing the opening on the body was much more efficient and eliminated about 2 minutes per toy when I was making them in 'production line'.  I usually cut 24 mice at a time and finish them in batches. 

 

 

 I use a standard V shape (slightly rounded at the point) that is about 4" long, machine sew down the V sides and leave the top of the V open. Turn and stuff, do a gather stitch around the opening, insert the tail and pull the thread tight to close it off.  A few more stitches to lock that in place and on to the ears/eyes. 

 

Mostly I use felt for the ears, and 8mm black beads (faceted if you like flashy, plain round ones if you don't care).  A yard of cotton fabric yields about 56 mice with very little waste left over, you alternate the V shape up/down with the folded edge at the end making one mouse when you open it up.  The black beads I buy in packs of 100 for $1.89. The 'rat tail' cording is 3 yards for 79 cents.  You can get 21 tails out of three yards.

 

If you vary the sizes you can go down as small as a 1 inch mouse but need to use a 5mm eye for those.  Smaller IS cuter, but it's the same amount of time for making each, and a bit harder to stuff the tiny ones and still get catnip into them. The little pink mouse with the white ears in the center is one that has a 1" long body.  I do make small ones occasionally, it uses up scrap fabric in a nice way.

 

Color-wise, any fabric print works fine so long as the print image isn't a giant one. The smaller the print the better it will look.  Don't use stretchy materials, the mice get 'deformed' and are not as cute.

 

I've tried using gold beads for eyes, they didn't come across the same way, looked sort of weird.  Red eyes on white mice are ok if you can find decent looking DARK red beads, don't use pink, they look cheap.  When the craft store ran out of the right size beads in black I've used dark blue and was happy with the final results, so there are alternatives if you end up not being able to get the right color.

The Link I Used For Making My Fur Muffs

There's a lot of different tutorials online about how to make a fur muff, both on YouTube and just in general.  I watched a number of them, all of which seemed to have extra steps in them that just make it harder to do.

FINALLY I ran across this link here --
http://www.lovetosew.com/muff.htm

Not only does it simplify things down to three lines of machine sewing, you can easily modify the design to include a decorative center panel. There is a hand sewn closing seam on the inside.  I added in a wrist strap as well, but overall this site gives the best, fastest, easiest explanation on how to make a fake fur muff. 

I think that it only took me 15 or 20 minutes to sew one once I did the initial test run.  It was nothing at all to make up for our five in kids sizes, as well.  For the kids version I used a fancy bird print polar fleece in purples with a pink swirly fake fur on the inside. 

Catnip Birds

 

My catnip toy birds have evolved over time from tiny sparrow sized to the longer types seen here.  These are made with felt wings and tail, polar fleece bodies and 8mm black bead eyes. The faceted beads give off more sparkle than the smooth sided beads so I get those for most of my cat toys that require eyes. 

 

The size of the bodies is a standard 6 by 6 inch square, with the 'stretch' part of the fleece running from side to side, not front to back. I round the top two corners so the bird body doesn't turn into a rectangle, sew the crest on the head, add a tail, lay on the heart shaped wings, sew those down, turn, right sides together and add a triangular beak using a 1" square of black felt (folded on the diagonal and trimmed to a point), stuffed, and the rear end has the fabric folded inside to make a sloping closure down to the tail base on the underside.  Eyes are added last. 

 

The size of the birds doesn't need to be long and slim, short birds can be done as well but the wings would need to be smaller and the tails done shorter.  They don't need feet or anything fancy added on the wings.

Same Pattern, Two Different Looks

Ahh, my second most popular best seller -- catnip Hamsters.

Here we have the normal type, a cluster of  Golden Chinese Hamsters.  Made from fuzzy material, black bead eyes, felt ears, and catnip and stuffing.  They're the size of a large tangerine.

 

And THIS batch, which are made from white fuzzy fabric with a longer nap to it are the Wooly Arctic Hamsters, a batch congregating around their native prey species, the insidious Red Beet (which is also a catnip toy).  We could say that yes they had tusks like their wooly mammoth counterparts, but we sliced those off and sold the ivory on the world's ivory market to defray costs of fabric purchases.  Besides, we didn't want anyone's kitties getting injured by long tusks.  It's a win-win for everyone.

Shrimp Cat Toys

That little 'squeeze and sew' technique works great for making the segmented backs of shrimp.  I've made tiny shrimp that go on catnip sushi, all wrapped with seaweed over rice and green onion.  And made medium to large size shrimp as stand alone toys.

Blue is 'raw'. Pink is also 'raw' and the orange are cooked shrimp. I used to make them without tails on but they look so much nicer with tails. 

The body of the shrimp is a cotton print and usually I find the right colors over in the quilting section of the fabric store.  The tails are triangles of felt with notches sliced into them.  The shrimp are free form cut in arcs about six inches long, left open at the large end and turned, stuffed then closed. The back segments are then done and the tail added last. 

I've done some tightly curled ones too, but they're harder to stuff so they don't get made often. Each toy takes a good 2 tablespoons of catnip and stuffing inside.

My Steampunk Snowy Owlette

This is my small Snowy Owl, with Steampunk accessories.  I made him out of the craft fleece ($9 a yard from JoAnn Fabrics) with white felt for the wings and tail, a plastic insert down the center of the tail for stiffness, tan felt with 14 gauge wire for the feet, safety lock eyes and a small oval of black felt for the beak, and of course stuffing enough to fill the bird. 

The beak is semi-stuffed, with sculpting done as it’s sewn on, to make it arch up nicely.  The wings are just two layers, not stuffed, with a third layer of ‘feathers’ added to the top. They are split up the center and cover the area where the tail attaches.  The tail is two layers too, with black stitching sewn up the length to indicate feathers.   I used black acrylic paint to add the spots on the wings and tail – you can’t use a brush for this, the fibers won’t take the paint too well that way.  What I do is use the end of a toothpick and ‘roll’ the paint on.  That gets it placed right where I want it and I can work it into the fabric nicely.  ONLY the wings and tail get the markings.  The black around the eyes is a circle of black felt slipped on over the prong at the back of the eye.

With using 14 gauge wire I can make sure that the feet are firm and bendable, but won’t break when the wire is bent (it’s plastic coated, the kind used for electrical wiring).  I buy the wire by the 500 foot roll and it usually takes me 3 years to go through an entire roll.  It cuts nice with a standard wire cutters and I use a needle nose pliers to bend the ends into a loop so they won’t poke through the fabric.  It’s quick and easy. The feet on this one got a bit long, I shortened them up on the other birds.

The plastic insert is something called Kydex plastic, I bought a huge 4’ by 9’ sheet at a local plastics manufacturer and have been slicing pieces off it with a scissors for maybe 4 years now. It ran me $60 for the sheet and it’s great to work with. It’s stiff, can bend but won’t crease or snap in two, absolutely perfect to use for stiffness when I need it. I can round the ends so it won’t stress the fabric, and I love the stuff.  It might be available online, I haven’t looked, but a search on the brand name would probably find it. The SCA and historical living history groups use it for ‘armor’.  I don’t know what the thickness is, it does come in several thicknesses, just ask for one that can be cut with a standard scissors and the seller should know what you’re talking about.  I store mine behind the bookcase and just pull the end out when I need to cut more. It’s out of the way and always where I can get to it.

The eyes are 18mm, I used yellow for the brightness, but CR Crafts online website carries some fantastic metallic gold and bright green eyes too. I highly recommend them!  All are the safety lock style, with the white plastic backing rings that snap up the shank to keep them locked in place.  A bag of 50 is $12, so that’s just under 50 cents a pair, the same price I’d be paying at the craft store IF they could keep their safety lock eyes in stock (which they haven’t been able to reliably do for the past year).  I end up buying mine online now, and CR Crafts does ship fast, I get my orders usually within 5 days.

Snowy owls are large birds in real life but I make my birds so they can be carried on the hand.  While I’ve done brown owls, the white ones have been the best sellers so I stick with these.

The Steampunk accessories on him are made with a brown fake leather that I cut into strips, and the attachments were done with more of the same strips.  I don’t know what the fabric is called, but it does not unravel, I can cut it with a scissors and treat it like leather.  Each owl gets a small glass vial (10 cents from American Science And Surplus) and two or three ‘tabs’ for harness attachments, and I fancied some up with tiny metallic or gold glass beads. The tabs are the metal pop tops off of cat food cans.  I do have some larger pop tops from soup cans, but the cat food can types are the most common ones I have in my storage bucket so I used those for consistency. 

I made up a dozen and was very happy with how they all turned out.

Fur Muffs For All

I did up a batch of fur muffs for the Steampunk event and actually sold four or five, in spite of it being 'spring' now and not winter.  There are several 'how to' videos online that show different ways of making these, some of them include many unneeded steps.  When I located the simplest one that worked smarter (not harder) I used those instructions, so the sewing was strictly 3 straight lines on the machine and one hand sewn area to close. 

In short, they were very very simple to make. 

I used a 15x15" size for the outside, and a 12x15" interior.  The next batch I'm adding another 2" on both sizes, upping the first to 15x17" and the interior 14x15" to make them a little larger.  Right now they're sized for a small ladies hands or teen/kids, though the kids would be sort of roomy.

Fake fur on the outside, that swirly black poodle cuddle fur on the inside to help reflect heat and make it super soft, and 1" batting in between, plus a wrist strap that hides inside -- a person can make one in maybe 15 minutes from start to finish.  It's not so much the time involved it's the cost of the materials.  I suppose they were underpriced at $8 each but I wanted them to sell and will likely carry them for the Christmas event in Sussex in December of this year.

The velvet with gold swirl fabric was my fancier attempt and that worked out nicely, I was real happy with it. 

The photo shoot was done in the living room, with white batting laid on the couch.  Rudy was making a pest of himself for the entire time trying to do a snatch and grab on the other items being photographed so he was very surprised when I grabbed him and plunked him down behind the muffs to help show 'scale' for size.  He stayed long enough to get only two or three shots, then bolted.

The plain leopard print was very nice and plush but there wasn't much left at the fabric store so I only got half a yard (using coupons to get 50% off) and wish now that I'd gotten more. I really liked the look of them.  However the ones that sold were all the black velvet/swirl ones like the one right in the front of the picture here.  Go figure. 

The snow leopard fake fur is very pretty and would go with either silver or gold, I make the wrist straps out of solid black velour, which folds down inside the muff itself to be hidden.  The online patterns were able to be made WITH pockets inside for cell phones and keys, however when I looked at the interior fabric I was using, it was way too slick to hold anything inside securely, I'd have had to be using a cotton or less soft fabric for the interior and I didn't want to do that so I just went with no pockets.  I'm happy with that.

One Of A Kind Cthulhu Stuffie

I've got several images of the Cthulhu doll now. The Shrek 2 DVD shows the scale.  He's a soft sculpture out of  panne velour with glitter fabric highlights, safety lock eyes, and a lot of fabric manipulation to do the sculpture part on all the pieces.  It's a bit hard to tell but he does have five face tentacles, and he's got spikes down his back.

The weight is about 2 pounds, I cut him out with a pattern I did just that afternoon and spent most of the next several hours stuffing and detailing all the pieces.

 The lumps are body warts, some are made out of the same panne fabric, some are out of the glitter fabric.  The inside of the wings are lined with the glitter confetti fabric too.  Eyes are safety lock.

 He has back spines, also detailed.  and yes he's as soft as he looks.

The front view shows the head detailing, this fabric takes well to the 'pinch and squeeze' method of fabric manipulation.  He got a little more bug eyed than I thought, but that's ok. He has a greater visual circumference that way.