The ONLY Time I Used Doll Joints For Arms/Legs

 

 

You would not believe how hard it is to use large doll joints on a large teddy bear.  The arms and legs have to be stuffed really firm or the whole thing flops really badly on the body.  I did this bear up with one for the neck and one on each of the arms and legs. It was one of the only commercial patterns I'd bought. I make all my own patterns usually.

 

Well, he did sell, I only made one since it took almost a full yard of fake fur, 7 pounds of stuffing and I had to price it fairly high (fake fur that long was $20 a yard at the time, it's almost double that now). 

 

Everything else I make now has fixed legs on, no articulation.  Well, maybe wired wings on some of the dragons, but really not anything else.  



Making Mini-Hawks and Falcons For The Bristol Ren Faire

Here's the little Red Tail Hawk, I've got Peregrine Falcons too, in about the same size.  They've been made with velour in the past, but since it's impossible to get that anymore and my stash in the fabric room is depleted, I've switched over to polar fleece for the bodies and felt layers for the wings and tail. 

 

The feet are wired, so they can be perched on the hand. And I detail the wings with stylized feathers. The tail gets black 'feather' stitching and a stiffener of kydex plastic down the center so that it sticks out properly. I've talked about kydex in a previous post. It can be cut with a scissors, doesn't bend with age or heat, and is really great for things like this.  The eyes on the birds are 10mm black wood or plastic (smooth, not faceted) beads sewn over a circle of yellow felt.  They even get black bead nostrils.

 

The chest markings are painted on by hand with acrylic paint.  The easiest way to do the painting is to use the end of a toothpick rather than a brush. You can get the paint down into the fibers with a LOT more control that way. 

 

Today I'm aiming at getting 16 hawks and 16 peregrines done but I'm probably overestimating my ability to turn out that many.  Once they're finished, though, I get to make at least a dozen small crows as well.

Dead Parakeets! Or.... Maybe Only Sleeping?

 

After making catnip mice, my next cat toy design was not a fish, it was a hamster (people wanted small 'mice' without tails that their cats would chew off) then the third design was this - catnip Parakeets.  Only I used beads for eyes.  I liked them, they could come in green or blue, with white or yellow faces. 

 

Thing is, the very first event I took them to - a cat show - I had two ladies get very upset about me letting cats have what looked to be 'live birds'.  I'm not kidding.  They were really upset.

 

So the next batch I made I put cartoon style X's for eyes, to prove that they were already dead and could no longer suffer when played with by cats.  I used black embroidery floss, but ran out towards the end and didn't have enough to do the complete X's so I only made a slash on each side, indicating that these particular ones were 'only sleeping'.

 

I do have to thank those two ladies.  My sales on these things tripled!  I no longer make 'live' birds as cat toys, they're all either only sleeping or are truly dead.  People like them that way.  Think of it as niche marketing after customer feedback.

 

(He's not floating in a cylinder of water, that's an acrylic tube bracing the toy up so that you can see it better).

Simple As A Catnip Carrot

I've been doing these for forever, they're so simple to make, and they can be done in orange or other colors.  The carrots are 6 inches long on the orange part, and I buy the green lace (hunter green) by the yard. Not the 3" wide lace, I'm talking about the bolt size lace.  The green part is cut in rectangles, about the size of a dollar bill. I accordion pleat the bottom of the lace together by hand - basically folding it zig zag style - then tuck it into the top of the carrot and pull the thread closed, stitching back and forth several times to keep everything in place.

 

Yes, the lace does get shredded by the cats, but it looks so much nicer than if I'd have used green felt strips or green 'leaves' out of felt.

You Can Sell Any Good Idea

The SCA event Pennsic War was always a good place to try new sewing projects out at.  I tried to have at least 10 new types of items each year. By year # 12 I was running out of good ideas and really racking my brains for what to bring that people hadn't seen before.

 

One of the odder items was a Medieval First Aid Kit.  I took an 8x9" piece of fabric, folded it in half and sewed all around the edges, folded that in half and sewed a 1/4" seam down the 'spine' so it would open like a book.  Inside I used other fabric to make pockets, thin ones and some wider ones. 

 

Into the pockets I put one Q-Tip, one folded Kleenex and two flat leeches (teardrop shaped out of chocolate brown velour and with glued on googly eyes).  The tag I put with it identified it as a Medieval First Aid Kit complete with swab, a pathetic attempt at a bandage and a brace of unfed leeches.  The price was $5.  I had 20 sets. They were gone before even half the event was over! 

 

I know it was a dumb idea, but you know - people love humor. 

Ferrets

For a while I was doing bean bag ferrets, using unpopped popcorn as the body filler so they could bend and be posed somewhat.  I didn't like how it could attract bugs though.  The plastic pellets for dolls could have been used, however a small bag was $4 and it would need three bags to fill the body which made the cost shoot sky high. 

 

I stuffed the front feet and the head/neck area, but the rest was an empty section for the bean bag part.  I needed to keep the back legs open like that so pellets/popcorn would weigh down the but, for posing.

 

The pattern was actually pretty easy, and the three colors of fake fur were readily available up to about 4 years ago. Since then the tan has been dropped by most stores and the quality of the white 'cuddle fur' has gone significantly downhill, you can see through it to the backing. 

 

Eyes were 10 or 12mm black wood beads.  The ears were  white velour or polar fleece, and the nose was black velour.  They were very popular, being life sized and all, but heavy to send by mail.  They moved very well at the science fiction conventions and the two ferret shows I attended (Chicago has a large ferret show every year). 

 

If these were to be made as microwaveable neck warmers, I'd leave the bead eyes off them. Last thing a person needs is to be 'branded' by a red hot set of beads on the neck.  LOL

Fried Eggs

Easy to make, simple, quick.  However this one is a bad example, the picture was taken a number of years ago and I don't have a current one.  Yuck, I used black stitching around the edge.... looks awful.

 

These started out as computer monitor cleaners - no lie!  I made the first ones with white fake fur and an orange yolk. You would hold onto the yolk and swipe the monitor down for dust. It worked great but people came back and said that they frisbeed really nice across the room for the cat to play with.

 

So, get rid of the white fake fur and replace it with white velour or polar fleece, fill the yolk with catnip and stuffing, and a new cat toy was born.

 

The egg white is a circle 5 inches across, you sew them right sides together, cut a small hole in ONE layer (the yolk will go over it to hide it) and turn it right side out.  Put it back on the sewing machine and do a stitch around the edge. This allows the fabric to lay flat and it doesn't need to be stuffed. Don't use black thread for this part though.

 

The yolk is a 3 1/2 inch circle of yellow or orange, you hand stitch a 'gather' stitch around the edge and pull it partially closed, stuff the ball, and pull the thread tighter.  Set over the hole in the egg white and tack it down by hand, but make sure that the stitches don't go through to the back side, you don't want them showing on the bottom of the egg.  It's not tricky, just use a sharp needle and thread and catch only the top layer.

I Get Some Odd Requests Sometimes -- Like Ballerina Props

 

I made two swans for science fiction fandom, selling them on my dealers table (though at SF conventions it's called a 'hucksters table').  This one is 3 feet long from beak to tail, has floppy feet and a neck that can bend a bit, though it's too heavy to be wired for posing.  It was fun, I had a blast making it.

 

Thing is, I had a lady contact me by email looking to see if I made them 'life sized'. Do you have any idea how BIG a life sized one is?  And she wanted wings extended on it.  I asked her what it was going to be used for (studio prop?  Display piece? Hanging overhead?) and she said that she was part of a lady's barber shop quartette and they do competitions every year. Last year they were dressed as nuns and singing about loosing weight - at the height of the song one would inflate a life preserver under their habit.  They'd done office secretaries, and several other things, but this year they wanted to be dressed as ballerinas and do Swan Lake, with swans draped around them.

 

After talking to her on the phone (the emails got too long) we determined that the swans could drape down one hip, with the heads resting on their shoulder (which gave me a better idea of the size needed), though one had to have an open mouth to hold their pitch pipe in so the lady could turn her head and blow it.  I came up with a D ring attachment, so they could tie them on around their tutu's with more of the white netting their outfits were going to be made of (she said white corsets, tutu netting, stockings, and such).  AND I wanted to keep the weight down too since they would have a 15 minute performance, but the competitions would require a series of 5 performances.  So I went with foam rubber to fill the bodies with instead of stuffing.  And they wanted the legs to dangle and swing which was easy to do.

 

I got all four done and sent off, and she sent me a GREAT photo of them all in a line dressed as ballerinas with the severe makeup and the hair drawn back, it looked hysterical.  She said that they were a real hit, though they only got second place in their category (it's a fierce competition apparently).   Good for them!  They did other performances that year with the swans, then retired them. 

Finger Falcons - But No Hoods For Them

Here we have the Peregrine Falcon as 6 inch long ‘finger falcons’, I only made up a few, preferring to do the larger birds instead.  At the time I was using grey velour and white velour, with yellow velour for the feet.  However with velour virtually disappearing from the fabric stores about 8 years ago, at this point I’d probably use that stretch type white and gray panne velour for the body, though it’s more like a knit when you look at the back of the fabric.  And grey felt for the wings and tail, black felt for the beak and yellow felt for the wired feet.

The feet are made with a 14 gauge wire about 9” long that’s been looped at each end, inserted in the yellow ‘sleeve’ and folded twice, to make up the feet.  They’re sewn on once the body is stuffed, usually after the wings and tail have been added.  8mm black bead eyes are then sewn on, the curved beak is sewn by hand to the head (with a tiny bit of stuffing in it) and grey acrylic paint is applied for the under eye markings and the chest markings.  This is applied with the end of a toothpick so it can get into the fabric cleanly. Brushes are useless when working with small areas like this.

Since the birds don’t have a ‘neck’, making a little hood out of felt and feathers would not work out well, you couldn’t get the hood to stay on properly.  After trying it for a few birds, and having all the hoods get lost very quickly, they were just sold ‘as is’.  They sold without leather jesses or little bells on the back of the foot area.  They were just the falcons themselves

Blast From The Past -- Snails

 

Wow, I almost forgot about this one!  I used to make snails for someone - mostly out of different colored velour fabrics.  The snail was a sort of tube, and I'd attach the separate shell once I squeezed and sewed the 'curl' into the shell by hand.  It was too hard to machine sew that and then stuff it, so the groove was hand sewn in.

 

They got these little black bead eyes, and I took the satin rat tail cord that I use for mouse tails and knotted a 5" piece at both ends, and attached the center to the head for antennae.  The catnip was in the body part. 

 

Doing the shells took too long by hand, which is why I discontinued those.

SMUT! Er.......

Penis Flytraps, um…. Well….Venus Flytraps?

Take a cat food can, wash it out, set it aside.  Make a small orange sized ball out of green fabric, add a mottled cotton printed tube of fabric with a red or pink ball top that you sort of ‘detail’ with pink thread and some textured yarn.  Stuff and sew that firmly to the top of the ball. Add silk plant leaves around the base using small hidden stitches, arranging the leaves so they cover most of the plain green ball’s surface – get creative with multiple style leaves.  Put a swirl of hot glue in the bottom of the cat food can and squish the ball down into the can.  Let it ‘set’.  Add a printed paper around the side of the can taped discretely, with whatever printing you want on it.

                 

I made them with and without the yarn, the ones with the yarn have ‘gone to seed’ so to speak.  They were a bad joke based on a small illustration I’d seen online.  I did up five at first.  They sold fast.  I made more. Those sold. I sat down and made 125 and THOSE lasted me five years, so now I am back down to only one or two here.  They all went for $7.  Where did I get 125 cat food cans?  I went on our local Freecycle list and asked for them.  A lady dropped off two big grocery bags full and I spent an hour washing them all out nicely, though I did have about 30 cans of my own from our cats. 

 

Word to the wise though – Outside of a few gay couples, men won’t buy these. 

Women like them for bridal showers, divorce parties, etc.  The most creative thing I heard from a customer was the lady who got four of them and was going to take them in to the STD clinic she works at for decoration on their main desk.  I love great ladies with wonderful senses of humor.  She was all smiles as she picked out the ones that had ‘gone to seed’.

These WILL embarrass teenagers of both genders.  I saw one mom looking at them with her 6 year old son in tow.  The kid pointed and asked ‘what are those!’   She was starting to pull a face as she turned to me and I just told the kid that they were ‘Christmas Cactuses’.  The mom’s face went from disapproving to a big grin. The kid lost interest (no kid wants a plain old plant) and the problem was solved!  It pays to think on your feet.

Finger Puppet Furry Mice

These I sold for $1 each.  Very simple, very quick, minimal sewing.  You take a V of fake fur, fold it in half and machine sew it down the one side but leave the wide end open.  Knot a tail, sew the end of the tail down on the inside by hand or with the machine.  Push a wad of stuffing up into the face (just enough to go where the eyes are attached) and using a scissors you trim off the last ½” of fur tight to the head without cutting into the backing of the fabric. Sew the bead eyes on, then the felt ears, and you’re done.  Add whiskers out of fishing line if you want.

Some of them I added a thin V shaped wedge of white for the belly, so technically there’s two lines of sewing on those. But make sure the base of the mouse isn’t too wide for the finger, you need it to be small enough to not make it gap funny.  Well, unless you’re looking to make them as soda bottle or wine bottle toppers, that is.  Wider fits better then.

If I Didn't Have Coupons I'd Have A Lot Less Fabric Here

Thank God for coupons!  It's not enough to just buy when the fabric is on sale, with what I get I'd be broke if I didn't use the coupons too.  Right now  I get both the Hancock and JoAnn Fabric Store ones. The Michael's coupons are in the Sunday paper but they're not good for fabric, just paint and crafting supplies.  Most of my beads and eyes come from sites on the internet now that Marascos Kraft King hasn't been carrying what I need.

Have the coupons made me buy more than I would normally have?  Sadly, yes.

Do I regret it?  Um............ no comment.  What I CAN say is that any bags of fabric are now out of the trunk of the car and into one of the two craft rooms. 

I made a quick trip today over to the north side store to get some printed quilting fabric for making more mice and did get out of there for under $15.  I saved 45% this trip.  It's really rare when I pay full price.  And if I have extra coupons that have to be used that day I'll hand them out to the other shoppers to use.  Waste not, want not.

Hobby Horses In Miniature

One thing that went really well at Pennsic War were the little Hobby Horses at $2 each.  I’d get a bunch of ¼ inch wood dowels (or a bit thicker, they were the orange dot ones) at 99 cents each, cut them in half, paint them with two coats of black acrylic, dip the top 1 ½ inches in Elmer’s Glue and then wrap fiberfill around the glued area, holding that on with a rubber band. After drying overnight the wad could not be pulled off the stick.  The rubber band could be left on, usually I had more than enough to not even worry about re-use. You could also use thread or string tied around the end to keep the fiberfill in place too but rubber bands were cheaper and took far less time to put on.

 

Next I’d cut out the horse heads from fancy printed cotton fabric, machine sew them, turn, stuff the muzzle, push the wadded stick up the opening, stuff around it and down the neck of the horse, do a gather stitch around the base and as it was drawn tight I’d insert the ribbon end in and stitch it closed.  The ribbons were at least 6 strands of ¼” wide ribbon cut into 12” lengths and knotted at the top.  I bought those in bulk on rolls.  The horse’s eyes were 8mm black beads, the ears were felt ovals.

The mane on the ones in the picture are done from a fuzzy pillow trim I got on sale and are sewn in by hand, but most of the ones I made had either felt manes (three layers of felt and then sliced with a scissors once they were sewn in) or 5” lengths of feather boa that were attached to the head and back of the neck with a thick line of Elmer’s Glue.  Press the boa down nicely, then let dry. They stayed attached very well.  Of the three, the feather boa manes were the nicest.

Bats!

Bats are cool, lots of people like them I do at least five versions – this was my belt bat, they come in different colors and have a jump ring attached to their butts for using as a keychain or for hanging, or even worn as a ‘ring’ with the bat hanging below your palm.  Most were made in black or gray but the white one here shows the detail of how the wings are sewn.  It’s just two pieces of fabric, countersewn and stuffed.  The ears are felt, the eyes are black beads, and the rings came 6 to a pack for 59 cents at the craft store.  I sewed a metal jump ring to the butt so the bat can be hung up on things, or even used on a keychain.

                                   

Basically the pattern is a silhouette. You sew both sides together leaving the opening at the bat’s butt, turn, sew from wing tip up around the bend in the wing and down the side of the body.  Do the same on the other side.  Then fold the wing and sew the ‘bone’ section in the center.  Stuff the body, close the opening on the butt, attaching the ring there.  Squeeze the head where the eyes go and sew them in, attach the ears, viola!

                                     

You can go one step further and leave the eyes off, sew down a band where the eyes are and attach a tiny jewel in the center and two or three feathers under it facing back. These are HUNTING BATS with their hoods on.  Since the hoods can’t be taken off they just stay like that (you only hunt at night anyway).  I carried those for a while.  The plain bats sold faster though.  This green bat is the other style I was trying, with separate wings added to a body. The white one and the black one are just two pieces of fabric sewn silhouette style, and are made in half the time and use half the stuffing.  The green bat type is one that will sit up on it's own when put down on something.

 

 

Here's one of the 'Hunting Bats' with just the jump ring sewn on the butt, I used a 1 1/2 inch metal key ring on them because they were made to hang.  This one doesn't have the 'hood' on it.

Specialty Labels - When You Want That "Something Extra"

I started using labels in the past on some of the larger toys.  After checking around the internet I found a place in Tennessee that does up both printed and woven ones at a decent cost.  The company is called NameMaker, their address is namemaker.com.

 

I chose their type #104, it's a roll of 100 tags printed in black on a white cotton/poly fabric tape that can be sewn in (they have iron on too). The good thing about this one is that you get up to four lines, and 24 characters per line so you can put a LOT on that.  There's no reason to just stick with your name (personal or business) and address. 

 

Each printed section is about 1 1/4" long, so you can fold them in half and sew them into a seam.  They cut apart with a scissors and they don't shred on the ends at all.   The woven ones are nicer but more expensive of course.

 

Here's the page with the style I've used.

http://www.namemaker.com/productcart/pc/Sew-On-Clothing-Label-Style-104-322p1064.htm

 

It takes about 9 days to get them in the mail.  They do have extra symbols such as the copyright one or the internet @ symbol, however they do charge more for those, I believe it's $5 per symbol you add to your request.

 

They changed prices a bit since I last ordered from them but I was happy with the previous orders I've gotten from them. I believe I've ordered five times now. 

The Frog Prince - This Was "Hot" For A Few Years

I should probably bring them back.  It took forever to do their flippers though, each frog needed 4 of them, and each flipper had lines of sewing on it (they were two layers of felt).  I found I was doing three dozen pairs of legs at a time, then the frog bodies in green and white, then the tunic shirt which was done separately and dressed on the frog BEFORE the hand flippers were sewn on.  I’d detailed the collar with white lace and they each got two gold bead buttons on the front.  I stuck with red, pink, purple or deep blue for the tunic shirt.

Eyes were 6 mm black beads, the flippers were all added by hand, and it was a lot more laborious than most of my other things, especially for something this small.  Nose to leg’s toe tip was 8 inches. I sold them for $5 each. 

And yes, people did ‘kiss’ them.  I’d make them in batches of 20 at a time. Just production line – doing all the flippers, all the legs, all the shirts, etc.  The legs were hand applied.  The shirts didn’t come off once you put the flippers on. 

Aww.... Rats!

Grey rats are perfect Medieval companions.  These were free-form cut out of grey micro-suede, have thread sculpted rat tails, grey felt ears, 8mm black bead eyes (faceted for that extra flash) and fishing line whiskers.  4 whiskers per side of the muzzle.  The feet are felt and hand sewn on after the bodies are stuffed.  I sold them for $5 each. The ones in the picture are about ten inches from nose to tail tip.

                                 

One year I had maybe 50 or 60 of them for sale and the booth next to us started a ‘Rat Olympics’ with us, which included a 10 foot rat toss into a bucket, a relay race up and down the aisle in front of the tents, and – what really drew the customers – a Bodice Dive.  She was well endowed, loosened her bodice and the guys each got three rats to ‘toss’ into the cleavage area. Nobody even got close, LOL!  We did it at the early days of the event when the grass there was lush and green.  After day 5 most of our aisle was crushed grass and dirt, too filthy to try something like this.

BAST Cat -- Straight From Egypt

Back when Hancock Fabrics had a plethora of old Egyptian print fabrics, I drooled over them and finally came up with a few items that were fun and appropriately neat to make.  There were four different colored prints with hieroglyphics, one showing fancy wall paintings of the pharaoh and the queens, and then this lotus print.  The prints were limited runs, and all were discontinued after two years so I did my best to load up on them when I could.

 

What I did was make mummified mice cat toys, and mummified kitties.  I did the cat head with the safety lock eyes, fishing line whiskers, little ears, and a sort of sculpted face with a black felt nose.  I used Fimo clay and made ‘buttons’ of winged scarabs, pushing two holes per side so I could sew them on, and got some gold fancy braid to put around the top. 

 

 

 

They were priced at $8 each, there were maybe a batch of 30 of them, in kitten size and adult size.  The longer ones people were picking up and acted like they were baseball bats, taking a half swing and holding a bat in their other hand as a pretend ‘ball’.   Meh.  Whatever sells them…..  I think I carried them for two years.  The long ones always sold first, I had some of the kittens around for an extra two years but eventually all of them sold too.  Most were the ruddy fake fur, though I had a few in lighter tan and some in black with green eyes.

 

Vampire Parakeets – The Feathered Nosferatu

Here we have pure white parakeets with pink feet and red eyes, oh the horror!  They perch VERY nicely upside down.  With the little capes and folded collar, they’re pretty striking to see. They can be carried on the finger right side up, or upside down.  I gave them pale bills since they are creatures of the night.  The cape gets two gold beads and can be pulled off the bird if need be, and the collar can be flipped up though it looks better angled down like this. 

 

 

Little Birdies

Once I figured out how to make perching feet with felt and 14 gauge wire, I did up a number of different types of little birds. The most popular three were canaries, cardinals and parakeets.  I’d do the birds out of velour and attach the beaks separately by hand, using black beads for eyes.  The wings got sewn details to them to make those a bit more elaborate, and the mask and crest on the cardinal were hand applied.  Ditto for the white face and beak on the parakeet.

 

These are 7 inches from front to tail.  Many places sell the wire by the foot, at around 50 cents per foot.  You need 9 inches per bird.  Eventually I was buying so much I just broke down and got a whole 500 foot roll for (at that time) $25. It’s gone up a lot, but if you find a roll discounted because it was opened you can get one for around $36 that way. 

Each roll usually took me about 2 years to use up, I would wire dragon wings, bird feet, tails, and a few other things, often braiding two or more strands together on the larger items to add stiffness.  The wire is plastic coated so it won’t rust, unlike that thin green painted floral wire you can get in cut strands. I tried using those but was very unsatisfied with the results after the ends got damp and discolored through the fabric.

I Loved This One Enough To Keep It

Every so often a cotton print will come out that features animal heads. There was one years ago that had tigers and leopards on it. I cut out the heads separately and made fabric bodies and tails, and the back of the head was more of that body fabric.  I added gold bead embellishments and some fishing line whiskers, and they turned out pretty cool looking.  They didn’t sell very fast, even at $8 – most were over 10 inches tall.  Oh well, some things are ‘one shots’ and once they sell out they are gone for good.  I kept the one I liked the most, so I suppose that’s all that counts.