Snap Dragons?

Since the animal scarves are doing so well at the Country Cellar I was thinking about how I could get something like that worn year round, maybe as an accessory.  The Ren Faires are a great place for add on costuming for one thing, add in the Science Fiction crowd, etc. and it's a nice sized niche market.

 

The local Hancock store just moved, I was there today checking it out, and looked through their fleece and fake fur section with 'new ideas'.  I know ferret owners have very little ferret stuff available to them, but I think dragons would be far more popular.  Not as large scarves during summer, more like a neck wrap around.  Remember those old fashioned mink stoles where one mink 'bit' onto another to make the stole?  I could do up something decorative with a semi-sculpted head, a fancy tail with fringe, and the body just a long tube (either stuffed or unstuffed). 

 

Oriental dragons came to mind, the Chinese and Japanese types are shown in many different colors, and I stood there and tried estimating how long/small/short/stuffed they would need to be.  Basically the length of two mink, about as large around, and a nicely sculpted head. How to attach the head to the tail though........

     and the snaps   

The notions section is one I don't frequent much since none of the items I make require elastic, metal items, buttons or such.  However I did find nickel and goldish plated 1/2 inch size snaps, they hold on pretty well when I tested the snapping ability, and they're able to be sewn on.  I'd only need one pair per accessory.  There were 4 on the card for $2.99.

 

Dragon Drapes?  I didn't altogether like the name much.  However SNAP DRAGONS is a much better name, so I blew the budget again and got a yard of five different fleece prints as they were on sale 40% off.  Add in the fake fur at 50% off (normally $30 a yard, whoo!) and a few other things, my final bill was $84. 

 

But I think I can make this idea work as a summer/Ren Faire kind of thing.

Making Realistic Fake Cat Whiskers

Sometimes you want to put cat whiskers on something, maybe as an embellishment or just because you want whiskers on them.  The easiest thing to use is fishing line. Yes, that plain old fishing line you use on poles to catch fish. ANY store with fishing equipment will carry this - K-Mart, Target, WalMart, Ace Hardware, etc.

 

The line comes in clear, blue, gray and green. Use any color but the green, that shade just looks 'off'.  I prefer the clear. 

 

Line comes on a roll, you get 700 yards.  Technically it's called Monofilament Fishing Line. It's pretty cheap too. 

 

What's important is to get the right thickness.  I use 8 lb. test, which works best for me.  Thinner and you'll break it when you tie it off. Thicker and the knots don't stay tight, they come open.

 

To use, pull off twice the length you'll need plus another inch or two more.  Thread it onto a needle, but ONLY the last 1 inch of it, the needle eye puts a kink in so you don't want kinks where they'll be seen.  Sew a small 1/4" stitch where you want the whisker, take the needle off the end, pull the fishing line through till both ends are even, and tie two knots.  Rethread the last 1/2" back onto the needle and take a stitch again, very close by and pull the fishing line through.  Repeat twice more with newly threaded needles so you have 6 whiskers on one side.  Then do the same on the other side of the muzzle of whatever creature you're making. 

 

When done, grab all the whiskers together and pull them in front of the toy's head, and trim the lengths all at once with a scissors. This keeps all the whiskers even and you'll take off the kinked parts.

 

It works pretty good. I've used up two spools of monofilament line in the past and am on my third spool at this point.

Fairy Wings

While I do LOVE the dragonfly type fairy wings a lot of professional artists use, not only are they very fragile (cellophane or even real cicada wings), I can't replicate them for what I need to do here.  Making felt wings just turns out blah. And limp.  Using netting got the same results even if they were sparkly.  I'd LOVED to have the type posted below, but hey, it's just not feasible sometimes.

 

 

Best thing I came across was silk leaves off of the garlands you can buy at any Michael's or JoAnn store.  Look for the larger leaves like the fall oak garlands or the maple garlands.  They are easy to peel off the plastic support backing, you fold them in half (even use an iron if you want to keep the crease in them) and they can easily be sewn to the back of any fairy type doll you're making.  Here's the maple leaf garland I found on sale after Thanksgiving last year.  Some of the leaves are up to 5 inches long.  Even folded in half down the vein they have enough projections off the side to give visual interest. Don't use smooth leaves, the result just isn't the same.

 

 

To keep them in proportion, the doll would need to be 2 to 5 inches tall.  Perfect for window dangles, Christmas Tree ornaments, or whatever.  And they look great. You can add sparkle by doing a dot of Elmer's Glue/Aleens Glue and adding rhinestones on it (or glitter or even seed beads). 

One Of Those Duh! Moments

When I strip catnip to dry it usually I've just tossed the stems, to the tune of filling the ENTIRE garbage bin with them sometimes.  But when I dropped the toy order off at the Cat Doctor clinic the vet had shown me what a friend of hers had made, a 10 long tube jam packed with catnip stems.  It was stiff, smelled just as strong as a cat toy, and was a good use of stems.  That made so much sense! Here I was tossing them all because they were useless, and now I can actually do something with them.

 

The fabric has to be much stronger, so I pulled out some upholstery fabric I had and gave it a try.  The original I had seen was 10" x 4" x 2" thick. Mine are 10" x 2" by 1 1/2" and are plenty stinky enough. 

 

It was 'learn as you go', so first after sewing the tube I tried matching up the bottoms of the stems and keeping them wadded up to shove in. Not the best way.  I then folded down the top of the tube by a full inch and tried sticking individual stems down, which went too slow.  I then started folding the stems in half and got several together at once and that worked out best.  They went in smoothly and filled the entire tube nicely.  The 'small' stack of stems I had ended up making a good 10 tubes. 

 

While they do need to dry out a bit more (I don't want mold) the idea worked out pretty well.  I can market them as 'kicking sticks' or some such.  It's nice taking something I was just discarding and be able to make some cash off of it.

 

Seems so simple, but there's been no mention of anyone doing that online before, plus I've never run across anyone who made use of the discarded stems either.  

Fox Scarves Are To Die For!

I waited till almost the last minute to do them for the Country Cellar this week. Literally the night before, at 9pm.  I did get 3 fox and 2 wolf scarfs done and the head for one more fox.  It was a learn as you go type of thing for the face, but they didn't need stuffing in the head after all. 

 

The tail tip was easy to do, and came out great.  The body is just a tube with sewing up both edges to keep it laying flat (it is VERY warm to wear!).  The heads were done as a separate piece.  I cut a basic outline out first with 2 layers of the body color. Cut white out for the bottom 3/4ths of the face, marked where the sewing lines should be with a marker and sewed up inside the marked lines. Trimmed that off all around the white.  Then did ears, quick sewed them in place at the top. Then cut the overlay face piece that was the same color as the body - only I'd run out of enough red fleece to do that with so I went with red felt which actually kept the lines cleaner. 

 

The eyes were a circle of black felt tucked halfway under the brow, a circle of yellow felt for the eye color, and a smaller circle of black felt for the pupil. Half of each was tucked under the head piece so they looked like they were frowning or intensely staring.  Sew over it and around, hiding the part where the ears were attached. Trim, sew a white seed bead to each pupil for 'highlight' and then machine sew across the top of the head to attach it to the bottom of the scarf end.  Hand stitch on the back side to finish attaching the loose scarf end piece, and DONE! 

 

It took, start to finish, about 20 minutes per scarf.  I used bright leaf green felt for the wolf eyes, and changed all the red body color to gray.  The body was a flat piece cut 11" across, for the full length up the fold and back, so you can get 3 bodies out of just under a yard of fabric. Fold the length in half the short way, sew up, attach the white tail tip piece, turn, and counter sew along both edges to lay it flat. The white tail tip meant changing out the thread color to white to finish that part, while the white was in I did the inner ears (ears were black with white insides) and the face part.

 

The standard length was about 60" when completed.  I did have to tack the ear tips down to the scarf to keep them from going forward. 

 

But I'm REAL pleased with how they turned out!  This is one I'd like to sell the pattern on.  Any intermediate sewer could do it. Might be a little too complex for a total beginner.  With getting the fabric on sale, I think each cost me maybe $2 in materials. No stuffing is needed.

Fox Scarves

And wolf scarves too, and fringed scarves. Those are the newest things I'm trying out for selling at the Country Cellar this year.  I sort of got the idea after seeing some online.  Like this picture.
  
It's not red, but you get the idea.  Mine will be longer, the wrap around kind, in red polar fleece with a white tail tip and a semi-stuffed head. Simple things. 

 

I've already gotten the polar fleece from JoAnn Fabrics, they had a 50% off sale and all my fleece came from the remnant bins which were another 50% off.  The standard neck scarf that you wrap around usually runs 5 feet long, and 9" across.

 

A lot of the online selections that come up when you google 'fox scarf' and click on 'images' are pretty lame looking. Most have dangling feet which I wasn't going to add.  I think I can come up with something nice and still keep it to the $5 range.  I considered raccoons (not enough interest) and a few other animals, wanted to do a snow leopard but JoAnn's didn't have the right print for that, so I'll stick to red fox and gray wolf.

 

Here's another variant.  The wolf scarf (someone on Etsy was making these). I'd go for a more realistic face.  And probably a nicer tail without the indent. And no dangling legs either. Maybe not so stuffed on the face too.

As for the fringed scarf, that'll take 3 or 4 layers, sewn down the middle and sliced in at both sides in 1/2" increments to be fluffy enough.  Double the fleece, but a totally different look as a scarf.