Plush Lobster Monster

My latest sewing project is this stuffed lobster monster I made. It's hand-stitched from a home-made pattern.

While I don't want to ever hand stitch anything with ten limbs ever again, I did save the pattern I used. If I ever do make another one, I will make a few tweaks to it, such as making the head larger, changing the side legs so they can actually be stuffed, and using fleece instead of an old t-shirt.

Of, course, I have a few other creatures in my sketch books I'd like to make into stuffed creatures before I do another one of these...

Out of town this week. (I hesitate to use the word "vacation", since I have been spending it in a house with two small children!)

So, my next Overguilds update will have to wait until I get home, but i did manage to find time to make this red and white striped sock monkey for my three-year-old nephew. I'm sure he will hug it and squeeze and love it forever... then pull it's arms off.

Well, I hope he waits for a few days to pull it's arms off! And I made extra sure to reinforce the stitching on the arms and tail, so here's to hoping...

Yet Another Sock Monkey

It's green. So very, very green.

 Alright, I'm a sucker for sock monkeys, this is the third one I've made. They're so easy to put together on as a spur of the moment project that it's almost hard not to amass a collection of them. It doesn't hurt that the drug store around the corner from my house has some brightly colored knee socks on sale for cheap.

This one is a bit of an experiment, as I knew that I wouldn't have enough polyfill laying around, I decided to use plastic grocery bags to stuff it instead. I find that it works reasonably well with a few caveats. First, it doesn't have as much spring to it as polyfill, so it doesn't bounce back as much when you squeeze it. Second, the bags are visible through the socks I used, which you can see in the photo below of it's arm seam. And the finished monkey weighs noticeably more than the ones I stuffed with polyfill. Finally it took a lot more bags to stuff than I expected. I ended up using all but a handful of the plastic bags I had on hand. All said, plastic bags do work for filling stuffed animals, but I'm gonna keep using polyfill.

I also tried a different approach to stitching the arms and tail on. In my previous sock monkeys, I stitched a flap to the body, ending up with a seam that looks a bit like a hinge. With this one I figured out I could sew the end of the limb to the body then hide the seam by stitching the circumference of the limb to the body. The end result looks much prettier.

Previous Attempt.
Notice the ugly seam attaching the arm.

This seam looks much cleaner.

Sock Monkey

Sock Monkey Revisited

Sock Monkey Revisited

The cat didn't like this but she was too busy watching TV to move.

I enjoyed making the last sock monkey, so I decided to give it another try. This time I embroidered the eyes and mouth with black thread and I was happy with how that turned out.

The finished stuffed toad and Nikita (not stuffed).

After being inspired by a stuffed frog I saw on Pinterest, I  made this toad.

First I drew a frog shaped template and traced that onto scraps of fabric left from my cat-bat project. I cut out two frog shaped pieces out, sewed them together and filled with rice. Add some buttons for eyes and stitch on some warts from left over fleece and it's all done.

 And as you can see,  it's been given the cat seal of approval!

Sock Monkey

More homemade plush toy fun! This time I made a sock monkey from a pair of pair of neon leopard print socks and a pair of purple hair clips. It was a fun little project.

More Weird Stuffed Animals

After making my catbat, I decided to try my hand at making more weird stuffed animals. So after finding a fleece remnant for less than $5 at the fabric store, I made this handsome monster:

Ollie the Four-Eyed Monster. And Myself.

Now I'll have to figure out what to make with the other 3/4 yard of that fleece!

The Great Stuffed Animal Hacking Adventure.

I like stuffed animals and I would like to try my hand at making my own some day, but you gotta start somewhere, right?  That's why I decided to start out by putting my own touches to an existing stuffed animal.

I started with this cute little victim I picked up at the store:

Adorable, right? I believe he's supposed to be a cat, that's why I'm gonna stitch some bat wings on to him. I am using the shell of a worn out coat that I couldn't bear to see thrown away, and I plan on using the liner to make some other stuffed animal. Maybe a chupacabra or something.

Not having a sewing machine, I hand-stitched them on. This ended up taking most of the afternoon, much longer than I had expected.

The finished product, and a big improvement if you ask me.