Dolls

A long time ago, I made a little doll version of myself out of felt, and another of my sister. My sister has the one of her, and she loves it very much. My Emily doll has a mean face on, because I was feeling mean when I made her. You can refer back to the blog from March 2, 2010 if you're really interested in her inception, and then let's all marvel at how long I've stuck with this blog despite the ups and downs and long periods of neglect. 

Speaking of long commitments that are both gratifying and fulfilling, I decided to make a little doll of my love, to join join little Emily doll. We'll call him Tobi. For a while I put off making a Tobi doll, because I thought Real Tobi would find it unsettling and voodoo-esque, but then I decided I didn't mind. 

First I did a little Tobi doodle, to make sure I had a good feel for his facial features. Then I cut out the pieces of his arms, legs, body and face. I worked on the face first.

He kind of has these Doug Funnie features, which I think I did a pretty good job bringing to life on the felt.

I only had a brown piece for the back of his head, but he has black hair, so I needlefelted a layer of black over the brown.

Next I sewed the two parts of the body together, as well as the arms and legs.

As you can see, I pretty much took strips of felt and folded them in half, sewed, and then turned right-side-out. I gave him a baby blue T-shirt, some felty pants (American Apparel Slim Slacks, duh), and little black boots.

    Another golden rule of softies is that pose-ability is awesome, so I put pipe cleaners in his appendages, just as I'd done with Emily doll.

The trick with this type of doll is to put the two body/face pieces together right-sides-in, and then put all the appendages inside with just a bit of end sticking out. You leave a hole, of course, to pull it all through. I left the hole in the crotch.

 Hahah! 

Ta da! This is Tobi doll after much pulling and adjusting. Second to last step was stuffing him full of batting. Last step is crazy stitching his crotch closed, and post-last step is bending him into a come hither pose.

I think his head is a little wonky, but I love him all the same. I like the doll OK too. HEY YO!

This is a photo of Tobi doll and Emily doll standing next to a photo of Real Tobi and Real Emily standing by a strangler fig in Costa Rica, October 2009. The only thing is that Emily doll's face is all wrong now that she has Tobi doll by her side.

Not a problem. Presto--love is all you need, people!

Sweet Zoo: A Scribble Softie

There’s this awesome song my dad played a lot for my sister and me when we were growing up. Well, there are a lot of awesome songs he’d play actually. Like the soundtracks to Willow and Fiddler on the Roof, and then songs like “Graceland” or “That’s Just the Way It Is.” There was also a surprising amount of Enya.

But the song that was stuck in my head as I haphazardly sewed and felted and stitched last night’s project was not the masterpiece “Orinoco Flow.” No, it’s a song I just looked up and found is called “Sweet Zoo” by Barbara Streisand, which tells the tale of a childlike dream of becoming various animals. At one point in the song, she turns into an “alligator / Crocodile? / No, alligator! / With a great big mouth / and four very funny little legs / which are no good for dancing.”

This is what I think of as a “scribble softie.” It’s like a sketch on a drawing pad, but 3D. It’s not perfect, just like a doodle, but maybe one day I’ll expand upon this sketch and make something a little more perfect. That’s not to say I don’t love my little mistake-ridden gator croc, because I most certainly do, just like all my misfit softies.  

Here is a tutorial, though I don’t know how much I can recommend this project to the average crafter. I messed up a lot and had to deal with a lot of little issues creatively, but I created the issues to begin with by not properly thinking it through. My brain doesn’t always work.   

I only had one piece of the green I liked, so I couldn’t put the tail on both pieces. No worries, I thought. I’ll just cut out a huge tail piece on one side that I can fold around later. 

                                      

Then I needlefelted some eyes, nostrils and some dots down his spine. One way to give a little more life to big black eyes is to embroider a little white dot in each eye. I did that, and then I gave him two little finger lines on each foot. 

Then I did the tail thing. I just folded it over right-side-in, and sewed. 

I wanted it to have a mouth that would open, so I cut off the green part of the lower jaw on the bottom piece, and sewed on a red piece, with plans to stitch on another green piece underneath it later. I should have done it before putting the top and bottom body pieces together, but I didn't. 

The "little legs" lyric is particularly apropos in this project, because when I randomly decided to create a little softie alligator crocodile (much like Barbara, I’m just not sure), I disregarded one of the golden rules of softie-making, which is that all appendages need to be nice and fat, because otherwise it’s difficult to turn it right-side-out after the sewing process. I broke one of his little feet when I got frustrated while using a tweezers and paintbrush to push them right-side-out. I used a needle and green thread and "crazy stitched" it up. Crazy stitch is exactly what it sounds like. 

Boom! An almost complete alligator. Right now he doesn't have a lower jaw, much like the narrator in the book Invisible Monsters, which, incidentally, I just finished reading for a book club. The cool points just keep on a-comin'! 

As you may recall, I had sewed it together before adding the lower jaw. Again, I utilized the crazy stitch to sew the lower jaw piece on and I just tried to not sew through the top of his head. When I was younger I wanted to be a brain surgeon for a brief period. It's probably good that I went with a different career path. 

I love pose-ability in softies, so as I was stuffing, I added two pipe cleaner "axles" to each pair of legs, front and back. Maybe he'll dance after all! 

When stuffing a softie, stuff until you think it's done, then stuff more before closing it up. So, remember that hole between the tail and the lower body? I stuffed through there and then closed it up with--you guessed it--the crazy stitch. 

Alligator? Crocodile? No, alligator! 

Maybe it's Softie Emily's new pet? I don't know. She doesn't seem very pleased...

Or is he this Tiger Shark's new friend? Spending carefree days out in the Smith-Corona Sea.  

BEST FRIENDS FOREVERRRR!!! 

This picture really cracks me up!

FIN! (Get it?!) 

My Felty Roots

You may have noticed that the last few posts have had little to nothing to do with felt, despite the title of this blog and the associated unincorporated business entity: Felt Up Goods. I’m loving all the sewing I’ve been doing. Making clothes is a revelation, and following my first pattern was a great challenge. 

Last night during a friendly craft night, I decided to get back to my roots with some needlefelting. Needlefelting involves using a special needle tool to turn raw wool into either designs that are fused onto regular felt, or it can be needled into a 3D creation all on its own. I mostly use needlefelting to add details to a softie, like eyes on a little owl. I don’t often make completely needlefelted creations, so I thought I’d give it a shot, because I haven’t tried in a really long time.

For this type of needlefelting, you need raw wool, a needlefelting tool and this brush thing to on which to do the actual work of needlefelting. When you’re needlefelting, what you’re doing is stabbing. Stab, stab, stab! You stab at the wool until its fibers break apart and fuse together to make a strong formation that you further shape with the needle. It can be very relaxing to do all that tiny stabbing (until you stab your finger, because the needles on a needlefelting tool have tiny barbs on them). You have to constantly turn and move the creation off the brush, lest you end up felting it into the bristles.    

First I tried to make a little piece of bacon (above, bottom). It’s really hard to tame all the little loose hairs coming out of the wool. The little felted animals I see on Etsy seem so refined and smooth, and I don’t understand how they do that. More stabbing? Generally better craftsmanship? Razoring off the excess hairs? I have no clue. 

I ripped off some pieces of a tannish ball of roving wool, and stabbed and stabbed, felting it into a starfish shape. 

I stabbed endlessly, trying to smooth out its little arms, and I kept adding more layers of felt to build up his little body and strengthen his arms.

Then I felted on a little face.

But that big smile made him look like a drunk creepster starfish. It wouldn’t do. I felted right over that smile and gave him a smaller mouth, still happy, less creepy.

But before fixing his little face, I gave him a purpose in life: love.

Stabby stab stab!

 See how I stab? 

I love the look of these colorful, cozy knots of wool. They’re a super soft coral reef where he spends his days, scuttling along the spongy peeks and precipices, offering his heart to a deserving fellow felt fetishist.    

When crafting buddy Sam saw this, she said, "He's wearing a glove!" 

Starfish Heart Bacon! 

 This starfish is a hopeless romantic. Just don’t call him a Valentine. 

Destroying my gangsta street cred one soft sculpture at a time.