Chit-Chat the Squirrel

After my spontaneous decision to graciously make Rachel another cow to be friends with Moo-Moo, it only made logical sense to also make a similar toy for Sophie. Lest I be accused of favouritism. Knowing the girls' love for fluffy things, I had a look through the scraps and figured I had just enough of the faux fur left from making Sophie's Squirrel Girl outfit to make a small squirrel for her. 

There is no squirrel included in the Menagerie Pattern, but the only real feature I figured I needed to capture was that tail. I ended up just tracing out the shape that I had used for Sophie's costume but on a much smaller scale. I was on the fence about sewing it to the back of the squirrel so it would be permanently up or letting it fall free, but Sophie said she'd prefer the flexibility. 

The squirrel has been named Chit Chat, after a squirrel character from the Wild Robot books. I should say that I made both Chit Chat and Mini Moo-Moo last year, I think in late November/early December, but life got away from me and I'm only just getting around to posting about them now. Busy busy. Sophie just turned ten this January though, so I wonder if Chit Chat will be the last soft toy I make for her. We shall see. 

Here is Chit Chat, Mini Moo-Moo and Star Tiger together.  

Oh, how far I've come, and how many lovely friendly soft toys I've made these girls. Makes me hope that my newest little nephew Archie will also need some cuddly friends in his life too. 

Mini Moo-Moo

 Ahh, Moo-Moo. Was there ever a cow who was more loved than this? Since I've made Moo-Moo, she's had a very full and loved life, including a couple of surgeries to help her through. Not sure when it was, but Rachel noticed the bit of fabric that I had had leftover from making Moo-Moo in my stash and asked if I could make a second cow. 

Initially I told her no. Then when she asked again, I told her no. Then when she asked a third time, I told her I'd sell her the fabric and she could make her cow. Rachel bought the fabric. I realised I'd need to do a bit of hand holding, especially since the amount of fabric was quite small, found the pieces of cow pattern and scaled them down so they would fit. 

We spent an afternoon figuring out where to put and pin everything, then put it away for a couple of weeks before she cut it out. Watching Rachel cut the pieces I began to doubt my initial plan of having her sew the cow herself. The fur fabric was just a little too tricky to deal with for a beginner sewer. 

So I bit the bullet and sat down to make the cow. Rachel informed me that this cow, already named "Mini Moo-Moo" was a boy cow, and was not to be a baby for Moo-Moo, but in fact her friend. She even had a story of how they met and became friends written down before Mini Moo-Moo was made. 

Not being a girl cow, I was sadly deprived of udder making, but otherwise this cow came together about as smoothly as the last one. Mini Moo-Moo is made with the same cow print fur and some brown and white felt. He is about the same size as the Pikachu I originally made with this pattern, maybe a little bit bigger, and is the perfect friend for Moo-Moo and Rachel. 

And, since I was suddenly making a new soft toy for Rachel, I figured I'd better make one for Sophie too, so come back soon to hear all about that. 

Vulpix: An Exercise in Creative Thinking

This post could otherwise be entitled: All the Tails. Or, if I were feeling particularly aggravated: All the Freaking Tails. You'll see why soon. 

Just a quick recap: the first installment of this Soft Toy Adventure is found here. The second, in which I detail making Rachel's Cow, is found here. If you don't want to read them, know I had three days to make two soft toys before Christmas. This is the second of those soft toys. 

Vulpix is a Pokemon. One which I have tried to make in soft toy form before and though Sophie loved the Original Vulpix, she was less than satisfied with how I realized the tail. Here was my source image:

Image from here

This time round Sophie had a lot of input into tail design. One of the perks of knowing what you were getting for Christmas I guess. For reference, if you can't tell from the above picture, Vulpix actually has five tails. She evolves into a Pokemon called Nine Tails, and you can probably guess why. I am thankful Sophie has not asked for a Nine Tails toy, and if she ever does, my answer will be a resolute no. But I digress. 

To tackle the problem of the tails, I did some research, mostly on the Menagerie Pattern which came with a variety of tail suggestions (for all the different animals) that I figured I could adjust or manipulate for a Vulpix tail. (On a side note, there is definite potential for a Menagerie Pattern based solely on Pokemon. Just saying). 

My initial attempt was something that looked like this:

And I hoped when I added elastic to the sides, that it would curl appropriately. Which it did. So far so good.

But when we stuffed it, things started to go down hill. 

After consultation with Sophie and a few more tries we ended up with something that looked more like this:

And worked fairly well. I think the elastic version could have been improved, but I was short on time.  Three days to Christmas remember? I post these photos here just in case anyone else is mad enough to attempt making a Vulpix soft toy for their small child and needs tail guidance. After messing around with prototypes for a day, it was time to cut into the real material. Which I had just enough of.

And the tails looked pretty good when all sewn up. They are flat in the below picture, but fluffed up nicely when stuffed.

Tada! Sophie was pretty insistent that the tails be able to move independently of each other, and also be as big as they were supposed to be proportionally to Vulpix's body. I'll be honest, making the tails the right size seems like an ok idea, but in reality, it's not very practical.

Anyway, tails on and everything else sewn up. I had to adjust how to put the whole thing together, because the pattern has you tuck the tail (yes, the usual one tail) inside and sew the base to the body first, and then pull everything the right way out of a small 15cm gap in the back of the creature. But, there was no way all of those tails were fitting inside the Vulpix to start with. So I sewed the back up and half of the base and then hand stitched the rest.

Did that make any sense? I dunno! Hopefully you are not making a Vulpix toy and thus don't need it to make sense anyway. Here is Vulpix in a mostly finished and an un-stuffed state. I was contemplating where to stitch on her facial features (nose and mouth).

Looking good right!? I ended up not being able to find any black embroidery thread, and it was Christmas Eve at this point, so I just went with dark brown. It's faint, but it's totally there (photo at the bottom of this post has the best shot of it). Here is Sophie being excited about stuffing her own Christmas Present.

I still can't get over it. Maybe they were just so excited that it was nearly Christmas? (You can read about Rachel's Cow here, if you haven't already.)

During the stuffing process, we noticed that the tails were a total nightmare acting all independently, so I stitched them together with a quick bit of embroidery thread.

Much better. Later on I also ended up stitching the tails to the back of her body too, but that's another story. The fur/hair/fluffy bits (?) on Vulpix's head were done with the elastic curling tail method, though I realize now if I had made them longer they would have curled more. Oh well. Lesson learnt. She still came together ok. You'll notice that they curl in the same direction as the tails. Just something else Sophie was very specific on.

One last shot of the tails from behind, this is right before I finished the hand sewing to pull the whole thing together. Can you see how BIG those tails are?! Is my alternative title to this blog post beginning to make sense to you!?

Anyway, Sophie loves her new Vulpix and I am still surprised that I was able to make two soft toys of this complexity in three days. No, I will not go into business and try to sell these on Etsy. It's not worth it. 

But I will continue to make these for my daughters, because though I may be a little nuts, that is totally worth it.

Making the Cow

You can read my preamble to this post here, if you want a full back story. If not, know that I was three days out to Christmas and about to make both girls a soft toy. Rachel asked for a cow. Here we go!

Why Rachel wanted a cow, I still do not really know. Maybe because she already had dog soft toys. Or perhaps a cow appealed to her love of obscure animals like bugs. Whatever the reason, she asked for a cow, and a cow she got. 

The first thing I did when thinking about how to make her cow was to check Ikat Bag's Menagerie pattern, to see if it had included a cow. It did. I have used her base pattern for numerous other soft toys thus far (Tiger, Lady bug, Pikachu and Original Vulpix) so it was probably high time I put my money where my mouth was. I was still hesitating about it though, wondering if I could just figure it out on my own when Steve spoke sense: I had three days to make these toys, just buy the pattern!

So glad I did, because not only was it very helpful in Udder Placement, but I also have the resources to make so many other soft toys. Oh how hilarious is that udder.

Here is the half made cow watching me from the shelf above the sewing nook as I contemplate how to sew Vulpix together. The ears look good here, but after we stuffed him (her?), I realized they were on a little low. Should have been higher. Oh well. The other thing I did notice and actually adjusted was one of the safety eyes. My original installation was less than symmetrical, but luck was in my favor because the one I moved happened to be on that lovely brown patch of fur, so you can hardly see the hole.

Here is Rachel doing the hard work of stuffing her Christmas Present.

Seriously though, the girls were so over the moon about this I feel like each year I should have them help create their own presents just to increase the excitement. Rachel has named her cow Mu Mu (or is it Moo Moo?) and she loves to jump over the moon.

One soft toy down, one to go. Stay tuned for the post all about Vulpix 2.0 coming soon!