Ta-da! The koala is all done XD You can see more pics here.
He took waaaay longer than I anticiapted. Drafting the shorts pattern and designing the sweatshirt were much tougher than I expected and seemed to take forever. But the time wasn’t wasted. I learned a bunch and it will be easier the next time I want to design some clothes since I have a better jumping off point now.
One of my worst fears is hurting my hands and not being able to make things. And because I use my hands all the time they are very accident prone. A few days ago while I was cooking on the stove I caught my wrist with the edge of the pot lid. Ouch! And then I made the HUGE mistake of putting a band-aid on it and when I took it off the whole top layer of skin came with it. (I guess I need a basic course in first aid, huh?) Anyway here is a pic of my nasty wrist: 
It feels a lot better, now. It just looks gross 
I feel like I have made some real progress! I spent tons of hours in the studio over the weekend and I am pretty happy with the results. The koala finally has bottoms. I think they turned out well. I used the book I posted to draw the pattern pieces. It was mostly a matter of duplicating the angles in the diagram. It took awhile, but now I have a good place to start for the next time. I just kind of wish the learning curve wasn’t so steep. Here are a few pics:
I spent some time with Cleo as well. I refined the pattern for her mary janes and got a good start on making them. My mom told me, in a nice way, I was nuts for lining them. But I think it’s cute. Plus the glue that I used to keep the fabric and felt in placed helped to stiffen the shoe. I didn’t realize this would happen. But I am glad it did because I was a bit worried about the shoes being flimsy.
The saga of the koala duds continues. I’m scraping the jeans idea. They are difficult to get on and they hide the details I added to the lower body. My mom and sister both suggested that he looks like a stoner beach bum and should wear Bermuda shorts. Much more fun.
This time around I am going to spend more time drafting the shorts pattern. As I have said before, I really don’t know much about sewing. And even less about drawing patterns. I had this book,
which I think I bought at a library book sale, my favorite place to buy additions for my craft library, stashed on a top bookshelf and had sort of forgotten about it. That and I am intimidated by learning how to adapt the patterns to my doll. But I think in the long run it will be good for me to figure this out.
Here is the page showing the shorts patter I am going to use as a jumping off point.
More news on the koala front…I want this guy to be wearing kinda fitted jeans. But he has HUGE feet. Once I started sewing his pants I realized, a bit late, that I would have to stuff the legs and feet after putting his jeans on. So I took clipped the soles off and took out a ton of stuffing which I will replace after the jeans are on. Not a big deal, but this does mean that the jeans won’t be removable so no one will be able to see his knees. And I was very happy with them Oh well. This also means that you will just barely be able to see his undies. But that’s alright. We will all know they are there XD
Just look at this mess! It is the third or fourth attempt at knitted a sweatshirt for the koala. Grr, I am starting over again. I think it will have to be a top down raglan. This one had too many seams.
Sorry about my absence over the last week. I was distracted by all the work I have to do in my studio.
This little guy has been monopolizing my time. He is for a custom order so I want to get him done in a timely fashion. Which isn’t easy since I have been adding progressively more detail to each ‘gurumi.
For awhile now I have wanted to give my doll’s butts. Their flat rear ends sort of bother me. This is especially the case since I want to sew pants for them. Cleo’s keep on falling down. I am hoping big behinds will help fix the problem. My only worry is that the pattern for the pants may be harder to draw. I am still in the process of learning how to draft patterns and I end up fudging them most of the time. I guess we’ll see what happens.
Thought I would share my progress on the mermaid as well. Man it took me forever to get the tail right! But I finally got it. Here are some picks of the tail being blocked. I have been crazy for blocking things lately. I just love how smooth and flat it makes things. The photo on top shows the mermaid with a pressing cloth (nothing fancy, just an old t-shirt). Even though she is crocheted with wool I needed to use a cloth because I used iredescent blending filament to make her tail sparkly and it would have melted with direct contact. To use a pressing cloth all you need to do is put it over the peice over the crochet that you want to block, easy! The photo on the bottom (don’t mind the burnt ironing board) shows how I pinned the tail before steaming. This helped me to get nice points on the ends of her fins.
I knew you guys would figure it out XD
I really wish I had written down the pattern for this little girl.
I have no idea how I made her tail I printed out a large copy of the photo so I can count the stitches and rounds. This should help me get on the right track…but I do see a lot of frogging in my future.
I have been working away distractedly in my studio and totally forgot to post! Below are a few photos of the ‘gurumi who has been monopolizing my time. I am not telling what she will be yet. But you are all so clever, I bet you can guess 
When they are blank faces with staring eyes, my humanoid toys really go thru an ugly duckling stage (not that they are all swans in the end XD) This girl was especially creeping me out without features or a wig…
So I had to stop and give her her personality before I went any further, even though her wig is totally in the way. It keeps getting caught in the stitches as I work. I have been experimenting with new approached to the ‘gurumi’s faces. I have been using wool to embroider a bump for the nose with a little contrast stitching for nostrils underneath. I have also been stitching their lips, which I was always scared to do before, they kept coming out too big and awkward looking. I found that the trick is to use 1 strand on embroidery floss, that way I can control where the stitches go better. And yes, I use reading glasses and tons of light! I’m still definitly in the experimental phase of developing these new techniques. This girl’s expression sort of took on a life of it’s own. Before I knew it she was looking like a major bimbo. >sigh<
