Crafting General Thread

[skinstealer]

do you do crafts? maybe you should. it's fun!

here is a thread where you can post any crafts you've made! what constitutes a craft? literally anything. post WIPs, finished projects, ideas, discussion, comments, whatever you want.

(i am also making this thread on the homebrew deviants forums because fuck it why not. forum friendship!)

let me start...

we've started plushmaking for the first time in over 10 years! we're starting how we did back when we were kids, with socks as a primary material. our supplies are pretty limited at the moment, but once we move to our new place and get settled in, we should be able to start thrifting and getting primarily vintage supplies. feely is even going to give us a sewing machine!

here are our two plushes we've made so far:

[image description: a blue, quadrupedal plush made out of blue socks, rainbow striped fabric for the ears, and buttons for the eyes and nose. its eye buttons are round, and are each yellow and red, and its nose button is a giant pink heart. it has a red thread smile, and looks pretty smug. it is also lopsided, and the head is messily attached.]

neither of these guys have names yet, but this is our system's plush. he is a little weirdo! everyone keeps calling him a bat. his ears are a diff fabric due to us uh. cutting the head badly. and don't ask me what his back legs look like. we might give him a tail eventually!

[image description: a solid orange sock plush, complete with an extremely lopsided body and massive bunny ears. its small button eyes are yellow, and it has a blue starfish nose and a shy stitched mouth.]

okay, well. as it turns out, i'm a lot less skilled at plushmaking than bit. plural skill difference continues to be a thing, especially with something we haven't done in 10 years. even so- we made this guy for como, and como loves it. it helps that we aren't distressed at all by lumpy or "misshapen" plushes- we just want to make little guys, and it's fun no matter what. the construction's pretty solid, too! i learned a lot.

i really want to make more of these. like, a lot of these. i'll probably wait until after our move on the second to do so, but man! we're cookin!

these things are also stimmy as fuck. seriously, best plush to aggressively squeeze- and they love it. they really do.

[skinstealer]

[image description: a teddy bear split between chartreuse solid fabric and blue/green aquatic fabric, with the right side of the front/back being coral and turtle/fish patterns respectively. his large button eyes are the opposite side's color, he has a blue button nose, a teal smile. and seahorse, whale, and shark buttons on his torso.]

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee new guy
no name for him yet, though "fishbeaw" works for now. he's cool! our first plush from a pattern and first plush this goddamn large, i would not recommend hand sewing this pattern at all due to the sheer size of it (though it was easy! just time consuming). none of these components were purchased with the project in mind...which, honestly, i really liked. all 4 fat quarters we used for the plush were from random assortments (one solid assortment we got two of the same color for, and then an aquatic assortment- so yeah those colors ARE meant to go together, but the patterns weren't chosen in advance), the buttons are from a random assortment we got from walmart (including the sea life ones?! in the same colors?!?!?) and the floss is floss from an assortment. of floss. the pattern itself is Simplicity S9360, and i HIGHLY recommend it- it's a 4 piece pattern and each piece can be used with a fat quarter, making it fucking awesome for if you're into those sorts of things. i am highly tempted to make another one with entirely different vibes, but we'll see if i do that or use one of the other two patterns included (a puppy and kitty...).

we went into this wanting to wing it and it came out Amazing, which really helps me feel good about how we'll be able to design one of a kind guys going forward. we have no real urge to sell these and our main goal is to make them for friends and such, so consistency isn't a huge goal- it's about having fun and making unique toys, and really working that character design sense into them. super exciting, especially since thrifted fabric is the goal! turns out our petz skills of matching textures may come in clutch here...

not sure what the next project will be, though we're considering making the next plush for a friend. stay tuned, it might be a lot of improv!

[huckleton]

auauauwuauauwaauwuau ive always wanted to get into sewing but the tutorials ive seen make it seem like something that's difficult to Just Get Into. this is making me feel a lot more like i could do it if i had the resources though

[cheet]

^absolutely seconding this - ive been thinking about sewing SOOO MUCH lately and ive seen so many cute patterns but the vast majority of them seem to operate under the assumption that you have a sewing machine to work with (or, god forbid, an embroidery machine). maybe sometime later this week though i will see if i can stop by michaels or something for materials

[skinstealer]

yessss join us. Join Us. here's a good tut for basics: https://cholyknight.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/plush-sewing-basics-ebook.pdf

i personally recommend picking up some Fat Quarters- they're pieces of fabric that are a quarter yard, and are excellent for getting a whole bunch of colors/patterns without committing to a huge amount of anything. you can even get them in themed packs!

as for our own things...

[image description: an axolotl plush made out of blue socks and rainbow cotton fabric. it has red eyes and a disgruntled yellow smile. ]

[image description: a beanie baby bear-esque plush made out of solid blue fabric, rainbow stripe fabric, and black and white skull fabric. it is lumpy and has white button eyes, a yellow button nose, and a goofy, yellow, jagged embroidered mouth.]

the plush rush continues. technically i have another, much larger plush, that is like 90% done, but he's not ready for the spotlight until i get those final details done. maybe i'll do that tonight? idk.

as you can see i'm still getting the hang of technique, but i think i'm coming along. i really, REALLY need to learn how to fasten buttons on better, and my ladder stitch and i are locked into deadly combat every day of my life. there's still a bunch of supplies i'm either obtaining or just got today, slowly beefing up our repository of Stuff To Work With. at the very least, i'm pretty confident in our ability to match fabric, at this point!

so, onto the plushes themselves: i've got an axolotl we made for our friend andy as an extra special get-well-gift- he's made out of socks and, as usual, a fat quarter. granted, not much of a fat quarter, but still. the sock was extra squishy so this guy is soooo soft and stimmy, and i really like the color matching- but oh god i had a HORRIBLE time getting those rainbow pieces inside out. this was also our first time really making a deliberate pattern of our own since childhood, and boy i learned a lot about scaling pieces. i actually have another axolotl in our queue for one of our IRL friends now, and i'm hoping the frills come out a little chunkier and at minimum, easier to flip.

the second one...i need to do like, a proper whole ass blog post on the second one. jesus. the tldr for now is that this guy is off of a vintage Simplicity pattern from 1999 that was meant to knock off beanie babies during the peak of the fad's hype, making it one of the closest patterns that is available for beanie baby bears (and others, the pack has like 8 designs in it). the patterns themselves are simplicity 8091 crafts, but due to them being old as shit and no longer in production, i will likely be archiving them on our site after vectorizing them or something. i have a high quality photo that works at scan quality, so i should be able to convert them okay, as well as transcribe the instructions. it will be a long process, but i am looking forward to the results! in any case- the main differences are that the plush is a tad bigger overall (though they fit into 20 cm doll clothes near perfectly..............) and the face is. well it's not the iconic face but i'm working on figuring out how to either modify the pattern or thread sculpt that sucker into getting pretty damn close. we'll see! either way, the euphoria of being able to make one of these is real af. hooray!

[skinstealer]

i have made a frankenplush...my first one, actually. im working on the second as we speak, but i wrote this postmortem last night at @starsystemerror 's request and wanted to share it here.
 

[image description: a graduation themed teddy bear with white fur and a pink satin graduation outit, as well as a blue rabbit plush with "jesus loves you" on the front. below both of them is a blue rabbit plush with "love me" on its chest, as well as a heart patch and white neck mane.]

[CW: toy destruction, object sapience-related death, religious abuse]

the components for sacrilege were a teddy bear made by Hugfun with a graduation theme, and a bunny plush made by Dan Dee with...a "Jesus Loves Me" embroidered on its belly, as well as a fucking horrible soundbox that screeched the awful children's song of the same name, in utterly atrocious quality, and unfortunately subjecting the people i was on call with to it. as an ex-christian and a college dropout who dragged themself through high school and fucking HATED the entire process of graduation and the Traditions around them, i was very much inspired to have this be our first frankenplush. i had been psyching myself up for the past few days about endeavoring on this journey, but with my crippling toy empathy and destruction trigger, i was very Very nervous about diving into this. however...i have a frankenplush party coming up. surely, things must be done. practice must be had. thankfully, this went extremely well!

part of how it really worked out was the framing. we joked with cheet that it would be vital to make the component plushes sign medical consent forms, and that this would be very validating and healing for the patients involved- this is clearly some kind of organ donation/transitioning/important medical procedure situation and they are here because this Will help them, and some of them are even excited. looking at the plushes here...well, it seems obvious. one wants to escape the trappings of the pressures of achievement and success, especially in an academic environment, and the other...well, wanting to get away from christianity that's been outright stamped into you is a massive endeavor, especially when it's what's expected of you. it made complete sense to do two things: allow the graduate bear to Not be the base, so that they could achieve a new life free of their old expectations, and do some kind of censoring to the jesus bunny so that they do Not have to deal with that being the assumption.

so, we used the bunny as a base. there's not a lot of crazy parts variety here- theyre both bipeds, and fairly simple ones. i considered ear swapping, but i have a deep fondness for rabbit ears and it felt wrong to remove those specifically- and our rule of thumb is to follow those instincts, and go with our gut. best way to work with our brain on this. i was talking about what i would do in call and king clod suggested we censor the text in a way that said "love me"- which we actually waffled pretty hard on at first, while the idea wasn't fully developed. at first we considered a piece that obscures the first word and embroidering "everybody loves me" in the same vein as our favorite Louis Wain piece, and a nod to mental health recovery, but ultimately...there's not a lot of room, and i do nooot think our embroidery skills are up for that. not at that scale, anyway. we then considered "i love me", yknow, as a self assurance thing...and while that's nice, it still didn't fit. we started working on other pieces while mulling it over, and settled on using the satin graduation gown for cheek blushies (a favorite design thing, always good), and the white body fur of the bear as a censor for Jesus. it hit us, then- we Would go with KC's suggestion, but with kind of a weird turn that strikes us right in the heart recently. Love Me would work perfect...in the context of this bunnybear, who had escaped two life situations where they were pushed into situations they weren't okay with, and just wanted people to care. maybe a bit dark, but hey, we're doing surgery to a jesus bunny.

we worked on the censor for the jesus chunk and realized it just looked really awkward, and then went "oh shit i could do a full neck ruff"- and THAT worked. unfortunately it's two messy pieces because we cut the solo censor first, but it looked really nice design wise, especially when we added the cheek blushes...and a small heart patch, to cover the S in "loves". all in all, the design came out really fucking clean, and it even has trans flag colors to boot. ...well, the heart looks more like a triangle, but we can pretend it was intentional and say that all love has flaws or Something. we stuffed it with new stuffing, sewed it up, and congrats, a happy surgery had completed.

after we finished the plush- very very pleased with it, mind you, we were talking with rime about the process and the components, which lead us to get curious and look up the companies while contemplating the nature of these two components. these two are thrifted plush from a random mystery Blue Box- you pay 30 bucks, you get 10 dollars of secondhand plush, COMPLETELY random. resellers get fussy about this because "most of them are worthless"....but hey, we are getting these thangs for elective surgeries. the gameplan is to open the box proper when knux gets here for halloween, and do a frankenplush party...hence the practice need. however, i did need practice- so i had como grab some guys for us to work with. he was so fucking happy about revealing the jesus plush, because he is both a bastard and knew we'd be over the moon. but, with that- let's address the natures of the plush.

Dan Dee and HugFun are considered absolutely Dogshit plushes in a lot of ways- more the former than the latter. these are VERY common in thrift stores...because Dan Dee does near exclusive gimmick plush, Especially holidays. now, i guess they made a damn jesus bunny, but my point is that these things end up in thrift stores like crazy because they are created for a Specific Reason, and once that reason is now longer relevant, especially if it's a holiday, where having them out or playing with them no longer feels relevant...well, people donate them. this is a big reason why if you go to a goodwill you will always see a fucking christmas themed creature and it will be cheap material and noooo one will want it. the regrettable truth with both of these plushes is that in the long term scheme of things, they are Unwanted, and would never Ever be fucking sold. getting them like this is the only way they would have survived not going to a landfill- and the main target audience of these blue boxes is resellers, who would see these two and go "wow that's worthless" and send them back to goodwill, where they are either packaged up again or just thrown in a landfill. if you want to think darkly about it- which frankly i do, because i have fucking brain problems- these guys are made to be thrown away. to us, this means death. so...yeah, combined with the fact that one of them is religious and god forbid, one of them is a fucking graduation plush that has never seen the light of day...this was legitimately a rescue mission. they would be gone without us.

hugfun is a little less notorious...but not by a lot. i wasnt able to find a lot of info on them aside from the fact that they have Range, because they are open to working with any designers, and that probably ranges from specialty places to indie creators to arcade machine stuffers and carnival game vendors. regrettably, the graduation bear fits a niche that is just. yeah, you are not selling that and no one is going to keep it. as such, the fabric is equally cheap, and the bear's satin shirt was tearing off of its body- likely not even because of wear and tear, but just, it was attached that badly. the bear had no wear otherwise, and was probably never hugged in its life, while the jesus bunny had a singular stain on the back of its head and a couple small holes around the joints. my speculation says that this was given to a young child (yay religious indoctrination!) who did not care especially well for it, and grew out of it fast. i also speculate from the quality of the soundbox...either this thing is old and abandoned later when found in a closet, or good god this company just fucking sucks. we'll see in the future, because these things are fuuuucking rampant at goodwills...and i am very ready to give them a new life.

there you go, my long winded post mortem about sacrilege- named such as, well...they're definitely going against the religious grain. and good for them! they're fucking free! hooray!