Yesterday, I had the brilliant idea of finally getting around to installing the SSD drive in my machine, replacing the spinner. Turns out copying over a quarter-terabyte of data takes awhile, who knew? The Pi’s don’t run Inkstitch so the only stitch files I had were the ones already generated, and I was tired of owlbears (more on that later), wanted to tweak Queen of Unfinished Projects… and I had the tiny beanie dragons, the Pernese flavor (headknobs and applique eyes).
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Just because sometimes I struggle with my attention issues doesn’t mean I can’t have a sense of humor about it. I used to have this on a T-shirt (bought at a quilting show – the rare hobby I somehow have not gotten into… yet) and was reminded of it recently. And another impulse project was born.
Continue readingAs you may have guessed from my all-over-the-map projects, I have a little trouble staying on task. This is fine for hobbies (if I don’t mind having at least three storage tubs full of UFOs) but I need to be a little more efficient if I’m going to do this as a business. So I spent today moving a little more slowly, and practicing good habits.
First, I started logging my work day. (Work hours, really; there aren’t always too many of them.) I had decided yesterday that today would be a day to sew five owlbear dice bags for the shop, mostly to see how long they take. I’m reasonably sure I can’t sew them in any amount of time that makes it worth my time but again, practicing good habits.
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Saturday: I decided to sell off my faux fur stash because it was too bulky and I really wasn’t making big plush or costume items anymore.
Sunday: this happened.
In the course of trying to remember what it was I even bought the pink plush for, I did a DuckDuckGo image search for “pink plushie” and found nothing that jogged my memory but I did find some pretty cute (handmade) Mew plushies. I’m not a Pokémon player myself but when I found a promising pattern on DeviantArt, well, I’ve mentioned the way my brain works and here we are.
I haven’t started sewing because it has been years and years since I worked with a thick plush and I have no idea where my little box of binder clips have gone. Since that time, though, Clover has come out with Wonder Clips which are a more streamlined version of that hack, and I need some #11 sharps to sew the vinyl eyes, so it’s off to a fabric store for me.
Yesterday’s pattern development kind of encapsulates how I work.
I decided to release the in-the-hoop dragon as a pattern on Etsy, which meant I needed some pictures for the instructions. I cut some kelly-green minky squares and went through the process. I gave it orange eyes because St. Patrick’s Day is coming up and I was thinking Irish flag. And the more I worked with it the less I liked that green, until I realized it was the unnatural green of a plush Cthulhu. It only took encouragement from one person to get me haring off on an in-the-hoop Cthulhu, even though there are already way too many chibi Elder Gods out there already.
I rushed things a little too much and, in the process of changing the pattern entirely between colors, managed to mis-align the eye-shines:
As I went to throw away the goof, I went “ha ha looks like a cute little jumping spider instead” and, well, my heart really wasn’t in Cthulhu anyway.
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