Just Pics

I've shrunk these for convenience, higher quality is available if you want. Just email me.

My Special Project...

So when j and I were thinking about what we wanted to with the upcoming baby, we decided that we should each make something for the baby. Obvious with the name we had chosen, I had actually been keeping an eye for a stuffed tiger for quite a while. But nothing I saw really captured the simple essence of Hobbes in the comic strip. While surfing on the web I found this message board post:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=210826.0%3Ball

and thought, I could do that.

Now realize that my arts and crafts experience amounted to construction paper and hand-shaped thanksgiving turkeys, so this was actually quite ambitious of me. And through my life, I was thinking about the number of things that I had sewn, and I came up with this list:

…
…
…

Yeah, that about covers it.

So to say the least, this was a brand new undertaking, and likely a bit of a stretch for my skill set. I really wasn’t even sure where I would find everything I was looking for, and given the surreptitious nature of the project (if people found out, they would likely figure out the name, which was top secret), I needed to find out without asking leading questions. So I asked a person in my program that actually sews some of her own clothes and accessories (in engineering school, this is rare that it is done, even rarer when it is done so well). And she told me to go to Joann’s in NJ. I asked for pointers about sewing a stuffed animal, she had never done and neither had iee’s wife s, so I was sort of on my own.

Wow was I out of place. Ummm, where can I find tiger print and fur material? I got pointers on sewing stuffed animals from some internet videos on expert village, and off I went.

Never having done this before, it was really weird to make the planned shapes and then to make the actual cuts. But, I have enough material to make 5 of these things.


The basic design was simply a series of tubes for the tail, legs, and torso.


I hand sewed the whole thing in the end. Was pretty easy, just a little time consuming, and I could hide most of the seams by connecting everything inside out, so the seams were on the inside.




This worked pretty well until I had to stuff him and close the final seam. The head is a little misshapened and part of the seam on the back is obvious, but I made it and I’m happy with it.


Hopefully Calvin enjoys it as well…

Son

Please welcome CMB to the world

If you can't figure out the name, the M is my middle name, and this picture will help on the C.

If that doesn't help.

More pictures and posts to follow.