May 29, 2009

Good Girl Bad Girl - Finished






Here they are, finished and shipped off to the Loters.* Good Luck at the Expo guys!
It was an interesting process, making an angel and a devil... one for whatever mood you're in that day or hour. :D
I enjoyed (while swearing a few times, to be honest, at the slippery/stretchy nature of these fabrics) using new materials and it was a definite challenge to make the girls as "on model" as I could. As always when I get something done I see a few ways that I could have improved it- perfectionist nature rears its ugly head.
I am happy about the brain wave I had for Good Girl's halo- I had NO idea how I was going to do that until the day before they were due to be shipped off. I finally thought to cover a pipe cleaner in the silver fabric to make it work. Phew! Hooray for the pressure of deadlines- sometimes it helps you come up with things you might not have thought of. :D
For more pics, head on over to my flickr page.

Well, I'm off to start work on the next project- "Stitch Wars" here I come! Have a great weekend everybody.

*all images property of Loter Inc., not to be used or reproduced without permission.*

May 26, 2009

Good Girl Bad Girl WIPs




Another of the projects I'm working on. Our good friends John and Shelley from Loter Inc. asked me to translate their Good Girl/Bad Girl characters into plush form in time for the Las Vegas International Licensing Expo this weekend. They will have a booth there, full of fun Loter Inc. products. The bottom picture is from their display at Action Figure Freddy in San Francisco. As you can see, they have a bunch of cool characters to choose from.
These were a challenge to do, as the designs are quite skinny. (You can see the actual line drawing John sent me of the Bad Girl design in the upper left of the WIP pic.) I had to fatten them up a bit to make them plushable, and work with a bunch of new (to me) materials. The black vinyl and shiny light blue polyester proved to be trickier than I thought. :D I will post the photos of the finished plush in the next day or so.

*all images property of Loter Inc.- not to be used or reproduced without permission.*

May 20, 2009

birthday fabulousness


I've turned my mother-in-law into an etsy shopper, and these are the birthday surprises she picked out for me. I was totally excited when I opened the package to see Colonel Higgenbottom from Dolls for Friends' etsy shop peering out of his monocle at me, and it got even better as I saw these adorable bird pin cushions from SugarElf's shop! Plus, some totally amazing robot and nautical fabric from fabricworm that I've been drooling over. Hooray for birthdays sponsored by etsy! :D

May 13, 2009

FINISHED!


Phew! Here's the final image of the Hitchhiking Ghosts wall hanging. The final piece measures 3 feet wide by almost 6 feet tall. It was fun (sarcasm alert!) trying to feed a 6 foot length of fabric through my machine to hem the sides- thank goodness for helping husbands with long arms. :D
I got this done just in time for a 5 day break from my sewing machine. One of my best friends is coming into town today, so I had to make sure that I got it done so we could goof off for a few days... then it's right back to the sewing machine and on to the many other projects in the works, including another wall hanging for the Haunted Mansion Show. More on that after I have my mini-break to rejuvenate my creativity and fingers. :D Have a great week!

May 12, 2009

HM WIP part 7 - Bottom Ghost



Here's the finished ball and chain ghost- I was too involved in getting him finished to take WIP pics along the way, so here's the start and the finish. I hand sewed his hand to the ball, and the ball to the ghost's belly. Stay tuned for the big unveiling of the final finished piece...

May 10, 2009

HM WIP part 6




Tackling the middle ghost. It was fun making his face and the top hat. :D I always get a little nervous when I am down to the attachment stage- I always double and triple check my placement before I commit to sewing it down and it still freaks me out a little. It would not be my idea of fun to have to get out the seam ripper and start over. Quite a bit if hand sewing with this guy- sewed his hat on to his head by hand and hand sewed it down to the background- grabbing the hat material through the back of the background (hidden stitches!) and stitching it in place along the middle.

May 7, 2009

HM WIP part 5




woohoo! making some progress. :D Got the top hat finished for the middle ghost and sewed the door into the frame, as well as sewing down the top and right side of the door frame. It was a pain the rear trying to feed all 5 feet of the length through my sewing machine- thank goodness for long kitchen tables. :D I also started/finished sewing down and stuffing the parts of the top ghost. Working on the middle ghost now. The bottom ghost is going to be a bit time consuming- have to construct/sew/stuff him in layers, so he will probably take longer than the other two to complete.

May 4, 2009

Progress - HM WIP part 4





It's coming along, got a bunch of stuff sewn together and started stuffing some pieces- namely the hair on the bottom ghost's head. I'm using my sew-by-number drawings to make sure that I get the placement right. I would hate to have to unpick stuff (not the dreaded seam ripper!) so it's double checking before I sew as a precaution. :D