Piglet with frankfurter

Pretty pinkish piglet. I was allowed to create the frankfurter separately (you can see it inside the piglet's throat in the drawing). 

A friend of mine remarked it must have been a cannibal piglet... consuming another poor pig processed into frankfurters... Well, I know that me and my friends sometimes have strange conversational topics...

Jelszó: "Legyen Menyuskának malaca!"

És lőn. Kisebbik unokaöcsém műve. Attól kegyesen eltekintett, hogy a malac torkában ábrázolt virslit is a firkajószágba kelljen varrnom, azt javasolta, varrjak a malacnak külön virslit. Varrtam egyet és többet. Egyébként a jószág neve "lazacmalac". Tessék a színét nézni! Rejtőszín egy északi országban, ahol így feltűnés nélkül együtt tud lubickolni az ottani lazacokkal. 

Utóirat: így jár az ember (és olvasói), ha a fotózni szerető sógorra bízza a képanyag elkészítését - egyből van miből válogatni :-)

Dad & Son

Max is 4, and he drew himself and his father.

Daddy is very chic, isn't he? In the first softie version I made a nice knitted neck for his pullover. I was so sure about this detail that I didn't even ask the mum, who placed the order. When I finished everything and took the photos, and I was just about to send the pictures to the mum, all of a sudden an idea emerged: "What if those vertical lines represent a beard?! If I were a 4-year-old kid, I wouldn't bother about pullover necks..." And I was right...:-) So finally I removed the neck and created the beard. I hope Max's father recognizes himself.

pullover neck..? beard!

A négyéves Max portréja magáról és apukájáról.

Ricario

I was biased towards Kristian's octopus like creature, because once I made a softie for myself, which had exactly 6 arms, too... and when someone asked me why I had knitted 6 arms for it, my answer was: "to be able to hug a lot". And look what Kristian said about his creature: "Ricario is a very cheeky but very friendly monster who likes to cuddle people".

twelve arms altogether - all ready to cuddle

Egyszemű Ricario bébijének 3 szeme van - akkor gondolom, az unokájának 5 lesz legalább. Keze 6 van, és mi másért, mint hogy ölelgetni tudjon?! A lábai meg nyilván nem rugdosásra valók, hanem stabilitást biztosítanak ölelés közben.

Penguin & Frog

I made Lilly two mice for last Christmas, and this year the family asked for two more Christmas softies. 

Gabby's favourite thing of all is penguins, she has been drawing them forever. Her mom asked me to combine the fat penguin and the happy-face penguin.

And this is Annie's standard frog. I was asked to create some sort of accessory for her - winter is here, so I thought the frog would make good use of a long scarf. And why not add a pocket with her flower on it?

A tavaly karácsonyra született egerek egy évet töltöttek kettesben. Most új társaságra vágytak, hát elkészült melléjük egy mosolygós pingvin és egy téliesített béka.

Notepad++ chameleon

My brother-in-law got very excited to learn I was asked by Don Ho, the author of Notepad++  to turn this mascot chameleon into a softie. The reason for his excitement is that he and his colleagues use this open source software a lot - now it's time for them to enjoy another aspect of Don's project :-)

Csíptem a kaméleont is, de legjobban a ceruza elkészítését vártam ebben a firkaságban :-)

Feathers, or not feathers?

That's the question.

Feathers were a significant part of this commission: Kael's brother asked me to cover the skin with them. So I did. I mean I used real feathers. The result was a disaster... But we didn't give up, and all of a sudden I sat down and created some feather-embroidery. I know there must be others who have already discovered how to give the illusion of plumage, but anyway, I was so happy to see that the embroidered feathers worked.

I hope Kael (5) thinks his bird looks good with all the feathers and snakes, of course!:-)

plumage, plumage.....

Nápolyi jómadár. 27 centiméteres, kígyókat leterítő. Vagy szövetkeznek..?

Nominee for "The Weirdest Softie" Award

I can't explain why but I liked the drawing of Rebecca's boyfriend. How on earth can someone think of a combination of a squid and mule?! :-) It's not only kids' imagination that is amazing.

So the anniversary softie was born in rich, dark brown and coral - 20 cm tall altogether.

Öszvér + tintahal = évfordulós firkalény.

Candy-nosed Cat Princess

 I can't decide who was more excited about this softie: Acacia, the artist or her mom? :-)

I was in love with the drawing, but there was one single detail I couldn't figure out exactly - it was the nose. To tell you the truth, I didn't understand the triangles on the two sides of it. I had to ask for help, and this was the answer from Acacia's mom: 

"So I just asked my daughter what those two spots are and she looks at me as if I'm crazy and says "It's a candy nose!"? Hahahaha. So it's like a wrapped candy nose I guess."

Fantastic!! What else could it be?!

The Princess can be undressed, because - unlike other cats - she likes having a bath (no, not shower!). Well, it seems there are quite a few things you don't know about Canadian Candy-nosed Cats........

Cicahercegnő a karácsonyfa alá. Addig Acacia mamája nézegeti titokban. Ilyen lesz a fa alatt:

Ballet Barbie

Isabella's (7) Thanksgiving softie can pose, of course. Quite indispensable skill for a ballet dancer, isn't it?

 

A balettos firkababa Hálaadáskor kezdi tánckarrierjét New Yorkban.

Orange-purple monster

Another Christmas present: a pretty girlish monster for an "almost-5-year-old" girl to Germany. 5 arms, countless fingers, two ears - yes, two! First I thought there was only one of them, but if you have a closer look at the head, you can see the pink lines of the other ear. Just to be sure I asked for the parents' help, and they agreed. And this is what they wrote back to me on getting the final photos: "We would like to welcome the monster in person as soon as possible in our family." :-)

 

 

now it's easy to answer my facebook quiz question!

Kifejezetten lányos szörny. Tehát bársonyosra varrtam, és szerencsére azt is időben észrevettem, hogy a hajak és fülek háttere nem narancssárga, hanem rózsaszín! Arra az esetre, ha valakinek kétségei lennének, hogy egy szörnylányról van szó.

Rodger, the Super Elephant

I always take the softie photos on the corridor, in front of my flat - and my neighbours sometimes come up to me to have a look at the softies. While I was shooting Rodger, my neighbour's mom was surprised to learn that this elephant had been made for an 18 year old girl. She thought she was too old for a softie. I didn't agree, of course!

I told her the story of Rodger: Hannah's Auntie asked her what she wanted as a present for her birthday, and Hannah's first idea was my blog, so she immediately drew her old friend, Rodger, the super elephant. She was lovely enough to make another sketch to show me how Rodger 'might' look like from the side, plus I got the super emblem - every hero needs one!! And here came one of my favourite comments from Hannah about the cape with the super emblem: "...the cape ties around his neck in a bow so he can take it off when he is not working". Are you surprised I loved emailing with Hannah?

Her grandma says when Hannah was a baby, she had the same confused looking eyebrows and that a super elephant with the same is "gorgeous":-)

Szuperelefánt - irigyelhetjük az angolokat, akiknek a szolgálatába áll nemsokára!

"Only you" - and 14 others...

I've already made an "Only you" couple for Emily, and she asked for more. Exactly 15 pairs of tiny little keyring softies. That means 60 tiny arms to start with - not much fatter arms than a match... Plus 30 bodies, 30 "smiles" and so on. But only 15 little bags! :-)

Feel like visiting Emily's page? Don't hesitate!

Top secret phase photos just for you:

bad boy(s)

just girls

 Zsákbanfutás: fiúk-lányok párosával.

Unicorn and dino - siblings?

If softies were classified, we could call these two a classical unicorn and a classical dino softie. And we can do that without classification as well...

I loved them... the unicorn is so pretty and delicate and cheerful and her wings are so beautiful! I was trying again and again to make the best possible decoration for the shiny purple wings - this unicorn deserved it well :-)

And the dino: isn't it handsome? Beautiful colours, teeth scary just to the extent necessary, and the legs... oh...:-)

The unicorn for Ella, who is 5 years old:

The dino for her brother Aidan, who is 7:

Tetszett, hogy pont ez a két nem létező(?) jószágot rajzolták a testvérek. És, hogy ilyen piciben kellett őket megvarrni. Szeretek kézzel varrni, a dinót jó volt körbepelenkaöltögetni. Aztán a fogsorát is odavarrogatni, meg a búbját, meg a lábait... De a kedvenc részletem az unikornis szárnyán és szarván a fehér díszítés - vadiúj találmány :-)

Giveaway monster

It was Katherine, who won my summer giveaway, so I turned her son, Alei's monster into a softie. I love Alei because when Katherine showed him my blog and he was scrolling through the photos, he kept saying: "How does she get the stuffed animal to look JUST like the picture?":-) I hope he is satisfied with his own softie as well.

New aspect in softie making: cat-proofness! I imagined this creature quite hairy, so I asked Katherine if it was okay to use hairy fabric for the body. She asked me not to do that as they have two cats, and she was afraid that a hairy monster body would become even more hairy because of the cats... so we chose some very soft matte brown fabric instead.

Would you recognize him?

Nyári nyeremény-softie őszi színben.

Roly Poly softie

Roly Poly softie was made for Arielle Ford, author of The Soulmate Secret, and she will use these plushie  to demonstrate a myth in her presentations.

Arielle told me the story in a few sentences:

"According to Plato's Symposium, there is an ancient myth that long before we humans were on earth, there were these roly poly beings with 4 arms, 4 legs and 2 sets of genitalia that rolled around the planet happy as can be.  Zeus was jealous and claimed he wasn't getting enough respect from them so he took out his sword and cut them in half, which is why we seek to re-discover our "soulmate", our other half, so we can be complete again."

The stuffed dolls demonstrates the story: it starts off as a round being that comes apart in the middle to show that there are two hearts and two fig leaves. The two heads had to be identical, not male or female - as unisex as possible, both with curly hair and blue eyes. (I can't help it, but I always had a feeling that one of the faces looked more masculine, the other one more feminine - sorry, Arielle :-))

I loved making these custom dolls as they were something absolutely brand new for me. I learnt a lot about magnets for example. And about jointed softies - it was the first time I used this technique, and it was so exciting to make the last step = point of no return...

 

A short video that I made for Arielle to be able to see how the dolls  works:

(Arielle Ford könyve magyarul is kapható: A lélektársad titka)

Knight after knight

I made a softie for Joe last summer, it was Fireknight. His mum says, he loves the softie to bits and still takes to bed with him :-). It's Joe's birthday tomorrow, and he asked for a new softie: a brawling buddy for Fireknight - so Galacta knight is born!

Something else: I have a friend with whom I sometimes share my thoughts on softies, and I was speaking about Galacta knight so zealously, that I had to promise him I would write about this phase of softie making here, on the blog. Okay, this was in my mind when I was thinking about Galacta: he has to be the same size as Fireknight (equal opportunities, you know), but his body should be rounded, but not too rounded, because if he looks like a ball, he'll be too big for Fireknight. And what are those spots on the black cross? Eyes? Anything else? (I asked for help, and Joe's mum did her best:-)) And the shield: it should be convex to protect the knight properly... and how to make the back of it? I figured out that Galacta had two arms, one of them invisible because of the shield (as you can see I'm pretty smart :-)), but how to make the hand to be able to hold the shield? And how to put the pinkish-orangish cross on it? And the pike! (My first thought was that was blood on it... I am still not sure, the colour in Joe's drawing is not blood-colour... maybe aliens' blood has a different shade, who knows...?) Finally I made the pike rounded as well - all pikes look like this, don't they? And shall I make the legs from some silvery fabric? I have a feeling that Joe may envisage them a bit silvery... Phew, and the wings......... it may sound surprising, but I was in big trouble with them. What material to use for them? There is no room for sewing allowance, so it should be something that is not pilling, but not felt, because in my opinion felt doesn't suit a knight's wings - I am sure you understand why. Some kind of lace? No, too girlish... So the good old first idea: fleece. Trimmed thoroughly around all the edges! Well, this is how a softie is built.

And the main point: Joe was delighted to see his new softie. Best part of the story :-)

The two buddies:

Joe serege újabb lovaggal gyarapodott, ezentúl közös edzéseket tarthatnak!

"A magyar nyelv szemlátomást tömörebb, mint az angol! :-)" - idézet egy kritikustól....

Kiwi softie

Nate wanted to make his girlfriend happy with this kiwi. He wanted it so much that he asked for Dony Permedi's permission, who created this bird and animated a fantastic film with it. Nate got the permission, I sewed the softie, and I hope the kiwi softie will do its job :-)

Don't miss the Kiwi! film!

Nem varrok rajzfilmfigurákat. Ha nem is foglalkoznék a szerzői jog tiszteletben tartásával, akkor sem sok kedvem lenne hozzájuk, bár érkezik ilyen érdeklődés bőven. Nate kérése viszont nagyon szívhez szóló volt, ráadásul vállalta, hogy megszerzi az eredeti alkotó engedélyét. Olvashattam az emailt, amiben a rajzoló hozzájárul, hogy megszülethessen a firkakiwi, és azt is írta, kíváncsi a végeredményre. Remélem, tetszik neki.

Cute family

Statistics: 5 softies from 3 drawings of 2 girls = 1 family.

Lauren undertook the task of drawing their parents - it's them :-) She says they are cute, and the softies will be given to their father by their mum as a memento.

Kirsten, 4 years old:

Lauren, 10 years old (when she saw my website, she immediately sat at her desk to draw it:-):

Everybody together:

Én csak "hajas" családnak hívtam őket. Apát és anyát annyit kellett fésülgetnem varrás közben, meg hát festeni is kellett a hajukat, hogy tisztára fodrásznak éreztem magam. A nagylány hajával is volt bíbelődnivaló bőven... A kislány frufruját pedig már csak azért sem akartam a fejére nyalva hagyni!:-)

Chubby & fluffy

A little horse for Arianna's brother, who is turning 20 and loves stuffed animals. He drew the chubby horse in the summer and said to his sister: "I wish you could make drawings real!" And Arianna found me :-)

She wanted a fluffy brown horse with black mane and whitish nose, made from as soft fabric as possible, and one that isn't too small or too big - preferably a good size to be able to sit in the palm of one hand. So here he is! 

Egy maréknyi pihe-puha ló.

Frog in black

This is the second softie I made for Antonio. He is so good to me - he feels responsible for my professional development :-) This must be the reason why he asked me to turn his wife into a softie first, then to make this frog puppet for him. Both were something I had never done, so I searched the web for tutorials, experimented a lot, made mistakes, and finally produced the softies. Now I know there are so-called "foam puppets", I used this method to make the frog's head. And the frog can "speak". I was in trouble because his body was too small for a hand, so finally his mouth can be moved through an opening on his nape. But I found no tutorial for a solution like this... I had to go my own way -I hope it works for Antonio.

Kísérleti béka pöttyös tappancsokkal. Első lépés a napszemüveg volt, a többit már "csak" hozzá kellett igazítani... Meg egy kézhez méretezni, hogy tudja mozgatni a száját - ez volt Antonio kívánsága, semmi több :-)

58 hearts

It's a comforting fairy for Addy (7), who lost her grandmother, for whom she did the drawing. Addy's mom was redoing her daughter's room and she thought this softie would be the perfect touch on the bed.

She loved the hearts all around the fairy, so she came up with the idea of a blanket. And I loved her idea! What a useful blanket for a fairy - indispensable on cold nights or when having a picnic with Addy and other fairies. I sewed 58 hearts for the fairy and her blanket altogether :-)

Tündér egy tündéri mama kislányának - az 58 szív úgy jön ki, hogy van 4 a ruha hátulján is. Még szép...

Horses

My niece is a horse-addict. It is a severe addiction, she has tons of horse plushies. Some of them made by me... So it was just a matter of time when she asks me to make a horsy necklace. It was her idea to make three separate pendants in a row. I know what to do if I ever run out of ideas - I'll employ her as a designer :-)

Alternative way of use - a pirate girl :-)

Tesóm attól tartott, az unokahúgom legfrissebb ötletét nem tudom majd kivitelezni. Göndörödő sörény és lófarok ilyen apróban?! Na jó, itt-ott csaltam kicsit, de azért meglett :-)

A first-drawing-softie

This drawing was made by Noah, 3. It was the first "real" drawing he ever made, that's why his mom would have liked a softie of it. 

Ausztrál eredetiből. Ott lehet valami a levegőben, a gyerekek nagyon tutikat festenek... Ezt is szerettem például.

Mouse

I know it's not a businesslike statement at all, but there are commissions I would even pay for to get...:-)

For example this mouse from Italy, drawn by a 6-year-old boy.

Jó, tudom, hogy kevesen szeretnének bele ebbe a rajzba első látásra, de úgy látszik, nekem fura az ízlésem... 20 lábat varrtam neki. A rajzon természetesen csak az egyik oldala látszik az egérnek, és nyilván nem a hasa alján, középen vannak egy sorban a lábak - roppant életszerűtlen lenne ugyebár :-)

Crocodile

Rare moment: you can have a glimpse of the very beginning of a career! Anna is learning children's book illustration, and this is a drawing she did when she was a little girl. Now she's a bit bigger girl, she even has a boyfriend, and her boyfriend has a big heart - and this is the result of a big heart and love: a soft birthday crocodile.

Anna's boyfriend was very helpful and shared his ideas with me about how to change the black and white drawing into a colourful 3D creature. And he said there was an enormous smile on his face when he saw the final photos...:-) Let me tell you about my favourite detail, the teeth. It would have been easier to use felt for them, but I had a feeling felt wouldn't suit this crocodile. So I invented silk croc teeth! I made little triangles from white silky ribbon, I sewed them in a row, and that was the kind of denture I was satisfied with.

And finally I decided to make an extra softie from the drawing for the croc not to be alone - a brave little fish.

Újabb szerelmes fiú ajándéka a kedvesének. Igen, csak három lábat varrtam neki, mert tetszett, hogy három különböző díszítésű lábon imbolyog - és ilyenkor lehet szolgaian másolni a rajzot :-)