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.