Hayao to the rescue

I spent the best part of last month sewing. To be honest, I need some motivation to get on to my felt crafts. Unless I am stitching for somebody, I don’t feel like picking up the needle and thread. But if you look hard enough, opportunity is bound to present itself to you :) For days together, I was trying to come up with a memorable gift for my friend. And I am not at all joking when I say it’s hard to shop for guys. The best way to gift somebody is to round up their interests and hobbies and get them something related to that. He is a big fan of animated movies and the Hayao Miyazaki movies by Studio Ghibli are his favorite. If you haven’t watched these Japanese animated movies, then you must. The characters are simply adorable. This gave me an idea. Why not make felt toys out of the Studio Ghibli characters! :D And that is precisely what I did. Look below!

Can you identify all of them? :P

Starting from the left, I have named the characters along with the movies they star in.

            Totoro – My neighbor Totoro
          Calcifer – Howl’s Moving Castle
                  Jiji – Kiki’s Delivery Service
          No face – Spirited Away
Dust bunnies – My neighbor Totoro (not in the pic)

The last one is not covered in the pic. I bought black pom-poms and added googly eyes to make them look like the soot bunnies. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of everything and this is the only picture I have. You can see that my stitching is not very commendable :P Totoro’s stitches seem too tight and I ran into a knot when I was finishing up Calcifer. Jiji had its own issues with the eyes melting the first time I tried to stick them using Fevi-kwik (Oops). I did not find time to stitch up No face. My sis and I struggled to glue everything on to his face :D I also wish I had kept everything in the same size. But may be Totoro needs to be a bit bigger than the rest? Hmm.. I don’t know. But I do have a chance to correct my mistakes. You know why? My sister loved these so much that she wants a set all for herself :D 

Yayyy! That’s my first order!! Howzzat :D

A narwhal for sis

The next edition of felting joys is here! My sister just returned from Germany and she came back loaded with presents for me. Yep, that's why you need a sister :P I bought her some gifts too. But then, nothing beats a DIY right? With my new found crafting talent, I had to make her a felt doll (coz she asked me to :S). I wanted something cute and magical. I think fairies and unicorns are all over the place. I wanted something different. I kept poking around and there it was! A narwhal!! As per wiki, the narwhal, or narwhale, is a medium-sized toothed whale that possesses a large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth. Now let me warn you. A narwhal is a scary looking creature and nowhere near cute. Look below if you don't believe me.

However, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder they say. Proving this right, the creative people around the world have brought out the cute side of the narwhal. And although, I haven't heard of any magical stories associated with the narwhal, its prominent tooth is treated like a unicorn's horn, just to give it a magical touch. Based on the template from here, I made this enchanted creature! Hope it brings lots of luck and a big smile on my sister's face :)

Pretty Ballerina

My new routine has worked well to give me some time for my crafting too. I made this very sweet looking ballerina doll today. I am absolutely over joyed! :)

This is the first time I am making such a big doll. It's about 7.5 inches long. I took the pattern from here. I did not craft continuously. It must have taken me about 5 hours or so to complete it. I did run into some issues. Stuffing the hands and legs were particularly difficult. I was using a knitting needle kind of thing to push the stuffing and accidentally cut open some stitches!! :D I forgot to stitch the neck inside the head :P Yesss! If you turn the doll around, the neck is visible. That is why you don't get to touch it :D My hot glue gun was also acting up. But I am happy that I completed the doll. My stitches are more uniform. The eyes are stitched better. To top it off, I added some embellishments too. How cool is that! Very happy with the end result :)

Felting joys - Simba

Hi guys! Few months back, I was talking about how I have let loose my creative bug. I started off making some paper crafts and quote art. One day while browsing Pinterest, I saw felt dolls. The looked so cute that I knew I had to make them. I went through quite a few tutorials. I have to mention Erica Caterina’s Hey Girl! and Keinia Araujo’s Friendly Felt. These tutorials are very well written and encompass almost all knowledge in the felt world. I appreciate their effort and most importantly their willingness to share knowledge!

Having said that, I am delighted to present my first doll - Simba, the jaguar :D You can look at the pattern for the Jaguar here.