plushies: first up... pikachu!

[batiferrite]

If you missed the bit where I mentioned this in the last entry: I was asked to make 3-4 Pokemon plushies for one of my cousins. Here's the first little fellow! He's not perfect or anything, but I'm rather fond of him. ^^

Production Notes:

Some notes for anyone who might want to make sock plushies of their own: turns out, it's surprisingly difficult to find suitable fuzzy socks online, actually! Most of them come with stripey patterns or little faces printed on them or something, and not really that many listings for plain colors. Another thing is that (and maybe I just got ridiculously cheap socks or something...), they're very loosely woven, so if you try to tie a knot at the end of your thread like you'd normally use for sewing, it'll just come right through -- not good! I found that it's better to try and make a little cross-stitch or something to that effect to anchor your thread around a piece of the fabric itself, rather than just relying on a knot, if that makes sense.

Other things I've learned / changed since the Clefairy plush back in April:

• The eyes are glued on again, but I bought actual fabric glue rather than just using tacky glue. It seems to work better. (I sewed on all the other little felt bits, but I'd have to change the thread color several times when sewing the eyes and that just seems like such a pain...)
• Should put the weight beads in the next one, so it can sit properly...
• Actually learned how to ladder stitch! For the Clefairy, I ended up whip stitching all her limbs on because I didn't really understand the difference, oops.
• His tail is stuffed with foam flexible interfacing cut into shape, like you'd use for making a stiff quilted bag. It holds its shape really well and adds just a bit of uniform thickness, but not too much. I think that's the best solution for little flat details like that!
• Also, I drew out the arms and tail on paper and traced it onto the sock with a fabric marker rather than trying to roughly eyeball it, and, wow, that really makes your life easier!

Notes for the future:

• I ultimately decided against this since it's a present for a kid, but I still think it's a really cute idea to put little magnets in a plushie's hands so they can hold stuff! Like I was thinking about making a ketchup bottle or a custom box to put another little gift in with a washer embedded in it or something, but I was worried about how safe that would be.
• I also think it'd be really cute to make him some little (removable) accessories, like a Santa hat or a needlefelted birthday cake (like the card). I really need to ask what occasion these are for...
• I should also really research / practice making more defined, sharp lines in sewing. The tail didn't really come out as zigzaggy as I wanted it..

Besides that, I still haven't really decided what other Pokemon I should make for him. Like, I think the safe option would be to do the Kanto starters for a nice, cohesive set of mons, but that might be too safe, y'know? So I've been thinking about some Pokemon that

1. have a unique silhouette (within the set, at least),
2. have a fun color palette, likely bicolored with a few accents,
3. are visibly "Pokemon-y" (that is, not too reminiscent of a normal animal, but also not too out there, y'know?)

For some reason, my heart is telling me Luxio definitely needs to be one: he's just such a cute little angsty teenage lion boy! And maybe Jirachi...

Comments

[blueshiftofdeath]

SOOOO CUTE!! 🥺 You did a great job!! And I love the magnet idea 😆 I'm also interested in the rest of your sewing journey... I started doing embroidery (although I haven't done it recently due to how busy I got) and it's made me very sewing curious!!

[batiferrite]

Thanks! <3 Oh, yeah, embroidery is fun and it goes along really well with sewing stuff; excited to see what you make, as well!