First of all, I must apologise because I am SO far behind on blogging my makes, but I’m trying hard to catch up. The problem is that I have such limited energy for sitting up that I’ve got to ration it, and when I do, I tend to want to actually sew than sit at my laptop and blog! So I’ve got well over a month worth of makes to show you, and only two weeks before we go away on a short break, so I may just end up taking photos while we’re away to make it a bit easier.
In any case, today’s round up contains a LOT of makes, some of which stretch back into March, eep.
So many bat plushies!
It all started when I saw this BeeZee Art Bat Plushie pattern and posted it to my vampire Discord, where everyone went nuts over it. Which prompted me to buy the pattern and make it for myself, and then a few for friends, and now I’m at the point where I’m pretty much making these for all my friends’ birthdays, hahah!
I’ve not really sewn any plushies before (unsurprisingly, since I don’t really know any children), but this pattern is excellent, and I would not only recommend it, but it’d tempt me to try one of the other many patterns from this creator, too.
This bat pattern comes in standard, and 150% scale version. I figured I’d start off with the bigger one since it might be a bit easier to handle, then move to the smaller one, but tbh I only ever stayed with the 150% version because it’s fiddly enough! My friends all love the size of this one so I don’t see much need to ever make the smaller version.
The pattern calls for minkee for the exterior, but that’s surprisingly expensive, so I had a look in my stash instead. I’ve got loads of sweatshirting offcuts so I’ve sewn all of mine using the reverse, fleecy side of the sweatshirting as the exterior, which is a perfect fit! To round it off, I bought toy pellets, safety eyes, and stuffing off of eBay, which are all kinda new territory for me.
After sewing the first two, I didn’t really need to look at them anymore though, so I just kinda do the pieces in my own order to minimise time standing at the iron.
Designing the Armand fabric
A vampire friend’s birthday was coming up in May, and it was a milestone birthday, so I wanted to do something really special for her bat plushie. So with the help of another, mutual friend, we created some custom fabric designs. First, Ann drew sketches of the vampire Armand’s face (birthday friend’s favourite character), and some blenders (IYKYK). I then cleaned these up, vectorised them, and put them into a repeating pattern in Photoshop along with some blood splatters in the background.
I then got two metres of this printed at Maake (formerly Fashion Formula) – first, onto their Raleigh Satin base, which was on closeout so really cheap (£8.50 for a whole meter instead of a fat quarter!).
It’s a lightweight satin with a lovely hand but it is an absolute PITA to sew because it runs/snags like crazy if your microtex needle or any pins are even slightly dulled. I was having to test each and every pin on a piece of scrap fabric before using just in case they caused a big, ugly white pulled thread in the bat itself…
This photo is from a bias cut shell top that I had to abandon after ONE false needle insert ruined it all! I cut it up into scrunchies though, but after this I tested every. single. pin. on scrap fabric before using it on my project. 😫
Booty shorts, Headbands, and Scrunchies
The birthday friend and I had a running joke about booty shorts, so I knew I wanted to sew her a pair while I had the chance, but these would obviously require stretch fabric.
So the second fabric base I printed onto was Maake‘s “Eco Legging” base, also on closeout so really cheap (£10 for a whole meter). It’s nowhere near as nice as the usual bases I use for activewear (Active or Recycled Eco Lycra), but it’s fine for these purposes.
I used our Tenacity Leggings pattern, but trimmed to a 2in inseam, and without any of the waistband pockets.
Unfortunately this base fabric has quite a bit of white show-through when stretched, another reason why I wouldn’t choose it for activewear that isn’t a novelty.
I then had quite a bit of fabric leftover from both yardages, so I used the Seamwork Drew headband pattern to make a headband for the birthday girl as well as my fabric design collaborator. This one uses stretchy fabrics and is a great one-size-fits-all gift (even with my huge head)
And, as much as I detest scrunchies (having lived through them in the 1990s the first time around), so many of my fandom friends love them and demanded them from the last set of custom fabric I had printed that I had to make more.
So I took the remaining fabric and made a mix of fat and skinny ones for my friends to choose from. For my own future notes, I used rectangles of 7.5cm x 48cm (for the skinny, and including 1cm seam allowances), and 15cm of 1cm wide elastic.
A Final Bat & Pressie Pile
Before I cut the scrunchies out of the satin, the main use was for the bat wings for the birthday girl’s bat – the main reason for designing the fabric in the first place, really!
This bat is 150% scale like the others, and using leftover sweatshirting, but I made a point to find orange safety eyes since Armand’s eyes are an orange/red colour in the show.
So this was the full present haul for my friend’s birthday! Nearly entirely homemade, and also included some heat set vinyl cutouts and some custom rubber stamps that J carved on his CNC machine, too.
A Matching Bikini Top
She went absolutely crazy for her presents, and decided that she’d like to wear the hotpants as swimming trunks… so could I possibly make a matching bikini?? I’m not sure what possessed me to say yes, other than that I was sure it’d be a quick sew!
I did a bit of googling and found the free (but only via Makerist) Sirena Patterns Dollys triangle bikini top pattern. I measured my friend before she left and I used Size L to fit her (though she’s not large in the slightest?!), the size range being pretty limited.
The instructions made sense but were constructed in a way that had loads of raw edges that didn’t have to be there, plus none of the straps were reinforced with elastic?! This is a bugbear with mine on swimwear that has load-bearing straps – they will stretch out when wet and over time unless you reinforce them with elastic. I also used leftover swin lining instead of self-fabric in the inside.
I just completely wrote my own instructions after reading through the official ones, reinforcing everything with swimsuit elastic on my overlocker’s elasticator foot (which stretched out the elastic a little despite being on the loosest setting, just because the rubber elastic is a bit thick)
This bikini might be the stupidest (affectionate!) thing I’ve ever sewn! But she loves it and I giggle whenever I see the fabric, so why not spread a little joy?
But after all of the above, I think I’m finally sick of this fabric for a little while!