Worktable Wednesday: I Finished a Pattern!

Woo Hoo! Lots of excitement in the studio this morning!!!! I spent days and days on prototyping a new pattern which came out so great. Here's a sneak peek!

 This pattern is going to be so great you guys!

Unfortunately, I had to put this one aside because I realized I needed to do a freebie for my email subscribers and a freebie for you lovely blog readers too.

So I started work on a new pattern for Earth Day ( April 22nd ) that was completely and already designed in my head, I just needed to make it. I also decided to make this pattern using my newly design PDF format and listing it in my shop after my email subscribers received it.

Here's a sample of the the pattern. I'm so excited by how awesome it looks!

Here's the final finished piece. Isn't he adorable? My original design in my head had him holding a rainbow over his head but I decided to simplify the design.

My newsletter will go out later today and this pattern will be available in my shop on Friday, April 15th. It's listed at a discount price until Sunday April, 17th. Click on link below to go to the listing.

This pattern is now in my shop.

I'll have the Earth Day FREEBIE just for my blog readers next week so check back for that!

Worktable Wednesday: A Change In Direction and Progress On Some Dolls

I've made a decision about my business, I'm going to become a mostly pattern based business. This means you lucky people will be able to make your very own Sassy Packrat Creations! I will probably need pattern testers to try out some of them and get feedback, so be on the look out for that announcement if you are interested.

This will be a slow process and I'll still show wips and for sale work that I'm doing. I'm hoping once I have things all set up I will have more freedom to join art challenges and do more commissioned work. Like I said I'll be doing this slowly over time so there will always be something to see going on here. I'll also continue to offer FREE patterns here.

 Now on to what's on the worktable today.

This doll is coming along. I love this cherry blossom fabric. Arms, hair, shoes and accessories need to be made.

Here's the second girl on my worktable. I have the most amount of progress done on this pretty girl. Tunic, leggings and an over vest.

 Working on some embroidery for the vest.

 I love to add flowers on anything I can.

 I even put the dreaded french knots on it. This time they came out really well, whew!

 Done, now she just needs shoes and hair. This doll is getting a modern Asian look.

 Sorry these last pics are so yellow, it's crappy and rainy here. Closer view of the vest.

Worktable Sneek Peeks: Hippity Hoppity Bunny Love.

I've been working my butt off over here making lots of bunny goodness for my shop update. 

Here's some peeks. Subscribe to my newsletter and get a first look at all these finished products before anyone else, plus a special coupon code only for my subscribers! http://eepurl.com/bwPx-D

 Sweet bunny dolls.

Working on bodies.

 Lots of bunny bods.

 Making pants similar to the wolf.

 So fun and colorful!

Doing the finishing details.

The girls need their clothes too.

Making some special hoop art too.

I'm so super excited about everything going on in the studio, I'm just grinning from ear to ear and I hope these peeks have made you smile too!

Still Here Working Hard

Sorry for the long delay in posting. I'm pretty exhausted everyday after designing, creating, marketing, doing social media for my business and family obligations. This blog was one thing always in the back of my mind that I couldn't push myself to do.

I've created a editorial calendar for my blog which has a schedule for when and what to blog. I hope this will keep me more on track.

Still working on my product launch for next month. Time's growing short and I have so much to do! Being crazy busy, I of course decided to move my studio around. I have less floor space now but I was able to get more supplies in here with me from other parts of the house. I'll do a video once I get art hung up and it's tornado aftermath messy right now as I get ready to finish these products.

 Here's a promo I did for my upcoming launch.

 

 There's going to be some hoop art.

 

 Bunny orinies too.

 

 As many dols as I can get done in time.

 

The fun color palette I'm using.

 

Part 3 Day of the Dead Chihuahua

Ok so we left off with the head finished. Then I started on the front legs. I saved them for last because I knew they would have to be strong enough to hold the head up so the piece wouldn't tip forward. I designed the front legs several times, beefing them up and making them longer before I added the markings and the embroidery.

I also enlarged the front paws. My chi Olive is super petite with tiny paws but my client's dog has bigger paws. I also needed a very small gusset for the bottom of the paws to what would be a wrist on a human and the bendy part on a dog's leg. I also added the color markings on the legs. On the inner part of the legs there isn't much hair so there is a light skin color to represent that area which you can't see here.

 Checking the size and fit of the front legs. Also checking the coverage of the embroidery. Is there enough? Does it need more?

Sewing the bottom of the front paws on. The entire piece was hand sewn from the inside, like you would on a sewing machine, except the front legs which were sewn from the outside. Teeny tiny stitches are my favorite. The bottom of all the paws have a small piece of cardboard so the feet lay flat and to give them extra stability. Also I added little black paw pads to all the feet. You don't really see them when the piece is sitting but I feel like it finishes everything off.

 I pinned the tail on and felt like the butt was too bare. This is an instance when I embroider on an already stuffed piece. It takes longer and was more difficult but I felt like the piece wasn't complete without it.

 Then I felt like the back of the head was too blank and added to that too. I used this material to embroider over since it wasn't flat and I needed a guide to keep things neat. I usually free hand embroider but sometime do it this way. I carefully tear off the material when I'm done stitching.

 There is embroidery on the front chest that I forgot to take pics of. This view really shows off that under belly gusset with the color markings. I needle sculpted the stomach area to give it that chihuahua look of a large rib cage to a smaller belly. Then I made a collar with a name tag.

 The flower crown itself took about 4 days. It's all hand cut and hand sewn. I wanted to make it removable but needed more time to work out how to do it, so ended up just sewing it on. There are full roses and also rose buds with leaves.

The whole project was about 5 weeks from start to finish. Huge project and such a challenge but I'm so glad I did it. If I do something like this again I'll start with the head and work out from there to keep the size down.

My client was really pleased and posted this photo of the piece with it's namesake.

  Hope you enjoyed my ramblings of the process. If you missed PART 1 and PART 2 of this process, make sure you click those links to see whole whole project.

Interested in making your own easy felt project? Join my newsletter and get access to FREE fun patterns! Click here to subscribe!

Part 2 Day of the Dead Chihuahua

I left off at working on how to attach the back legs. Once I figured that out I embroidered the designs on the legs. You can see my pencil drawings of designs I thought I might use for this project.

 The pads on the back paws were way too small and I ended up changing those later.

The head took the longest to make out of the whole piece. It was 2 steps forward and 3 steps back, scrap everything and start again kind of process. Below is a not quite right head with a too short snout. 

 

I had to leave it alone for a few days and step away before I decided to start a brand new head. It's really hard to give up so much work and start again, but it had to be done. See how short the snout is? Ugh! Lots of swearing.

 Gussets on the body made them a necessity on the head too for the proper shape and size. I made about 4 heads before I got the proper size and snout length. ( my art tends to have over large heads, so I did that here too) Then I had to figure out how to add the color markings. I made a black head with a tan under the chin gusset and then drew out the markings, cut them from tan felt and wrapped them onto the face. I stuffed the head to get the proper shape and sewed the markings on.

All the markings positioned and held by pins to check for fit.

Most of the markings sewn onto the head. Just needs her nose and ears and some face sculpting.

I gave her a little pink splotch on her nose but later took it off cause I felt it looked too cartoony. The giant needle sticking out of her face is a sculpting needle. It's used for needle sculpting cloth doll faces. I used it to further shape the top of the snout. I also added spots for the whiskers at this time.

Stay tuned for PART 3 HERE. If you missed PART 1 you can find it HERE.

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Monday's Worktable.

I have finished my commissioned soft sculpture piece! My client hasn't seen it yet so I can't show it until she does. But here is a sneak peek I put up last week.

 I can show wips of my 2015 Christmas Collection which I'm pretty excited about.

 Beginning sketches, turn into tighter sketches which turn into paper patterns.

 A young deer is my first design, I think I'll put a bow on it and make it a girl.

 I have a deer with little antlers and a red nose too. I'm currently working on a snowman and a Santa, what else should I make?

Condo Work In Progress

We had to move into our condo very quickly after closing. My brother is renting our previous house from us, his girlfriend and her daughters were moving in with him and her lease was up Nov 1st. So we didn't have time to paint the bedrooms like we hoped to do. They are white like you'd find in an apartment but the living, dining hallway and kitchen were all painted...weird.

We got the condo for a really good price since it's a buyers market here. And because of that we were able to do some upgrades right a away which honestly this place needed. The first thing we did was change out all the kitchen appliances which basically were from the 1980's and some didn't even work.

 It was touch and go finding a fridge we wanted that would fit in this space but in the end we got one.

It took weeks to find and order a range fan that wasn't attached to a microwave. We didn't want to have the microwave above the stove because me mom's hands are very weak and it's too dangerous for her to try and lift things from that height.

We decided to paint the cabinets. They are good solid wood and the work flow was great. We used a product by Rustoleum just for cabinets. It wasn't hard to do but it was very time consuming. It took my daughter and me about 2 weeks total to do them from start to finish. We had to pry all the hardware off and fill in all the holes before we even started. It got too cold to do the doors in the garage like I originally planned so there were doors everywhere.

Next post I'll show our new countertops.