2012/365 - Day 306

almost...almost...almost!

Okay!  I have the design/look/idea of the guys that I will submit to the gallery for the holiday season.  The Holly Dolly is in my head and 99% ready to tweak.  Yay!

I have been at this all day with only a couple of short breaks, but once I get everything placed correctly and figure out the order in which to do things it should start to go quicker.  I know it isn't looking like much right now, but this is just the mock up...the poor little mock up that has been torn apart and re-started about 9 times today.

Fingers/glove parts pulled from my stash this morning...these guys are going to be colorful!

The bag has what will become ears (formerly thumbs from gloves).

The longer ones (separate fingers) are for arms and tails.

And ha!  I knew I had a plastic jar of finger tips and thumbs -- I rarely throw things away!

Okay -- so if this is an animal/creature/cat-ish guy...maybe ears like this would be good...but do they go inside or outside of the top seam?

Does the head get roundy or stay flat?  Does the creature get a neck or just head-shoulders?  I will try the roundy head with a neck.

And now the body...do I leave that top stripe in?  Is this too long?  I like an elongated stuffed creature.

And how about the insides?  Do I try and save my stuffing as long as possible and just use the excess knitted material as stuffing?

And the arms...do I make one long one and insert it so that there is enough on each end -- or do I cut the arms and sew them on separately...and while I'm at it...inside of the seam or on top of the seam?  Try and hide the stitching or let it show like stitches?

Well -- I didn't like the balloon effect of the roundy  head and neck so I tried cutting all the threads I'd used to attach the head.  There is always one you forget...this is still attached at the right side...LOL

Also, he was just too long in the torso.  I cut off the top stripe.  
I decided to stuff him with stuffing and cut away the excess knitted material.

Stitches?  I will have to see as I go along.

And this tail looks curvy because the pins are doing that -- I am not sure I can get the thread to do it.

Thanks to Suzanne I have some straight pins now.  I think I probably should have just been pinning from the beginning -- but I don't sew well enough (yet) to be totally able to see what the pins are showing me.  It was only this afternoon that I realized I needed to pin on top and on bottom to get a feel for how the stitching will hold things in place.

When I tried the pins the first time I just put one in the arm and it skewed the look, making the arm look like it was folding backwards.  Then I added the pins like the way the thread will go in...yep, that is better.

Okay -- this is basically it...now I will sew the sample and see how it goes.  I really still think I can get these done tonight.  AND the Holly Dolly.