New Fat Cats!

Hello everyone! Wow, it's been awhile since I last posted! Apparently time has gotten away from me. So let's see what has happened throughout the last few months.

The holidays get crazy frantic with all the Fat Cat Pincushion orders going out. The grand tally was 238 cats, with some pigs and rats thrown in, went out to new homes in 2014! And the best seller for the holiday months was the Quilting Cat Doris (now available in 2 colors)!! Followed closely by the Reindeer Cat and the Scottish Bagpiper!

And so now onto some new styles for this year! 

Red and Green Care Cats

 Catrina: Day of the Dead Cat. I think I was most impressed with the felt flowers I made for the hair for the front of the dress. Her face is a mix of embroidery and paint.

Oliver: Cat in a Teddy Bear Costume(Custom request that I REALLY didn't want to give up). His hood is also removable and has cat ears sticking out behind the bear ears and are able to be seen from the backview!

Right now I'm also working on Police Officers, Firemen, Pilots, Artists, Librarians, Zombies, Seasonal Fairies and lots of custom requests! Any suggestions for some new Fat Cat styles to make in 2015? And I'm also thinking of adding in some non-pincushion Fat Cat items such as coffee cup cozies, ornaments and magnets into my shop this year

All these items, and more, are available in my Etsy shop to purchase!

Jack Fattington Cat Pincushion!

Hello all! Good grief it seems like I just keep getting sick! I've caught 3 different bugs in the last month and a half. Not acceptable at all. So I haven't had a chance to do all the fun projects I've got planned for myself. Good news is I only have another week of work and then I'm on vacation for TWO AND A HALF WEEKS!!! I've never been so happy in my life! I better get lots done in that time! But...at least I got one new Fat Cat Pincushion done.

Meet Jack Fattington!

He's made from felt and is stuffed with polyester fiberfill. He's made from my own patterns and stands approximately 5.5 inches (14 cms) tall and measures approximately 11 inches (28 cms) around the belly.

If you'd like to see him in my Etsy shop, click HERE!

 Still to come: Sally and a zombie girl fat cat pincushion and lots of Halloween stuff!

Come on vacation, you can't come fast enough! 

Bellatrix Lestrange Costume...part 2...the corset

And I've moved onto step 2 of the Bellatrix Lestrange costume: the dreaded corset. With looking at the refernce pictures I saw that it didn't look like there were any front panels or boning in the design. So I wanted to make it as sturdy as possible with the least amount of panels. I opted to divide the corset into 4 pieces. So I drew out a rough idea of what I think corset pieces should look like. And somehow it actually worked. 

I still need to go back in to shape up the top and bottom edges, or better term to make it more ragged, and to add in all the cuts and stitches, but I'm pleased with the shape. It's not perfect but I think it's pretty good for not really knowing what I'm doing. I even managed to get the front lacing to work properly. 

Next step, get those small black eyelets and make up those sleeves.

New Fat Cat Pincushions: Harley Quinn and Shirley Temple

After how ever many months I've finally gotten a couple of new pincushion cats done!

Harley Quinn (AKA Hefty Quinn) is now my new favorite! I will admit she took a bit of time to figure out her patterns to get the right proportions, but I love the final product. Only took 3 tries, but that's how it goes...

She's in her classic red and black jester catsuit, white bib and over-sized mallet.

 Shirley Temple Fat Cat was made for a custom request. She's wearing a pink ruffled dress, white tap shoes (I added small beads to the bottom so that she makes a slight noise when put down) and signature curly locks.

 And I also added in a removable silver tiara.

The cat pincushions are made primarily of various colors of felt. They are completely functional pincushions for sewers or can be used as a cool decorative pieces. The majority of these are hand sewn.

They stand approximately 5.5 inches (14 cms) tall and measures approximately 11 inches (28 cms) around the belly.

Still to come: Zombies!  

Upcycled Wedding Guestbook DIY Project!

I've completed my first wedding project! The wedding guestbook. Ta Daaaa!

My mom found her old guestbook, which she forgot to bring out at her wedding therefore it was unused. So I decided that I was going to convert her guestbook into our new fancy Halloween-ish guestbook. And it's my something old! 

 (Original Guestbook - not quite the look we were going for)

 I knew I planned on wrapping the book up in fabric and then placing a cool piece of scrapbook paper for the front cover. I didn't really want to buy new fabric so I went through my fabric stash and came across a black crushed velvet. Hated the crushed velvet but liked the look of the matte reverse side. Plus it has stretch to it, so I could pull the fabric real tight without worrying about wrinkles. 

And I decided I wanted to put a piece of paper inside the covers as well. Originally I was going for a picture frame sort of effect with the paper attached first therefore being under the overlapped fabric. Now that it's done, I wish I would have done it in reverse with the paper on top of the fabric. But my fiance likes it better this way and he made me promise that I wont rip it apart and do it over, which I'm really considering doing.

(Inside back cover in progress) 

(Finished back cover)

(Finished front cover)

So pretty much the steps were for this exact book:
1. Measure, cut and glue in the front and back inside cover paper panels 
2. Measure and cut out the fabric with enough room to overlap to the inside covers
3. Glue the fabric down to the book. I started with gluing it to the spine first, then just kept molding it along the front and back. Again, the stretchiness of the fabric helped wonders with it.
4. Measure, cut and glue the front cover to your book.
5. Add on sticker letters.
6. Marvel in your own awesomeness for putting together such an amazing work of art.

It did take me a few hours to do this though. But once I got over the fear of possibly ruining my mom's old guestbook, and dove in headfirst, it went a lot faster. I think I had the hardest thing was placing the stickers since they were so thin and swirly. They were a bit of a nightmare to set them exactly where I wanted them. But afterwards, you have an awesome DIY/up-cycled guestbook that everyone, even yourself, will be impressed with!

(Before and after shots)