Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Making Tooth Fairy Monsters

The process of making my felt tooth fairy/money holder monsters is a bit more involved than one may think. I thought I would share it here so you could get a glimpse inside my creative world.

If I'm doing several of the same item I like to cut out all pieces at once. This way everything is ready for me to go and I can make them all at once. This saves time and makes the process a bit easier.  So to start out I cut all the pieces out for however many monsters I'm going to make (in this case just three since this was my first go at it). For one monster this would include two large squares (for front and back bodies) four leg pieces and the back pocket.
Since I embroider the faces I have to print out the designs so I can line them up correctly onto the body pieces.

Then I mark where the faces need to go. The next step is embroidering the faces. I hoop the square fabric and attach my hoop to the embroidery machine and let it go. Some faces take longer to embroider than others. I did design these faces myself using eyes/mouth designs I have (that can be a tedious process in itself).
 Now I can begin sewing! I sew the pocket on the back part of the body first. Then I sew the legs together.
Next it's the body pieces. I draw the outline of the body on the front piece and use it for my stitching line. 
I then cut away the excess felt and turn everything right side out.
Stuff him, sew him closed and ta-da! a cute monster doll waiting for the tooth fairy to come!

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