Monster & Maker
Tyo had a good friend’s birthday party to go to this weekend. (These pictures were squeezed in between her having a shower and leaving for the party, hence the wet hair.)
Said good friend has a mother who sews (quilts) and has given away home-stitched party favours at previous birthday parties. She also really liked looking at Tyo’s Closet Monster book, and even gave Tyo an old PJ shirt* she didn’t like to turn into a monster.
So naturally, Tyo wanted to give this friend a closet monster for her birthday.
The Inspiration Monster
I won’t go into too much boring detail. The inspiration monster was Gilmor Oothby, who also appears on the book’s cover. We did not follow the directions particularly, because Tyo doesn’t read directions very well and I couldn’t be bothered. We looked at the picture of the pattern pieces, but that was about it, especially since we wound up using mostly fabric scraps from the massive Scrap Stash of Doom , and not much in the way of the actual shirt, which had a cute penguin on the front that Tyo wants to applique to something else. And was a really soft, thin knit not really suited to monsterizing. The trickiest part was getting the bottoms of the feet and the bottom of the body approximately the right size—but fortunately, approximately was plenty good enough.
Monster Face
Anyway, Tyo managed a fair proportion of the construction, and I did the trickier bits, and while it was definitely a joint project I feel pretty satisfied that she held up her end of things. There was a modest amount of un-picking where we went too far off the rails (like forgetting to insert the arms), which was accomplished with only minor grumbling.
I am told his name is "Freddy."
The body is made out of one leg of what was once my favourite pair of jeans. When Buffalo Jeans discontinued their City X style, it was probably the first step on the road to making my own jeans, because man, nothing has quite matched them since. /sniff.
Back View
Every other piece of fabric on the body (aside from the head/mouth that was from the gifted PJ shirt) is a scrap left over from some other project on the blog. I’m tempted to list them, but it would be long and probably boring. How about you guys guess? Y’know, with all that free blog-reading time you have.
Pointy fingers.
The monster appears to have been well-received. I have a feeling we will be making more of these in the coming months…
There was a certain amount of goofiness.
*Turns out it was actually a nearly-brand-new shirt she got for Christmas. Oops.
Tanit-Isis Sews 
How fun! What a great gift! Great project, too! I didn’t know monsters lived in the closet – I thought they lived under the bed?! Silly me 🙂
Thanks! Well, Tyo has one of those raised beds with play-space underneath it, so the monsters had to migrate…
That’s terrific! I’ve seen that book but I know my kid won’t take it on. She likes the idea, but not the hard work 🙂 She should be very proud of this great finished object.
I was kinda surprised at how well Tyo held up her end… her version of “doing stuff together” tends to lean towards “me doing it for her” but we managed to multi-task and divide things fairly efficiently so there wasn’t much of her just sitting and watching me sew. It was good. 🙂
Aw he’s…cute. 😀 No seriously, good job both of you. He turned out really great, and would be an awesome gift! I hope Tyo’s friend liked him.
Thanks! He seems to have been well received. (Although I’m told he’s a little terrifying at night.)
Amazing, I need to find that book
I picked it up at our local Chapters, so it’s in print and should be readily available most places. 🙂
What an awesome gift. I think you may be making more of these in the near future.
Yeah, I suspect Tyo will be repeating this for most of the birthdays in the foreseeable future…
I really love it that your kids are interested in sewing, it seems to happen so rarely that sewing goes from one generation to the next. What a perfect starting point, something to show off, but it doesn’t have to fit. I love Freddy.
I don’t know if they are *really* interested, but I’m hoping they’ll at least pick up the basic skills (like I did) so if they decide to *really* get into it at some point it won’t be a big hurdle. Also, I’m pretty sure Tyo’s never going to find RTW pants that fit again once she outgrows the kids’ sizes with the adjustable elastic waistband, so I think it might be a survival skill for her…
He’s too stinkin’ cute! So cool that your girls are interested in sewing. My boy likes to try to help, but he’ll likely grow out of that VERY soon now. (Assuming he hasn’t in the last month and I just don’t know it yet.)
Well, I hope you can keep him open to it. My (macho, conservative farmboy) brother-in-law has admitted to really enjoying helping his mom with the sewing when we was young and having an interest in “those sorts of things”… so it is possible. And I think it’s pretty unforgivable that my husband was allowed to grow up without knowing how to sew on a button…
So cute and monster-y!
YAY!
That’s the most adorable monster I’ve ever seen! I used to love making sock dolls when I was Tyo’s age, but I didn’t have a lot of supplies so they were extremely basic sock dolls — hairless, armless, you get the picture.
My kids have no interest in sewing, but then they are not very crafty in general — even though I bought all the art supplies when they were toddlers and encouraged them to make messes. The closest we’ve come to any kind of craft interest is Middlest’s short-lived phase of tracing Pokemon characters.
Aww, poor naked sock dolls. I used to turn socks into Barbie clothes, when I was first sewing…
I am torn on the craft thing. On the one hand, I grew up with a serial crafter for a mother, so I can’t really imagine life without a slew of various supplies kicking around. On the other hand, then I have a slew of various supplies kicking around. Mostly with the kids I’m all about the art supplies, though. They both will go to town painting at the drop of a hat. I need to teach them how to use watercolours better, though… they keep using the acrylics and they never wash the brushes properly…
My husband is not really crafty (except for drawing) and his mother is not crafty at all. The absence of the urge to create perplexes me.
Too cute! I don’t have any kids (yet) but I’m such a sucker for funky little sewed dolls and crafts. You all did an awesome job!
It was pretty fun to relax and just fudge everything—not my usual sewing style. It worked out well, though. Thanks! 🙂
Great job, Tyo! I’ve been hoping Small Human Being will want to make a stuffed something, as it would use up some of my scraps, but so far it seems that she only wants to make clothing…
LOL! We should trade. I’d generally *much* rather help the kids make clothes than the stuffies Tyo always seems to want to make…
Although the scrap-busting aspect is pretty awesome.
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