D.I.Y. duck (part 2)

More duck instructions! Marissa will be pleased to know that her duck is completely finished!! (his feet and beak don't match, but as she is a 5 year old who dresses herself and I've seen her outfits something tells me she won't mind.)

So you can kind of tell by looking at the pattern and using your thinking hat to compare it with how a duck looks how the pattern ought to fit together. sort of.(or you can compare patterns to how my photos of a duck look, for those of you who inexplicably have never seen a duck)

so obviously the two halves of the big white duck shape get sewn together and stitch the tops of the wings together, too.

 the trousers are a bit complicated (or they were for me). you have to sew the tab at the bottom of the front half to the bottom of the tab shape on the other side

 then cut two small white squares

 and stitch them in to each side of the sort of bridge you've just sewn like you see above.

hopefully yours will look a bit like this (if you can understand my jumbled instructions)

Here's the head: You wrap the long rectangle you cut around the oval shape

like this:

then pin it down and sew

leave a small hole in order to flip it inside out (to hide the seams)

ta-da!

the tail and wings are made by sewing together the identical pieces, leaving a small space to flip them inside out (again to hide the seams) then leave them to sew on in a moment. 

Because now we're doing the Yellow Bits!

First cut a bill out of yellow fabric. You'll notice it's shaped a bit like a cartoon devil head. the curled horns are important as they are the duck's "smile". Next cut out a bit of red fabric roughly the same shape as the beak, but a bit smaller. 

cut the yellow beak in half and sew it together to give it a curved top!

The bottom part of the beak should be a slightly smaller version of the top beak, but without the devil horns or the curve. Just make the top completely straight. 

Then pin the red and yellow together and sew. I used yellow thread and you should, too!

give the beak a bit of stuffing, because no one likes a flat beak.

and now it's ready to be sewn on! 

 p.s. yes, the bottom beak should look like the photo above! 

 pin on and hand stitch it on (with more yellow thread

 first sew on the top, then the bottom, and if his beak is open too wide you can just stitch a bit of the corners together. 

and now for legs! because a legless duck sounds like the plot to a silly joke.

 These are the shapes from the legs and feet. just measure out a size that seems appropriate.

 next you cut toes out on the slightly bigger pieces of fabric

 pin the edge of one leg together and sew, then repeat for the other leg.

 flip it inside out. for a moment it should look a bit like a penis. this is very important to the process.

 and you've got yourself a duck leg! use a pen or screwdriver to fill it with stuffing. just like a real taxidermist. Then stuff the other one!

 just like this!

 the wiggle them inside the white trousers and sew them on (with white thread). I would stitch straight through the leg and trousers with each stitch (picture it like cutting a pizza, with the legs/stuffing as pizza and the trousers as crust. you would cut straight across the pizza, right?)

 pin the toes so that they have a slight bump in the middle and carefully sew them on.

 add a bit of stuffing to the foot and you have two perfectly good duck feet!

 now sew the edges of the bottom of the legs to the appropriate area of the foot!

hooray!! 

finally stitch on the wings and tail in appropriate looking areas and then embroider on some eyes (or buttons, you lazy thing!!) and FINALLY:

a duck is made. 

I hope the instructions are at all readable. I promise I'm not drunk, I just don't know all the anatomical terms for, say, the space in-between the duck's trousers. I also promise to read up thoroughly on duck anatomy before my next post. 

How I Got A Head

I completely forgot to post pictures of this fabric head in a jar, which I finished last week. I swear, sometimes I think I'd lose my head if it weren't in a huge obvious glass jar (freshly windex-ed). This is sort of a 3-d version of my heads in jars painting which was pictured 5 posts ago, only I just have the one head so far (since these are the only colours of fake fur and felt I had to work with and identical heads would be confusing and weird). I think he is the head on the far right. Also? It turns out heads-in-a-jar(s?) are very hard to photograph because of the glare (so maybe the windex was a bad idea) so keep in mind this guy is much cooler in real life!

 P.S. In case you were wondering: yes, he is roughly life sized!

D.I.Y. Duck

My cousin, Marissa (aged 5), came for a visit. It was unavoidable that we played with my stuffed duck, which she has cleverly named Other Little Fabian (alias Duckerella). We acted out that classic children's tale Duckerella, which is about a lovely duck who had been turned into a girl by some kind of evil-duck-hating-wizard and who wanted nothing more than to use the prince's secret laboratory at the ball to create a re-ducking potion. At some point during the process of feeding Duckerella numerous potions (Duckerella sadly kept changing him/herself into various animals, flowers, fruits, people, and at one point a toilet) I realised that Marissa obviously needed her own stuffed duck. It dawned on me that perhaps there are more children out there who are stuffed duck deficient, so I have now recorded my duck making process for other kindly cousins (or parents?) to copy. I am, however, doing it slowly, so today here are the white coloured bits:

 pictured here left to right: tail, right wing (above), left wing (below), head (top 3 pieces), body (bottom 3 pieces)

 pictured here: how to make sure s/he has those hilarious feather trousers (as every duck should)

also below are close-ups of the head so you can picture how the parts go together (the eye is embroidered, but very small buttons would do for the lazy). See how the strip is the top, bottom, front and back of the head and the ovals are the sides.

next time: sewing together and the yellow bits (beak and feet!)

Inspiration sometimes sucks

Sometimes when you really miss someone you have a lot of anxious excess energy. Right now this is the case with me, but my energy feels like it isn't doing much more than burning holes in my head, so this last week I decided it was time for some of that energy to be burned off! One of my favourite friends is my pet duck, Little Fabian. Unfortunately for me, I am currently stuck in San Jose, CA (not my favourite of places at the best of times) for at least several months while my duck enjoys the hospitality of some very nice new friends (and their ducks) in Essex. The entire situation has been really difficult and painful for me, but I've finally gotten some interesting art out of it.

To begin with (for reference) here are some photos of Little Fabian: one of him with angry eyebrows (made of pond scum), one of him with spinach stuck on his bill, and one of him wearing a tiny hat!

 as you can see he lived in my room and was VERY friendly and cuddly...

this last photo gives you a good idea of his size and shape. 

And HERE is what I've spent the last couple days making:

He's hand sewn out of an old white scarf and some yellow felt I found around the house and I've hand stitched his eyes myself. Obviously he isn't as good as the original (meaning my duck of course) and he's not as good at going for walks in the park, but he's still quite cute!