Updates: House-Buying, Saguaro, Blanket, Doll and More

I don't usually do updates but there are a few little things I feel like I should mention so... I'm going to mention them!

House-Buying Update: We are still buying a house but its going to take longer than we thought. Expect not to hear anything from me for a couple months this fall while we move.

My Texas Saguaro: I visited my parents last month and took another photo of the saguaro cactus in their yard (above). It's still growing like crazy (previous pictures are here).

Pixel Art Blanket: I've got two or three more rows finished on the Mario blanket, but not enough to bother posting a photo. I have made a video that shows the method I'm using to attach the granny squares to the blanket as they are made (instead of sewing them together afterward) but I don't know if I should post it now or wait until the whole thing is finished.

South Park Felt Doll: I've made a felt doll of Kenny from South Park, like the IT Crowd dolls I made a few months ago. Kenny's hood comes off so his face can be seen and there is an alternate Mysterion costume (Mysterion is Kenny's superhero alter-ego). I need to get my husband to take some good photos of him and then I can do a post.

Special Project That May or May Not Happen: I've been asked to do a project that has me incredibly excited, but at this moment I'm not sure if it's actually going to happen. I would feel silly if I posted about it and then nothing ever happened, so I'm going to force myself to wait until I know for sure. So if it does happen, you'll hear about it ASAP. But if I never mention it again, you can assume it fell through. Fingers crossed that it doesn't!

IT Crowd Dolls: Moss, Jen and Roy

Moss, Jen and Roy Dolls

Moss, Jen and Roy from The IT Crowd

Back in January I made a felt doll of Moss from the British sitcom The IT Crowd and now I've made his office mates Jen and Roy. The dolls are "cute" versions of the characters (the geek part of me wants to use the anime terms "chibi" or "super deformed"). I got my husband to use his fancy camera to take a bunch of glamor shots of them for me. Scroll down past the photos for construction information.

Maurice Moss. It's hard to see, but he even has wrinkly socks made out of panty hose.

Moss

Jen Barber, with the too-small red shoes she squeezed her feet in to in "Calamity Jen."

Jen

Roy Trenneman, who always needs a shave.

Roy

I used a very simple method to make these dolls.

How I made the pattern:

• I started with a blank doll body and sketched the clothes, hair and face on to it by hand.
• I scanned the drawing in to the computer, cleaned it up and colored it, then used the color drawing as my pattern.
• I had to do a little bit of adjusting to make the clothes fit over the stuffed body (usually just scaling them up a few percentage points on the computer) and the shoes required their own patterns, which I have included below.

How I sewed the doll:

• I used a whip stitch for all of the stitches.
• The fabric was sheets of synthetic felt, available for around thirty cents a sheet from most craft stores.
• Roy's stubble and the stripes on Moss' shirt were drawn with colored permanent markers.
• Using the blank doll pattern, I cut out the body from two pieces of felt. I embroidered the face on, attached the eyes then sewed the two pieces together around the edges, leaving the top of the head unsewed. I stuffed the body.
• I cut out the hair and sewed it to the head, stuffed the head, then sewed everything closed.
• I cut out the clothes from felt, added any details and sewed them on over the body. They're not removable.
• I made the shoes using the patterns below. Originally I tried to make the shoes flat like the rest of the clothes, but they didn't look right. After a lot of experimenting I came up with the sneakers and high heels patterns below.

Here are the drawings I used as patterns, the blank body patterns and the shoe patterns.

Moss drawing

Jen drawing

Roy drawing

Blank body - male

Blank body - female

Sneaker pattern (sew together the two sides marked "sew" then sew the sole to the shoe)

High-heeled shoe pattern (sew the toe and the back together, sew the sole to the bottom of the shoe then sew the top of the heel to the bottom of the sole)

I hope to make dolls of two more characters, Douglas and Richmond, at some point, but it is very likely we'll be moving in the next few months so we'll see how soon I get around to it.

Doll: Maurice Moss from The IT Crowd

Moss from The IT Crowd

(Update 2/9/12: I've made Jen and Roy dolls too!)

I have to admit that I didn't like the British sitcom, The IT Crowd, the first time I watched it. Actually, I didn't like it the second time either. It took three tries for me to get in to it, but once I did I was in love.

Moss, a geek who still lives with his mom, is my favorite character from the show. He's naive, sweet and not at all embarrassed by his geekiness. This is one of my favorite scenes from the show:

To make the doll, I drew a picture of what I wanted (below) and then just winged it. There wasn't really a pattern beyond that. If I could do it again, I'd make his pants a bit higher-waisted but other than that I am very happy with it.

The only real change I made from the pattern was his shoes - I tried to follow the pattern in the photo above but it just didn't look right. Here's what I came up with instead:

To make the shoe I sewed the two edges marked "sew" together, turned it inside out and then sewed the sole to the bottom.

If you'd like to make your own doll, here's a blank body you can use as a starting point:

I'd like to make dolls of Roy, Jen and Douglas from the show too. We'll have to see if I get around to it.