For the last couple of months, I’ve had a zip lock pouch in my bag that held everything I needed to make ‘The Misfit’. A cross stitch pattern kit from Heritage Crafts. I ended up stitching a polar bear hiding in a bunch of penguins. The kit has eight colours of floss, but by occasionally using two different colours in the same stitch they manage to achieve ten different colour combinations. You start with all the cross stitches and then you define the animals by adding the back stitch.
After I finished all the cross stitches, you could sort of see the critters starting to appear, but by gradually adding the back stitch you can really see them come alive. I didn’t finish this in a few sittings, this thing went all over the country with me since October. It’s small and flat enough to bring anywhere and easy enough to pick back up at any time. I finally finished it on December 20th and have now framed it and it’s hanging on my wall with some of my other cross stitch projects.
As mentioned in the Whale Bag post, I also purchased the Penguin – Pinguïn pattern from Waffle Patterns. Since it’s of course imperative to make that penguin bag as soon as possible, I set out to gather my materials. I wanted the bag to look like a real-life penguin, so I bought a white felt-backed curtain fabric for the belly. For the body, I used the same kind of fabric as for the whale, just in black. While the penguin closest in markings might be an Adélie penguin, I didn’t have appropriate orange fabric for the feet, so I chose the whale grey curtain again.
I looked over the instructions and the pattern pieces and decided that I did want to make one major change to the pattern. To increase the size of the inner pocket, I wanted to use all available space to store stuff in. So I measured the body pieces and made an estimation of how big I thought the inside could be. To make the biggest possible pocket, I added circular end sections so that the inside pocket would be shaped like a cylinder. The other addition is to add a zipper to the bottom seam, so I could stuff it after finishing all the sewing.
As usual, the instructions for a Waffle Patterns pattern are very thorough and clearly laid out. In the end, I did almost all the steps but in a very different order. I added some extra d-rings, one to the belly pocket as an embellishment, similar to the snap in one of the original examples. All the way at the end, I undid a little bit of the tail seam to add the other extra d-ring as an attachment point. I had just recalled this pin and this pin and thought I could combine the animal fanny pack and thigh bag thing together.
It all came down to the straps to get those ideas working. So I set out to build the those straps. I wanted two separate ones with side release buckles for easy on-off. A long one that could transform from waist to cross body/over the shoulder strap and a shorter one for thigh or hand strap. I didn’t have enough of the webbing to make the shorter one, so I used the same strap that I used to attach the d-rings for that one.
The long straps comes in two parts, a short part that just has the swivel clip and one side of the side release buckle. The long section has a swivel clip, a slide buckle and the other side release buckle. The length is such that when it’s fully doubled, it fits my waist, but it’s also extendable enough that it fits as cross body. The thigh strap measured to be somewhat too long for my leg, so I could also wear it with wide pants and stuff. I added a snap to the end so that the excess length could be doubled up and snapped away when it was used as a hand strap. I think this will work really well. I can use any of the three top d-rings for whatever configuration of strap I want.
Camouflage thigh strapWaist strap onlyCross body option
I really like this penguin too. I’ve found that I’ve taken the whale bag out a few times the last couple of weeks. It’s really fun and super nice to pet. I hope that will be the same for the penguin. I cut him in such a way that the nap would run down his body, and forward on his beak, so he would be super pettable too.
A little penguin necklace for those days that needle a little more joy.
One Tuesday, I was sitting in my house, enjoying my day off and thought: what will I do today. The answer turned out to be ‘browse for small embroidery patterns and make a tiny hoop necklace’. I’ve had these small hoops in the collection for a while, but forgot they existed so I bought more not very long ago and then promptly found the others. I hadn’t actually finished any yet, so now was the perfect time. I figured out how big the embroidery could be (14 by 14 stitches in the circle) and went on to look for ‘alpha patterns’. I think they are used for friendship bracelets, but it works well for cross stitch too.
The pattern I used was of a little penguin and made by RIVAI. You can find it here. I added some extra stitches to the bottom to fill the frame. I only used four colours, but they were very effective. The black penguin has a white belly, an orange beak and a light blue background. It’s just that little bit derpy that it becomes adorable. It also makes me think of the Pengu cartoon penguin, so that brings much joy!
Making a gigantic paper penguin that defied size expectations.
After the dinosaur, I felt like playing around with some more papercraft. The pattern I chose was the Penguin (standing) by Methakura. There were three penguins available and I chose the standing one for no apparent reason. Looking back, that dancing one or the belly glider are very cute too. This papercraft requires thicker paper (200 gr/m2) in three colours: black, white and pink. I have accumulated black, white and ‘kraft paper colour’, but no pink. Therefore, I decided to print a large, vaguely orange (I hate pink) rectangle and print the pattern on the back of that. This worked out fine. I was pleasantly surprised that I could even sort of read the black lines on the black paper, magic I tell you.
Putting it together went perfectly well until the last 3 steps, but that’s what usually happens in papercraft, the end is the hardest. What did surprise me halfway through, is how epically large this thing is. For some unknown reason, I was convinced it was only going to be like 10 cm high for most of the construction. Even though the front says it’s 29 cm high and it required 7 pages and the pieces I was cutting out were over 10 cm by themselves. Somehow that denial was going strong for too big a part of the process. The one change I made was to not add the eyes, I’m not sure where to put them exactly and therefore I’m leaving him blind. I do think he’s cool and I want to find him a nice new home. That size though..
As mentioned in Kevin the Owl, I’ve somehow amassed a decent stash of cuddly fabric that I need to sew up. So yesterday after work, I decided to take another stab at it. This would involve a really cute free penguin pattern from Sew Desu Ne/Cholyknight. It’s a penguin lying on its tummy with an adorable tail sticking up. He’s made of black, white and ochre cuddly fabric and some black and white felt.
Face!
Top
Tummy
Last night, I sewed on the eyes and prepared the face by adding the black forehead and sewing that down. Then this morning, the rest of him got sewn together in about 2 hours. I’m for sure not the fastest sewer, but it was a nice process nonetheless. Most of the pattern came together easily apart from adding the tummy. I think I stretched the fabric a little so I had to really manipulate it to fit and then I went back for a bit that was not very oval-shaped anymore. Still, he worked out wonderfully well.
One side
Tail side
Other side
He’s quite small, which is nice. The one thing I changed from the pattern is that I didn’t add pink blush ovals under his eyes. I don’t like pink and he’s cute enough as is. I’m not at all sure what I’ll do with him, but he’ll probably be hanging out in my house for the foreseeable future.
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