G[r]eek Alphabet - so long and thanks for all the fish

Amazingly, astoundingly, I am done. The main sewing started in August and has gone on sporadically ever since. I finished the fronts a little while ago but then had to make all the backs and the base. Thankfully my Mum came to the rescue with the hanging and making a pole for it to hang from and machine sewing on the velcro.

But the backs were a little bit of a chore. So in order to get them done I forbade myself from doing much more on the final extra letters until I'd done the backs. The backs after a while were sort of meditative but the sewing through the velcro never really got fun. It's tough stuff, not as tough as fake or real leather but pretty tough all the same. I've had other things to do but I basically entered the home stretch recently and finally in the last week or so I started on the absolute last letter. I finished sewing the back to the front today on that letter and did some extra finishing touches, which I don't want to talk about (they're not all that exciting anyway).

So here it is hanging on the wall of my flat.

All that remains now is to give it to its intended recipient. He's a bit older than I planned - about 5ish months old and he won't be reading for a while but I am really looking forward to giving it to his Mum and Dad for him to enjoy.

Thank you all for your positive comments and thoughts along the way. I'm not sure what big project I'll do again but I'll be sure to let you know. In the mean time there are some plushies. I'm just about to write up a separate post about Doc Emmett Brown from Back to the Future which I finished at the end of January.

I STILL aten't dead - but Loki is done and dusted!

I stayed up all night to get Loki....or rather I dropped everything to finish Loki in time for Christmas as he's a present from one friend to another.

Loki's costume as I mentioned between the Thor films and Avengers and variants within is a complex costume. I am endlessly grateful to a friend of mine who having cosplayed a Loki had lots of reference pics to help me, and as another friend had made the costume I loved that I was using Loki cosplay offcuts to make a Loki plushie.

I essentially decided to go with a version of his golden-y armour to add a bit of extra bright to the other dull colour palate of dark green and blacks.



I had to plan how I was going to do it layer by layer as you can see from the drawings


I had a bit of time dithering about fabrics because although I wanted to use some of my fake black leather stash I just didn't fancy sewing too much fake leather. In the end I decided this Loki would not have leather boots as I just couldn't face an almost entirely leather base body.


Once I started making the basic body it was fiddly with several different fabrics coming together. I am always adapting the pattern but I'm also very forgetful of things that don't work.
As you can see here I forgot quite how to get the hair to come out above his face properly as I had been distracted by the slicked back seal like quality of Loki's hair in the movies.
Loki plushie came out looking bald not slicked back.

This then left me with essentially making a cap of hair to fit over the top and sew down to add to his hair.

That being more or less sorted I headed on to making the coat. I still wasn't entirely happy with the hair though. Although I always regret it while I'm using it I really wanted to make the zip like edge of Loki's coat using my metallic gold thread and I like to think it came out pretty darned well.

That being said the coat was made of a thicker fake leather than the basic body's tunic meaning it was really really annoying to sew.

I also carefully lined the coat only to remember he has 3 tails and had to unpick the side stitching and cut 2 v's in the back to make the three tails. Sadly after all that effort I didn't photograph that particular detail.

I then made the cloak. Before I moved on to make the helmet and staff I started to dither about the hair and consulted friends about possibly adding some thin wool so he had those sort of rats tails under his helmet. With at least one friend's affirmative I went ahead. As I sewed each one down individually it has come out looking a bit like braids but I don't mind it much.


The final details were the helmet and staff. I really wanted to make the pointy back shape of the helmet

But once I'd made the helmet, sewing a ridge for the pointy-ness just didn't work. Then I went on to the staff.

I originally planned to make it with just a few bits of pipe cleaner in yellow and grey and some blue cloth. But it didn't look all that great. I can't find any photos of it when it looked like that.

So I kept pipe cleaners for the basic staff, but used some felt sewn to a couple of layers of paper for the knife blades and scammed some blue beads off a friend for the jewelly thingy. With that it went off in good time for Christmas present gifting and both the person who had requested it and the recipient appear to like him very well.

But what about the ALPHABET?

What? An alphabet you say? No idea what you're talking about. OK OK I'm kidding. I'm still working on it after my brief hiatus but I'm at a dull stage. I'm making all the backs. There's not much to see as such.... I'm up to letter R and they're looking spiffy.

Here's a pic of it hung up at my parents' house when I'd got as far as O.

Sewing through the tough plastic-ky velcro strips has necessitated some new tools - rubber thimbles. They don't stop needle pricks completely but they do allow gripping and give some good protection, plus they're slightly warming! They look a bit weird though. I am however glad for the tip from a friend who suggested them.

G[r]eek Alphabet - Z is for Zaphod Beeblebrox

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking poetryghost you're a LIBRARIAN, shouldn't that be B is for Beeblebrox, Zaphod. Actually you aren't cos only librarians think these kind of thoughts but never mind.

I'm not 100% well and to cheer myself up at being not able to go to dance class I thought I'd catch you up on letter Z.

Zaphod is a fun character - fond of clashing outfits but also a bit suave. I decided I would make the colours as extreme as possible but preferably not eyewateringly painful to look at.

I started with the peach background and then added green and purple, notoriously bad colours to wear together. To make it bearable I toned down the green and the purple was darker anyway. I dithered over the letter colour for a while but ended up with dark greenish to contrast everything else going on and to avoid adding more colours to the palette.

I did worry initially about the skin being a beige colour and fading into the peach background but I figured if I gave him brown hair on his heads then that would help to outline his heads

So then I wanted a way to link the two halves of his shirt so that it didn't look like two guys hugging each other. So I created a zig zag across the edges using embroidery.

At this point the glass for his pan galatic gargle blaster was too dark on the dark of the green so I outlined it in white.

I realised that the pale green was also fading into the background too much, so I decided that having outlined one green sleeve in purple I could outline the whole of the green side in purple as well. I also outlined all the flesh in a very thin black line.

So there we are Zaphod Beeblebrox is complete!

Final news before bed - letter A now has a completed back and is completely sewn up! Yay!!!!!!!!!!

I aten't dead

Alphabet News

Z is for what exactly?

I know what you're thinking, where the frak is the letter Z for Zaphod Beeblebrox and well, you'd be right I haven't posted it yet. Stuff happened and things, things also happened. I reassure you dear reader, I have completed Z. In fact I've completed another of the extra letters. As part of being considerate and maintaining my friend's privacy over her child, I have decided I won't be posting any of those letters up. Although it is doubtful anyone could guess their name and surname just from seeing 3 extra letters I don't wish to run that risk.

Overall project progress

Further news - I've finally got all the velcro I need for the sticking up, and have started working on the attachment. The fuzzy half of the velcro is pinned in place on the backing cloth and my lovely Mum has attached a pole to the top.

I've even started sewing on the first back of a letter. I decided I would die of boredom if I made all the backs at once and then sewed them all on. So I will be making one back at a time and then sewing it on one at a time. This means that the letter A is almost completely done, velcro and all!!!! Wooo!

New plushie on the horizon

So someone asked me to make a new plushie, and not any old plushie........it's....erm Loki from Thor and Avengers movie.

I'm simultaneously very yay and a bit argh! Panic!

Today I thought I'd start working out what needs to be made and in what colours, and as always I was bemused by costume variants both within movies and between movies.

Clearly he will have a helmet. With horns. Obviously.
But then there's

• cape/no cape variants
• armour/no armour
• two different staves
  and
• various shoulder pad combinations.

 Obviously my plushie will not be a perfect copy of any of these outfits. I'm not made of magic people!

Currently my plan is :

• Basic body of plushie will have the tunic that sort of has a v cutout on the front
• Coat with no sleeves over the top lined with green mid calf length
• Cape attached to the coat with no sleeves in green

I can't work out if I will be putting the goldy armour on the coat or not but if I don't it will be quite dark. That's partly why I'm doing the cape. He wears a lot of black.

Anyhoo I will be asking my lovely friends who made a full scale femme version of the costume to help out and advise!

Links for reference

Loki cosplay tumblr
Loki cosplay photobucket picture refs

G[r]eek Alphabet - Y is for Yggdrasil

I've talked about this before but Yggdrasil is the world tree, a figure from Norse mythology.

This was going to be a composition with lots of greens and earth tones. I did debate whether to have a bright tree on a dark background or vice versa, but with some back up opinions I decided to stick with the dark tree on a slightly lighter background.

This following was testing out the colour for the letter Y (white) and the snake (greeny yellow).

I had looked up some deer pictures for colour reference but I decided that I needed a contrast and I couldn't face such fine hemming so I used some fake leather that wouldn't need hemming for both the tree and the deer.

Final debate was about the width of the letter Y. Mostly I've used this type of ribbon at full width but when I laid it over the tree, you couldn't see the tree either side.

 So instead I decided I would use it half thickness.

 This is an early stage of sewing down. The tree is partially sewn down, the tree also, the deer are started sewing and the snake is in progress.

 Snake completely sewn down, I'm on to the details! One of the things you can see from this picture to the next is that I've used embroidery to slightly tidy the outlines of the snake, specially at the head and tail. This was to smooth the outline which was hard to create while sewing down quite a thick snake.

 One of the things I decided late on was that the slight leaves embroidery was too bright. I decided to over sew with darker colours to tone it down. The squirrel, part of the original design was debated a bit as to whether I wanted to include it in such a busy design, but I decided I wanted a squirrel so I put him in. The raven however, did not make the cut.

Mythology Spot

For more lovely info on the mythos of Yggdrasil try this great article Norse Mythology : Yggdrasil and the Well of Urd.

In summary of the details I've included.

• The squirrel is Ratatosk - a messenger animal
• The snake is probably Nidhogg, a snake who gnaws at the roots
• The deer are two of the 4 that spend time in the tree. Their names are Dain, Dvalin, Duneyr, and Dyrathror. There wasn't room for 4 deer - sorry.
  

G[r]eek Alphabet : X is for Xena, warrior princess

I am well aware that I have followed to powerful women one after the other, but firstly I love both the characters, and secondly, you try thinking of some decent things for X! X-men would have been nice but the logo was quite what I wanted. ANYhoo...

So, Xena, yes, well she is kind of ace. I decided since she dresses is brown leather and I had some brown fake leather I would use it. I knew it would be a challenge but I really wanted to do it.

I tried to get Xena's clothing details vaguely right, so I had some of my usual picspam to help me (thank God for Pinterest).



Because it's hard to sew through fake leather (or real leather, I've never tried) and also tough to sew through multiple layers and other stitchery, I decided I would have to carefully pin things in place and sew through the leather first rather than sewing down the X, then the flesh of Xena's head and arms and then the dress as I would normally.

It had all been so much easier when I used the leather for the A for Athena

Xena does look a lil freaky with no hair but that's cos I couldn't be bothered to use fabric and decided to embroider it instead, ditto the sword.

I had intended that Xena's wrist cover would just be embroidery but in a fit of crazies I decided this would be too complicated and switched back to some more of the fake leather. Embroidering through 2 layers of fake leather, plus cloth (2 ish layers for the X and backing and interfacing) was challenging but fortunately it was a small area. Next I was on to the dress embroidering, followed by the arm bands and chakram, then the X and hair and face.

Final detail which I nearly forgot was the sword being carried on her back. Something I've just realised is I've accidentally put it over her right shoulder, making it easier to take out of its sheathe with its left hand. Mind you I'm sure Xena has done sword fighting with both hands and I'm a leftie also so tough!

I'm now slightly panicking about the more complex design for Y. Don't panic!!

G[r]eek Alphabet : W is for Wonder Woman

Some of you may know I've had some concern and care to make sure there is decent female representation on my alphabet, but we're coming to a small concentration now with Wonder Woman followed by, well, you'll see soon enough.

Anyhoo, first realisation was that the basics of the costume have varied a lot and so have the specifics.

Picspam alert!

See? I'm limiting myself a bit these days

Anyhoo, my first indecision was the background colour. Initial plan had been green like F, but I was debating dark navy blue, like the Tardis letter T. But I wasn't sure. I wanted to have a play while at work so I used my PicsArt App to draw onto the photo of the design to test out these options for contrast and design.

Although I like the blue and it would have been more of a piece, I decided that actually green would make the design pop a bit more. I also tried out 2 fabrics of green before sticking with my original choice. For this reason I made most of Wonderwoman as a single separate piece so I could lay her out on the two colours of backgrounds - a bit like with Icarus for the letter I (although that was positioning not about background testing).

As we've mentioned I just went with original green.  From that point it was pretty quick. I sewed down the W through Wonder Woman as part of sewing her in place. The yellow was an obvious choice for the W - to echo the gold on her costume.

Then I finished off the details. Cuff got sewn on, headband got sewn on, Shorts got sewn down, and the decorative embroidery - red star in the headband, gold detailing to corset, stars on the shorts all got added. Late on due to some slight shifting of fabric during sewing I found the neck had got a bit rumpled so I put some stuffing in behind the neck and shoulders  (and face) to disguise it.

Belatedly I realised I'd missed some tiny bits sewing (under her left arm) and not sewn in the magic lasso of truth! Can't leave that out!

I am a huge fan of this character and I love that her origin story (not comic book) but her creator, is about a male feminist's determination to give girls and women a good role model!

In my head as a classicist she gets crossed with Athena who started our alphabet and they have their similarities as Greek women who are wise and warriors.

G[r]eek Alphabet : V is for a certain vampire who likes to count

Definitely a Sesame Street vibe going on here people!

I'll keep the picspam count low this time!


The count was gradually built up in layers.

The first layer was the white of his shirt, because I knew it would be coverd by the opera cloak and the edge of the face I sewed it down as part of sewing down the cloak.

I forgot to photograph the middle stage : which was sewing down the collar. Then I sewed down the face and embroidered on the hair and features.

Next stage was the V. The original design had the head on top of this but I'd forgotten and I didn't mind that it didn't happen in the end. The V is two layers : one yellow and one very transparent green. This wasn't actually enough. You can see through the two layers to the shape of the count's shoulders but I don't mind too much because the V is still very clear.

With all the details done, one incomplete vampire ah a aaaaa, two incomplete vampires ah a aaaaaaaaaaaa, 3 incomplete vampires ah a aaaaaaaaaaa, FOUR vampires!

Thank you to the friend who suggested this, it was a great idea. V was a tough one as I didn't want anything scary like V for Vendetta. Or too obscure like Sherlock Holmes' violin.