:grapes: -My Putty Plushie Adventure- :grapes:

So I watched a video this morning of a woman making a Mangle plushie, and I was *inspired*. I've had these little squares of fabric from my doll clothing obsession days lying around for the longest time, and I decided today was the day I would FINALLY use them.

  I immediately decided to make a plush of a Pokemon I didn't have (cause, I mean, those suckers aren't cheap!), So I picked the poster child of indecisiveness, a Pokemon who a very certian person who I hope is reading this has really endeared me to: Ditto!

   Before I continue, let me make one thing clear: I have never made a plush in my life. I knew nothing about pattern-making, working with fabric, anything. I didn't even know how to *sew*. I went into this project completely blind, fueled by nothing but pure impulse.

Here's how it went.

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Part 1: The Slimey Setup

  Now, I knew thanks to YouTube that before I could get anywhere near fabric, I was going to need a Pattern to trace and cut (guess I wasn't going in *super* blind, whoops-). The first thing I did, then, was Google some references and start doodling Ditto's wibbly shape by hand. I ended up mostly using the pogo model for this project, as it had probably the clearest shape out of all the references I found.

  That wasn't all I ed from all those craft videos, though. I also knew I'd need a seam allowance, space for where I'd connect the two pieces. Google search number 1 told me that the best seam allowance was 1.5 centimeters, which only made sense to me as an American cause I had a handy dandy shattered clear plastic ruler on hand to measure all around with.

  ..until, that is, I realized that 1.5 cm was way too big for my tiny plush anyway, so I just gave up and eyeballed it the rest of the way around. Great start.

  Oh, and I also ambitiously decided to try making a small round piece as a bottom so my boy could stand. Here's the pattern pieces all together.

Didn't look too bad, if I do say so myself. You can see some pink sharpie on the sides- that's from where I traced the pattern onto the fabric. Since there wasn't a whole lot, the tracing and cutting together took me.. maybe, like, 20 minutes? The result looked like this.

  Now, I'd like to draw attention to two things: 1, the fabric color and pattern looks *nothing* like Ditto, and two, the fabric is foldy, as one would expect of fabric that has been folded and unused for the past... Uh. Years. So, obviously, before I went on, I had to fix those problems. My original plan to solve the latter was to iron the fabric- you know, as you do- but I had to wait till about noon for that, as my mom was asleep and the ironing board was in my parents' closet.

  When she finally did come out, she gave me an alternate trick with much less risk of burns to use instead: water. Yeah, pro tip, if you spray water on some fabrics, it'll straighten out wrinkles. It's, like, absolutely nuts. Ghostygirl23's blogs, the only place on PKA exposing facts big detergent doesn't want you to know.

  ..Granted, I still did end up ironing my fabric just to get it to dry out faster because I'm impatient, but, you know, it's the thought that counts.

Once that was all done, I could finally move on to the next phase of my Definitely Not Evil scheme.

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Part 2: Putting the Putty Together

   I mentioned earlier that the fabric was the wrong pattern and color for a ditto? Well, here's the payoff to that: I mixed some acrylic paint with some white fabric paint and mixed up a perfectly ditto-ey shade to paint the fabric with.

  Er, maybe not a *perfect* shade. Side note, ditto is a really annoying pokemon to color. Like, one Google search will get you 4 different shades. For a Pokemon with a total color pallete of 1, it is.. suprisingly complex. Just look at this mess.

Again, I ended up leaning towards the Pogo model here with the mostly purple shade.

   Now, about here is where my mom finally caught on to what I was doing and watched me try in vain to sew based on my basic knowledge. The first stitch I tried was a weird little in-out number that I think is called a running stitch based on my reaserch? But it came out very easily once I tugged, and since I knew I would need to turn my plush, I figured pretty quickly I couldn't use that. My mom stepped in to teach me a better way: a funky one where you sorta go behind your previous stitch and go forward under it so that it looks like a series of dots on one side and a line on the other. I think it's called a back stitch? Not sure. In any case, I thankfully took to it pretty quick, so now I could finally begin the meat of this 7 hour project: the actual hand sewing.

  I'll be real: I totally forgot to take pictures of the two pieces put together. But, if you can, just imagine this test stitch:

But all the way around the edges of white and purple splotched fabric. That's right, I ed to sew inside out. Look at me, I'm practically a pro. :sunglasses:

  Lemme tell you, the process took a while. I lost track of time watching countless reddit readings, nuzlockes, and at least two videos about hoaxes, and approximately 1/4 of all my digits are sore, but, for a fist attempt, I was pretty proud of how the stitching came out, exhausted as the work made me. So, safe to say, I was definitely itching to start turning it out.

Don't worry, nothing went wrong at this point, I just thought that the half turned plush looked like a purple turd and got some amusement out of it.

   Anyway, a little poking, prodding, and plastic chopstick using later, I was ready to add the face (for which I used black sharpie) and stuff my little guy with cotton balls. I tore them in half and used even more chopstick action to nudge it around into the places that needed it, such as.. well, basically all of the edges, cause ditto unsurprisingly has a lot of curves.

Once the stuffing was done, all I had left to do was seal up the hole with more stitching, this time the kind that would be visible on the final product. Logically, this means that this stitching should be the very best and neatest in order to not attract attention, but, eh, logic is for nerds. The wonkiness gives them character.

Also, since I had Kwik's plushie reviews on the brain, I decided to add my own tag. Some more pushing, pulling, and pained phalanges later, and my ditto was finally done.

And, wow. I was not expecting to be so satisfied. Sure, he looks kinda weird and wrinkly in some places, and he doesn't stand like I was hoping to make him ( the round bottom piece of fabric I was going to use for that? Cause I sure didn't!), But I'm, once again, very proud for a first attempt. I now have my own goofy little goopy guy, and the best part is that he's completely unique. No one else will ever have a ditto plush quite like Rupert here.

Oh, yeah. His name's Rupert.

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  Hoo, what a project that was. I am *very* tired. Might take a nap after I post this. Also, my fingers look like Shiver's from Splatoon 3 cause I didn't use a thimble, and I'm fairly sure that's a sign I need to not use them on my phone for a little while. So, until next time, thanks for reading through this heck of an adventure, and never forget to..

:ghost: Stay Spooky! :ghost:

#Curatorreview