[TUTORIAL] FadeFamily Fuzzy
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TUTORIAL
How to make your own fade Fuzzy
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First off all you might want to know "What is this tiny thing?". For more Information on the project connected to this furry little friend, please check >>THIS POST<<! It can lead you through the whole story/process.
Now let's begin with the tutorial.
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.[Tools | Materials (click to open)]
Tool/Material List:
On a note if you're in Japan: I got everything in the ¥100 store DAISO
- compass tool
- thick paper
- two kinds of woollen yarn (take a thin one. Between 1,5 - 2mm thick, not thicker)
- thin scissors, the best would be this kind:
- White thread of the ticker kind
- small plastic eyes for crafts DON'T take those you stick on, take those to sew on!!
- a small piece of felting in the colour of your choice
- small white cloth tissue ( a piece of 4x4 cm from it is enough)
- The most thin pen for writing on cloth you can find
- (expandable) polystyrene beads (which are used for cushioning or stuffed animals)
OR any wooden bead in the size around 6,5 mm.
- a set of sewing needles. A thick one for the woollen yarn, a thin one for the white thread.
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A few words on the woollen yarn! I first had bought the one one the right side. It has a silver string inside. The ball I had made the first time was way too big, but it showed me an important thing: I'm not sure if you can see it well, but the right ball doesn't look black, it looks like it's dirty dark grey *lol. The yarn on the left side ended up being way way more elegant. It's black yarn with a BLACK glitter string inside.
There was a problem with that yarn, too, though. look at the last picture! The black-silver yarn (r.) is a normal yarn. The black glitter yarn though, is a yarn that was made in crochet technique. So as you see, if you pull at the end, it starts dissolving (=_____=). BUT if you are careful with your Fuzzy, then this is NO PROBLEM. It gives your Fuzzy a more sheep-ish look. But it takes ages to give a proper haircut to your Fuzzy, so if you can, then avoid such kind of yarn!
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.[Making of the Fuzzy (click to open)]
Making of the Fuzzy
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1) Take thick, one layered carton paper. Don't take the multi layered one like for the carton boxes you'd use as post parcel. Draw two rings as you see them in the picture; The outside circle is 17 mm radius (34 mm diameter) , the inside circle 7 mm radius (14 mm diameter).
2) Place the two rings over each other and tie your woollen yarn to it (the glitter black one) then start looping the yarn around the carton circle. You stick your needle though the middle hole until there is so much yarn, that the needle doesn't go through any longer! ATTENTION!!! Don't pull on the yarn and tie everything too tightly, or your Fuzzy will end up being tiny *lol* Pull a bit, but not too much.
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3) Once you can really fit no more yarn though the middle, sake your scissors and carefully cut the yarn above the edge of the thick paper. When you start seeing the paper, you can even put the scissor blades between the two paper layers and cut exactly in the middle that way.
4) Now take your second yarn (e.g. the black-silver one). Take three long pieces of yarn (around 30 cm if you wanna be sure). First take one piece of yarn and put it in between the two paper layers. Then make a tight knot. Proceed the same way with the other two yarn pieces BUT make sure that the knots are in a triangular position from each other. One of the yarns will be the strap. The other two yarns will be the left/right arm and leg. (You can scroll down to the next picture to see the positioning properly.)
5) Once all three yarns are tightly tied up, they will hold the wool together. You can now make a cut into the paper circles, tear them down and throw them away! Now you have a furry ball with strings attached.
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6) Carefully pull on the fur of your Fuzzy and cut it into shape until you are satisfied. If you use yarn as I did, it could take a while, because the ends open up a bit, so you need to slightly pull on them and cut them. When the ball is more or less even, the ends of the yarn won't open that easily anymore. It can help to carefully "massage" over the surface of the ball so that the yarn gets a git entangled like sheep fur.
ATTENTION: Ofcourse you are NOT supposed to cut off the long yarn threads that are for strap, arms and feet, just saying.
7) This is how it should look at the end. First, choose one of the three long yarn thread pairs and decide on it as the strap on top of your Fuzzy. Make a knot into the end, so that you could e.g. have it hand down from your fingers. Now take one eye and tie it to the end of a thick white thread. Put the the other side of the thread on a long needle.
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8) Now this looks a bit cruel *lol* and I found it hard to do it to my poor babies, but it just can't be helped. Take the needle with the white thread and eye attached to it and stick it once through the furry ball as shown above. Carefully pull at it, until the eye is tightly on the right place. The "tightly" is important because you CAN'T tie the second eye that tightly, so the first eye will have to make up for it! As you do do, mind where the TOP of your Fuzzy is! You decided on it earlier, when you chose the strap strings and tied them together.
9) Next, in a bit of distance, stick the needle back through the fuzzy ball and to the spot, where you want the second eye.
10) Pull on the thread with care so that it's tense, put the second eye on the thread and then make a knot as shown above. You go around the eye with the thread, leaving a little loop and then go with the needle through the loop. The pull and you have a knot. Repeat the same knot and make it a second and even third time. Then you can carefully cut off the leftover thread and if you now carefully pull on the first eye, then the second eye will be pulled in a bit. Like that you can adjust both eyes for a perfect fit.
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11) Isn't it cute already? X'D Now start with one side. Let's take the right side. Pull the two yarn strings apart, so that they get more into the positions of right arm and leg. Next you take the felting and FIRST write down the front message with the pen for cloth. Then cut out a shape you like. It can be a heart or here, I made a little star. Once cut out, you can write your name on the back if you want.
Take a needle with big eye and put the Fuzzy's arm through it. Then stick the needle through the cut out felting form and make at least two tight knots. Maybe 3 or 4, but maybe not more than this, since that won't look nice anymore. Repeat the same thing on the left side. If you wonder how long the arms should be, there's an easy was to "measure". Just have the Fuzzy hold the felting over it's head and then make the knots into the arms. Like this it can hold the little star/heart/ect. either over it's head, in front of it's body or even sit on it *lol*
12) Now make several knots into the legs (see leg on the right) to form little feet see leg on the left). The last thing left to do is to cut off the leftover yarn from hand and feet.
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.[Making of the Teru Teru Bozu]
Making of the Teru Teru Bozu
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If you read the project entries on the Fuzzies, then you know the story behind this, but here a short summary. Teru Teru Bozu are traditional Japanese ghosts that are hung outside the window to chase the rain away on the following day. Fade has a long history of rainy live shows, so they got these little ghosts against it. If you want one, too, here is what you have to do.
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1) Take the around 4x4cm long piece of tissue cloth ( I cut mine out of a triangular bandage I hot at the ¥100 store). Btw. below you see the bag of (expandable) polystyrene beads.
2) Fold the edges of the cloth to get a triangular. Like this you can figure out the middle
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3) Having figured out the middle, sew through it with the thicker white yarn (ofcourse you can use other colours, too)
4) Then sew back to the other side.
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5) turn the cloth around, so that the loose thread ends are on the bottom and place one of the beads in the middle. ANY bead in the size around 6.5 mm will do. These just come in handy since they are elastic. You can squeeze them and they go back to shape as you let go.
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6) Put the cloth over the little bead and have another yarn string prepared. I used white again, but another colour is possible.
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7) Tie the prepared thread to a tight knot right under the head, to form a neck with neck tie. If you have such threads coming loose from your cloth, you can carefully pull at them until you can either remove them OR they get stuck and won't come loose through slight pulling. In such case carefully cut the loose parts off.
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8) give it a little face. The cloth is soaking up the colour, so I highly recommend to just make little dots next to each other to form a line rather than trying to draw a full line in one go.
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Tie the Teru Teru Bozu around the arm of your Fuzzy and you are DONE...or? Well, ofcourse you can customize. As you see above, this is my Fuzzy holding it's heart upside down. (The front says "Proud fadefamily") But as you can see in my icon, one of my symbols are the white and black wings. So I cut some out of felting and attached them in the same way as I did with the eyes. Sew THROUGH the middle of the Fuzzy. The middle is strong, because there yarn strings are all being held together by the arm/leg/strap yarn strings around them. The bases of the wings are hidden in the fur, so you don't see the stitches.
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ENJOY CREATIVITY
with FadeFamily
Thank you for reading
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