25/01/2015
It's been a bit quiet here.
Mainly because I was diagnosed with advanced cancer and have been undergoing treatment. The whole thing's been a bit ... rough.
I've been talking about the process on my personal page (Ran Domllama - most of it's locked to friends only so you'll have to add me if you want all the gory details).
I've had to give up my classes at Sew Make Create and I miss it enormously but I'm still doing commissions.
My current project is a commission for a Rainbow Rob toy.
Rainbow Rob is a character in a children's book. He is a penguin who feels that his personal colour palette is somewhat lacking and tries other animals' colours on for size. Finally he reaches a zen like level of self acceptance.
The project specs are;
*around 20cm tall
*flat with a little bit of plush padding
*rainbow on the back
*flappy arms
*happy eyes
*a second, identical twin was required for the inevitable moment when the first toy gets damaged, lost, etc.
While a penguin toy is pretty easy and there are lots of patterns available online, Rainbow Rob looks nothing like an actual penguin. He's more like a burly, asymmetrical trapezium with eyes.
This increased the difficulty level a bit but I always like a challenge.
So I drew him on a sketch book and measured out the proportions. Then I redrew him to actual size and covered him with 5mm grid.
I decided on brightly coloured Pima cotton for the fibre as I could get all the rainbow colours from the book in this yarn.
So far I've done the silhouette of both sides and joined them. Now comes the fiddly little details that have to be done just right so Rob and his identical twin Bob look happy rather than confused, insane or maimed ...