Snake: Hogwarts House Mascot Plushies

After months of planning and sketching and weeks of designing and sewing, I'm happy to share the final Hogwarts house mascot plushie with you. Today, I released a Slytherin-inspired snake plushie and her name is Daphne! I've been naming the house mascot plushies after minor characters in each house (Oliver Wood, Hannah Abbott, Penelope Clearwater, and Daphne Greengrass).

I'm super proud of every one of these stuffed toys and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do! All of the house mascot-inspired plushies are now available in my etsy shop, Fairweather Friends! At the time of this post, there is only one lion plushie left, but I'm planning on making more next week.

The new snake plushie is one of the most difficult to make designs I've worked on so far. I really wanted her to be the cutest snake ever and I worked on sketches for a while before I came up with something that not only fit that description, but also was the same style as my other plushies. The way I decided to do this was to make her whole head a heart shape, rather than just her face!

Daphne's head and body are two separate pieces, as you can see in this next photo.

In order to make her body look like she's all coiled up, I have to hand sew some big stitches in a few curvy lines after stuffing her. This is still pretty difficult for me to do, even after finishing ten of them (and honestly, it's why I couldn't release these plushies last week like I originally intended to).

Luckily, the thread I use is strong enough to handle this. I originally had hoped to use my sewing machine for this step, but the plushie doesn't fit under the presser foot once it's stuffed. Instead, I thread up a long needle, squeeze the plushie a lot, and keep pulling the thread as I make my stitches. When that step is done, she looks like this:

The next step is to add her eyes to her head, then to sew her head onto her body. The reason why I don't usually try to sew faces directly onto a plushie (I do this on those familiar heart pieces I mentioned earlier, then sew the whole face on) is because there isn't usually a place for me to put the knots. That isn't the case with this particular plushie... I hide the knots right where I plan to sew the body piece to the back of her head! That way, you can't see them and everything looks nice and finished at the end.

And that, dear readers, is the complicated process of creating a super cute snake plushie. I hope that they get easier to make as I continue to put together more of this particular design! If you'd like to buy one for yourself or as a gift, visit my etsy shop! I hope you're all having a lovely day and hopefully I'll have another post to share with you guys soon!

Badger: Hogwarts House Mascot Plushies

Last night, I released the third plushie in my Hogwarts House Mascot series. I'm particularly excited about this one because it's the mascot of the house that I relate to most... Hufflepuff! I'm psyched for you guys to meet Hannah the badger plushie. She's available right now in my etsy shop, Fairweather Friends!

My new badger design is one that I struggled with quite a bit... probably because I wanted her to be perfect and represent my favorite house really well. But now that she's all finished and available online, I'm glad that I kept changing and working with my original ideas because I love the finished product! She's on the bigger side, compared to most of my plushies, so I used what felt like quite a bit of polyester fiberfill when I was stuffing this first round.

I redrew the stripes on her face in Illustrator quite a few times... in all of the pictures of badgers I was finding, the stripes go right over their eyes. Because I use black fabric eyes, this would make it really tough to see her eyes at all if I tried to copy their stripe pattern exactly. As you can see, I found a happy medium and I think it works well! I pin and hand sew her face on first, and once that is secured, I add her stripes as you can see in these next few photos.

I really love what the Hufflepuff house stands for, and because they seem to be the most under-appreciated house, I wanted to make something adorable to share with my fellow 'puffs. I value friendship quite a bit, and I've always believed that hard work and determination are the best way to reach your goals. I've also opened myself up to so many opportunities and learned so many things by being accepting of others. So even though Hufflepuff seems to be at the receiving end of all of the mean-spirited House-related jokes, I don't think this house has anything at all to be embarrassed about. For more of my thoughts on the house, check out this video blog I made!

If you'd like to take home one of these badger plushies, visit my etsy shop, Fairweather Friends! Like I said above, Hannah the badger is the third in a series... so if you're in one of the other Hogwarts houses, you might find a different plushie that suits your personality at Fairweather Friends! I've also released a Gryffindor lion and a Ravenclaw baby eagle... and next week, I'll be releasing a snake plushie for those of you who relate to Slytherin house.

Hogwarts House Mascot Plushies: Baby Eagle

As soon as the poll I hosted last week ended, I got right to work on making a bunch of eagle plushies inspired by the Ravenclaw house mascot! Today, I finished the first batch and released them in my etsy shop, Fairweather Friends. Her name is Penelope and she is a baby eagle who is as sweet as she is smart! Here she is with the house mascot plushie I released last week, Oliver the Gryffindor lion:

Now that the first two house mascots in the series have been released, I'll be working on Hufflepuff badger plushies next! They will be ready for release sometime next week, between May 6th and May 9th. I'll be heading off to MISTI-Con, a Harry Potter conference in New Hampshire, on Thursday to play a show Saturday night at midnight in the common room. The Slytherin snake plushie will be released the following week, as soon as I finish making a full batch!

Just like the design and development of the lion plushie, I wanted to try something new when I worked on what the eagle plushie was going to look like. I struggled with my approach to designing an eagle in my style for a few months... I wanted her to be cute and cartoon-like, but still recognizable as an eagle. Many renderings of eagles tend to look a bit menacing, so I hoped to avoid that without losing their defining features. I ended up very happy with the final result, and one way that I did that was to aim for her to be a baby eagle, rather than a grown one!

She has one detail that requires a bit of extra work... her wing! I make the wing the same way as I make my plushies' main body shapes, just much smaller. As you can see in this next picture, it's a completely separate piece that is stuffed and sewn shut just like the main part of the eagle plushie!

In order to attach the wing securely, I pin it down (which is pretty difficult, compared to pinning flat, unstuffed fabric together). Then, I hide the knot under the bottom of the wing piece and do what looks sort of like a ladder stitch but instead of stitching across two folded edges, I do one stitch on the main plushie, hop over to the wing, and do my next stitch there. While I'm doing this, I squish the wing down onto the rest of the plushie and follow along the line where the two pieces meet with my stitches.

You can barely even see the stitches in the picture above, but they completely go away when I pull the thread tightly and knot it at the end. It's pretty awesome, and it definitely turns out to be attached as sturdily as I'd hoped. It's a bit of a difficult process, as I need to push the wing down as much as I can while I'm sewing, but it looks great and gives the eagle plushie a great, three-dimensional look. I'm not sure that I would've been able to design it to be this cute without the wing like this. I'm happy with the way her face came out too!

I think that Penelope the baby eagle is super cute and I'm really excited to see how this whole series is coming together. I love that that I'm trying something new with every design and therefore increasing my plushie-making skills the more I make them. I'm really enjoying learning to make these soft little toys and I'm so glad that you guys seem to like them as well!

You can now buy the Gryffindor lion and the Ravenclaw eagle in my etsy shop. Also, in case you missed it, I posted a brand new tutorial on this blog last week where you can learn to make a Hogwarts house badge! I've been having a whole lot of fun getting into the Harry Potter fan spirit with these last few blog posts. Thanks for reading, and I'll hopefully have another crafty post up soon!

Tutorial: Hogwarts House Badge

This week has been exciting for me because I've been getting in the Hogwarts house spirit with my crafts. I released a Gryffindor-inspired lion plushie, and now I'm going to teach you guys how I make some super cute felt badges to help and show your house pride as a Harry Potter fan!

Before I start the tutorial though, I'd like to announce the results of the poll I took in my last post. You guys helped me to determine the order I'll be releasing the rest of the house mascot plushies! The Ravenclaw Eagle will be released next, sometime during the week of April 29th to May 3rd. Then, the Hufflepuff Badger will come out the week of May 6th to 10th. Last but not least, the Slytherin Snake will be available sometime during the week of May 13th to 17th. Yay!

Today, we're making these felt badges! If you're more inclined to enjoy crafting from afar, you can also purchase one of these pins that I've made myself! There are a limited number available in the online merch shop for my wizard rock band. 

Materials you'll need: 

1. Scissors.

2. Two needles. One with an eye big enough to thread through six-strand embroidery floss and a smaller one for use with regular sewing thread.

3. Badge template. You can download a pdf of mine right here or make your own! 

4. Small amounts of felt in a main color and a secondary color (which will be used for the stripe). You can choose these colors based on your favorite Hogwarts house or anything you like! 

5. Regular sewing thread in your main color.

6. Six-strand embroidery floss in your secondary color.

7. Flat-backed safety pins that have holes that allow you to sew them onto something. I got mine from the jewelry supply section at Michael's. You'll only need one per pin, but you usually have to buy them in a package with more than just one. 

Step 1: Print out the template or make your own, then cut out the two pattern pieces. Cut out two of the main piece in the main color of felt (I held two pieces of felt together and cut them at the same time) and one of the stripe in the secondary color. I'm making a Gryffindor pin in this tutorial, with red and gold, but you are welcome to use any of the other houses (and really, any colors you want). 

Step 2: Separate the two main pieces. On just the front piece, line up the stripe on the left side. Tie a knot in the end of your embroidery floss, thread it into a needle, and begin using a simple running stitch to sew the stripe onto the badge. 

If you need a more detailed running stitch tutorial, click here, but it's simply a stitch straight up through the fabric and another stitch straight down along a straight line, creating what looks like a dashed line. Start near the top right corner, sew down to the bottom, then switch to the left side and sew back up to the top. You don't have to sew horizontally along the top and bottom here... we'll do that later when we sew around the edge of the whole badge! 

End by inserting your needle up from the back so your floss is on the front side, coming out of the top right corner of the stripe. Then, add the remaining main piece to the back and hold the two pieces together. 

Step 3: Next, you'll be sewing the two pieces together using a running stitch to reinforce the badge and add a cool stitched effect to the edge. Since your floss is now in front of your badge, begin by pushing your needle back through both main pieces, then move a bit to the right and put your needle back through to the front to get started. 

Continue the running stitch in a border all the way around the badge, close enough to the edge that it looks nice, but doesn't rip through. Felt doesn't fray, but if you push your needle in too close to the edge, the fabric may not hold the stitch well. 

Step 4: Finishing the stitch is a little bit tricky, but I tried to make the pictures as clear as I could. Your last full running stitch should be coming through to the back, so flip the piece over so you can see the back side. Push your needle in and up so it ONLY goes through the back piece and stops in between the two main pieces of felt. 

Then, try to grab the inside of the next stitch over with your needle so you can tie a knot between the two pieces (image A below). If you don't grab it on the first try, keep dipping the needle down between the felt pieces until you are successful. To tie the knot, pull your needle through the side of this stitch, then insert your needle into the loop you're making with the floss (B) before pulling all of it tight (C). To hide the knot and the end of the floss, poke the needle straight down between the two pieces of felt until it comes out of the bottom (D). Then, pull it through gently until the knot either disappears or just barely sits inside the badge (E).

Trim off the floss at the bottom (F above), and you're done with the main part of the badge! 

Step 5: Now, you need to attach the safety pin to the back of the badge so you can wear it. I find it pretty difficult to sew metal and fabric together, so be careful not to stab yourself accidentally when you get to this step. 

Place the safety pin parallel to the top edge of your badge on the back side, and hold it there as best you can. Thread your smaller needle with regular thread and tie a knot at the end. The following images are my method of attaching the safety pin, and it's a little bit difficult to explain. If you can figure out a way that's easier for you, feel free to try that instead! You could even try to glue it, but I prefer to sew it down to avoid a mess and to make it more durable. When completing these stitches, be gentle and try to grab just enough of the fabric that your stitches will be sturdy but won't show on the front of the pin. You don't want your needle to go all the way through both pieces of felt. 

A. Push the needle from the top right corner of the pin down into the fabric and to the left, aiming it into the hole in the right side of the safety pin. Pull the thread through until your knot catches in the corner. 

B. Start your needle under the hole on the right, grabbing a small bit of felt and aiming the needle to come up in the same hole in the safety pin. Pull the thread through. You want to pull tightly enough that you can keep the safety pin from wiggling later, but not so tight that the safety pin rips into the thread. 

C. Anchor the top of the safety pin by repeating the same motion in the same hole, this time from above the top of the pin, grabbing a small bit of fabric and aiming the needle to come up through the hole. Repeat these two steps until you have two or three strong threads anchoring that hole down to the badge.

D. Next, you'll be switching over to the middle hole on the safety pin. Do this by putting your needle just under the first hole and angling it to the left so it comes up through the second hole. If you find this difficult, try putting the needle in a slightly different spot until you get it right. Try not to pull too hard on the badge, and hopefully your strong stitches earlier will keep everything nice and intact. Repeat steps B and C but this time on the middle hole. 

E. When it's time to move onto the last hole, be really careful when trying to angle your needle to come up into the hole on the left. I have the most trouble with this step because the needle often hits into the little mechanism that keeps the sharp end of the safety pin from coming undone. Just follow the same steps as above, trying again until you get the needle into a position that allows you to safely pull the thread through. 

F. For the last time, follow steps B and C but this time with the final hole in the safety pin. Continue until you have two or three strong threads holding the pin down. It should feel secure at this point. 

Step 6: All that's left to do is finish off with a knot. Slide the needle under some of the threads tying your safety pin to the badge so you can anchor your knot there (A). Start to pull your thread through, but remember to swing your needle back through the loop it created before pulling it tight (B). I like to tie a second knot here, just in case. Then, to get rid of the tail end of the thread, stick the needle into the felt and pull it back out further down the line of the safety pin, as shown in image C below. Make sure that the thread didn't poke through to the front... the goal of this step is to hide the thread between the two layers of felt! Finally, cut the remaining tail of the thread (D). 

Now, your safety pin should be firmly attached to the back of your badge! It should look like this:

You did it! That's how I make my Hogwarts house badges. These pins would look great on a jacket or a backpack, and you can make them in all of the house colors (or even your school colors)! You can use these techniques to really make any shape badge you'd like... your options are endless! 

Please don't sell any crafts that you make from my pattern, but feel free to make them for yourself and to give them away as gifts if you'd like! As I mentioned earlier, if you'd like to buy one of the ones that I made, check to see if there are any left in my online wizard rock merch store! 

If you enjoyed this tutorial, I'd love for you to pin it on pinterest or share it via twitter or facebook! I'd also love to see how your badge came out if you made one, so post a picture of your finished badges on my Fairweather Friends facebook wall! Thanks for reading, and keep on crafting!