A time-traveling dragon companion

Hello my fellow Blue Cats!

So recently, I have become infatuated interested in a British TV show that most people have, if not seen, at least heard of.

I speak of course, of Doctor Who.

And what do I do when I discover a new show to love? I make myself a little companion to watch said show with. You may recall my infatuation interest in Sherlock BBC at which time, I made myself an Otterbatch.

Now to completely explain this new companion, let me just say that you may have noticed a trend in the stuffed animals that I make and yes.
Yes.
I do love dragons.
I enjoy drawing and sewing dragons (although to be fair to myself, the sewings are often much nicer than the drawings).

And so without further ado, I present to you...
Tardis the dragon!

This is Tardis, he is a dragon. And to all those hardcore Whovians out there, yes, I am aware that the Tardis is a female, but I decided that my dragon was a guy named Tardis and that's that.

He has become my loyal Doctor Who watching companion. He is the perfect size for hugging when something sad happens (which is quite often) and for perching on my shoulder when I feel like being a pirate.

I think I may have messed up his back spikes because they don't stand up right, but oh well. He wouldn't be a Blue Cat creation if he was perfect (I feel like I always say that, but it's 100% true. )

I made him out of dark blue fleece for the main body, light blue fleece for the belly and feet pads and snowflake-y light blue cotton for the ears and spikes.

He is made using this wonderful pattern that I got at the start of a four-day weekend. It's been awhile since I've made something for myself, it was nice. I finished sewing him in maybe two days? I followed my bad habit of watching TV and sewing at the same time, which means that I missed half the episode and had to pull out quite a few stitches, but he turned out all right.

Tardis is entirely hand-sewn except for the details on his wings and ears. (Which incidentally was the hardest part to do because for some reason the machine never does what I want it to. I never have that problem when I hand sew!)

My attempt at a photo shoot until I eventually build myself a light box and am able to take proper pictures.  The Converses are my little nod to the Tenth Doctor. (As always, if I'm making references you don't understand, ignore me, this hasn't got anything to do with sewing.)

So there you go! I actually sewed him last week, and I've been incredibly lazy when it comes to uploading, but now that I've got my computer back, I will attempt to stick to a more regular schedule. That is, of course, assuming that I actually have time to make stuff, which might be a little hard to juggle. I'll do my best!

Tardis is patiently awaiting a time-travelling mad man to whisk him away in a blue box to travel the stars. In the meantime, he's stuck on Earth with me. 

Have a lovely day!

Fun fact about Tardis the dragon: he has two hearts. I literally made two little hearts and stuck them in when I was stuffing him, just like they do at Build-A-Bear's workshop. 

A quick quote and some nice music

Hello!

As I don't have a proper post set up at the moment, here is some food for thought.



"When you're a kid, they tell you it's all grow up, get a job, get married, get a house, have a kid, and that's it. But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. So much darker. So much madder.

And so much better."



That's from Doctor Who, by the way.

And because we're not doing anything specific with this post, have some music:

Breakfast at Tiffany's, by Deep Blue Something
Sinnerman, by Nina Simone
This is War, by Thirty Seconds to Mars
Everything Has Changed, by Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran
Let Her Go, by Passenger

I may have mentioned before that I have very eclectic music tastes.

Hope you're all having a lovely Back To School week (or just a lovely week for those who aren't returning to school)!

A little summary

Hello!

I have returned! I think that it would be far more interesting to show you than to tell you what I've done.

Exercises in photography

The island of Bréhat

More exercises in photography

 This was in Brittany in France (otherwise knows as the most gorgeous place on Earth) and then we went to the British island of Jersey (which is the closest I've ever gotten to visiting England).

No one can ever tell me it's always raining in England

And then we went to one of the most magical fantastic places I've ever been to. It's called Les Machines de l'île and I promise that no matter how old or humbuggy you are, you will shed your worries and you will become a child again, filled with wonder and awe. All the details and information are on their website.

(Blogger is being weird on me, so I'll just tell you here: there will be a normal post soon, in the meantime, enjoy these pictures!)

You can ride an elephant (which I did)

or a caterpillar (the finished version will be twice this size)

or you can fly with a heron (he's asleep at the moment)

I rode a terrifying sea horse

and admired a mischievous dragon

Well hello Mr. Turtle

 A walnut shell for the smaller adventurers

I highly recommend you go there.

Cupcakes!

Hello!

I made another little bunny a while back, so here he/she is!

Someone ordered an animal that had cupcakes. Any animal, as long as it had cupcakes somewhere on it. So, here is a bunny (because I like bunnies) with a cupcake scarf and cupcake ears.

He/she went to a little baby I think, to protect him from nightmares most likely. Bunnies are brave like that.

In other news, I will not be here for a while, as I am traveling (yay!) so there won't be any posts until...eh, end of August I'd say. Do not panic, I will return before you know it!

In the meantime, feel free to leave comments and whatnot. If you are new here, welcome! I hope you enjoy this little piece of the Internet!

Good-bye and have a great summer!

-Blue Cat

Road trip and bicycles

Hello!

So to kick off this summer, we are going on a road trip to Minnesota. Then, we are going to France (that's not a road trip) for the rest of the summer.

Now forgive me while I have a miniature rant. It will be worth it in the end.

I hate sleeping in cars and planes. Most of the time, I can't fall asleep at all and kind of settle into a zombie-like state. When I do fall asleep, it's massively uncomfortable and slightly painful. And my neck always hurts afterwards. The pillows that they hand out on planes are gross too.

So I decided to make my own. It's not too big and not too small (I'm not trying to quote Goldilocks here but it really is just right) and squishy enough that I can cram it into my luggage.

 

The front is bicycles. I'd had my eye on this fabric for a long time. I had no idea what I wanted to do with it, but when I went back to the fabric store it was in the cheap leftovers pile and so I had to get it.

Finding a back that worked nicely with the front was a bit of a challenge, but this one was very cute and the blue echoed the blue bicycles of the front.

I added a Liberty tag, but being me, I added it to the bottom of the pillow. Ten points for logic.

Anyway, that is all I will be posting for this week. I'll be back for a few days next week, so I'll put stuff up then. In the meantime, stay cool. (Get it? Because it's summer, so it's hot but cool also means awesome ... I'll stop now.)

My summer gift to you

Hello!

I usually like to do more "sophisticated" craft projects, but sometimes I just want to do a simple, fun summer camp type of project. So I found an idea for a shirt somewhere on the Internet (I cannot remember where it was and it's really bugging me) and decided to make it for my friend's birthday.

I just found a white shirt and painted on the names of her favorite characters from various books and TV shows.

Here is how I did it (this is my first how-to post, so we'll see how it goes).

First, gather your materials:

- a shirt

- fabric paint

- a sponge

- tape (optional)

- an exacto knife

- a cutting mat

- newspaper

- a piece of cardboard

- a piece of paper with the words you want to print onto the shirt (this will serve as your template)

 

not everything I used is pictured here

Next, tape your template to the cutting mat (you don't have to but it's really helpful). Using the exacto knife, start cutting out the letters.

Sorry for the bad quality picture, the lighting in my living room is weird

Next, spread your newspaper on your work area so that the paint doesn't get all over the place. (I did this part outside so in my case the newspaper was there to keep the shirt clean from all the dust on the table.)
Then, stick the piece of cardboard into the shirt where you want to print the words. If you don't, the paint will leak through to the back of the shirt and you will be frustrated.

Then, put your template onto the shirt and sponge on the paint.

As soon as the paint is all there, take the template off. Don't let it dry first! I was really dubious about this, but it's the right way to do it apparently. And it works, so there you go.

Let it dry according to the paint packaging instructions and voilà! It is complete.

Yay! If my instructions aren't clear, leave me a comment and I'll do my best to help you.

Dinosaurs

Hello!

For some unknown reason, I really love funny/cute dinosaur pictures.

Let me show you.

 

Okay, so you kind of see where I'm coming from with my cute dinosaurs idea?

Well, Mom and I were on a mission to find cupcake-themed fabric . Here we are, wandering the shelves of a cute little fabric store when I find, oh joy, pre-cut pillowcase kits with instructions (I have no idea how to make a pillowcase). I decided to get one. Now came the hard part. Puppies or dinosaurs?

 Well, um...

Oh come on, it's adorable. 

So we get home, I read (not really) the instructions, start cutting the fabric. Heart sinks to my shoes. I cut where I wasn't supposed to. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Fabric. Superhero Mom comes to the rescue, points me in the roads towards a finished pillowcase and flies out again, her cape swishing in the wind. 

I finished it in under an hour. And it turned out better than I expected considering the whole faulty cutting incident.

 

I screwed up on the yellow part, but that time it wasn't because I didn't read the instructions, it's because I didn't understand them. Huge difference.

That said, I love my pillowcase. It doesn't match anything in my room, but it's so cute, so I don't really care. It makes me smile every time I see it.