I came across a thrift store grab bag of good-sized pieces of fulled and hand-dyed wool for $3. What does one do when one acquires such a thing? One makes a bat.
Except I traced it off my phone screen at somewhere between 50% and 75% full size, because I don’t have a printer at home. He’s all hand-stitched, in part so I could sit in front of the TV, and in part because I could better control the smaller-than-standard seam allowance, since I reduced the pattern without adjusting it. I also cut the head pieces on the bias to help round out the darts. The original pattern recommends that stretchy fabric be used, because wovens won’t tend to properly round out, but a 100% wool fabric cut on the bias was sufficiently stretchy to accomplish it when properly stuffed. Next I plan on making a Tattooed Lady bat out of dark plum plaid with crimson accents and a good deal of embroidery.
Thanks! Lol I have watched so many embroidery tutorial videos but never actually do it. I don’t actually remember the last time I did any embroidery outside of cross stitch and even that was several years ago, and I never finished the project. (In my defense, I started just a week or so before my dog passed away, and the first bit of stitching had her hairs all tangled up with the floss and I couldn’t bring myself to complete it without that slightly dusky cast to it. Silly to set aside a project because it WON’T have pet hair in it.) I decided to take a very small leap on this guy and have grand ambitions for his lady friend.
But I have a confession: His name is now actually Vlad. Because the day I was finishing him up was also the day my teenager got home from house/dogsitting for my parents (so hadn’t seen me working on him), and while I was sewing Batrand’s head on, my kid saw him, screamed, and aggressively laid claim to him. Mere moments after I had him finished, named, and photographed, a batjacking occurred and now he lives in the basement and goes by Vlad. I’m busy stretching my embroidery chops on his lady friend now, though.
I love this little bat so much! So very dapper!
thanks so much, everyone!