Amanda came over to work on a dress but got distracted helping me with a website then Nicole dropped by and we found ourselves making more “dolls”. I’m pretty proud of my second ever, “Dred Heddy.” Amanda and Nicole went a little more traditional stuffed toy with an owl and an elephant (or Huffalump as Nicole kept insisting).

Workers in unbearable conditions at the studio sweat shop.

I was pretty excited about using the cloth rice bag Amanda brought over. The rest of the fabric consisted of old pants and skirts.

The eyelashes were some crazy fashion tights in a stack of clothes being “donated” away (or crafted with).

I thought for a while about the best way to go about stuffing and sewing the arm/hair/dreds to the head. Originally the plan was to sew them shut along the head so they would flop but I later decided against it. Nicole had the best plan for sewing them in (sewn right side out then laid inverse to their final position towards the center of the head), pinned and “tabbed” to the head when sewing the front and back of the body together so that the dreds could be stuffed afterwards. In the end I stuffed them 3/4 full and used Nicole’s method. Worked great, just needed hand stitching on each side of the dred before flipping right side out. It was way easier to flip “dred heddy” right-side out with the dreds stuffed than I thought it would be.

Nicole had to come back the next day to finish her elephant and I never got a final stuffed and stitched shut pic of it.

Cute owl Amanda. Are you going to finish it?

I was pretty pleased with how the arm/dred/appendages came out.

Loved the idea of complimentary colored back (got the idea from Amanda’s “voodoo doll”).

I love this guy. You are so cool “Dred Heddy”.