11 Apr 10 (Posted 12th April 2010)

A semi-productive (yet semi-disappointing) weekend preceding Minami.

I tried to remake the hat to one that dwarfs his head but due to miscalculation I ended up cutting the aperture hole too big which means I've not only screwed that up but I've also screwed the old hat up because I cut the old brim off in readiness to attach the new brim; and I no longer have any blue felt. What a waste of money *sigh* So I have to try and get some blue felt and make the brim again, if not the whole hat :-(

But on the positive side: his coat is finally complete! =^_^=
Even if it did take 5h to make and attach the hood yesterday. Yes, five hours for just one hood. What?!?????

Oh and on Saturday I painted his initials onto an old suitcase and I made the little tag that goes around his neck... SO cute! I shall try to upload photos.

07 Apr 10 (Posted 8th April 2010)

Coat is done - except for the hood. As can be seen, it's very big but that's to allow for a quilt to be wrapped around me!
This photo shows where the leather pieces and the wooden toggles will go (hence the one that is slightly twisted) but since the photo they have been attached. The toy in the background only has two toggles, but if I'd have used just two and scaled them up for me, they'd be around 4" tall, so I decided to use three toggles instead. Cosplayer's license :-p

The picture also shows the cuff; now I don't know why, but I just love that bit of the coat - maybe it's because the button is so cute! :-)

The coat is actually a scarlet red, exactly like the soft toy - the photo was taken on my phone so it obviously didn't pick up the colour very well. Naughty phone.

06 Apr 10 (Posted 7th April 2010)

More velcro!!!

These pieces are to hold the front of the coat together (as per my soft toy). The wooden toggles are just for effect :-)

So Easter Monday and part of the next evening was spent sewing the velcro onto the coat ... again by hand because the machine positively refused to play nice. So there's five hours of my life I'll never get back :-(

I was determined to sew the pockets onto his coat last night, so despite the annoying delay and the time loss I still forced myself to do it (you can tell it's cosplay time - sleep is sacrificed!).

On the whole this wasn't too bad, except that at one point the machine chewed a pocket as it skipped its way along, which meant I had to unpick the seam and do the thing again. It also kept jumping every time it hit a pin which were placed perpendicular to where I was putting the seam.
So of course that delayed things, too! (It has been like that all through this construction so it wasn't a surprise, just an annoyance).

Finally, at quarter to midnight the two tasks were done and this Kitten could finally curl up in her basket.

Two simple tasks, should have taken a short time, took many hours between them. How can such a simple costume take so long!

But hey, those are done now. Onto the next task!

05 Apr 10 (Posted 7th April 2010)

Over the Easter weekend I cut up an old quilt and sewed it together (so that the filling doesn't fall out!). That will be wrapped around me to make me less *ahem* girl shaped and hopefully more bear shaped.
I also attached shoulder straps to it so that it hangs from me rather than ties around me.
I also attached velcro in occasional places to keep it held together when on.
Note: sewing machines and velcro do not mix. I had to hand sew all the pieces which was a pain and of course took a lot longer than a machine would. Grrr...

28 Mar 10 (Posted 29th March 2010)

Coat is now sewn and shaped to fit a bear! I just need to trim a bit off the legs because I made it a bit long (I underestimated my height - or rather, lack of *sigh*).
Next task: make the collar/hood... could be fun!

23 Mar 10 (Posted 24th March 2010)

I have now cut out the patterns for the front and back of the coat (I'm using red wool) and I have made it XXL because podgy bear is podgy (hug alert!).

16 Mar 10 (Posted 24th March 2010)

The head is completely made including a mouth that I can just about see out of! Unfortunately I still can't see the whole thing as Paddington Bear, more like Paddington Dog :-(
And the hat is completely made - I just need to attach it to the head.

12 Mar 10 (Posted 12th March 2010)

Progress is slower than I would like, but I have now made the framework for his head and covered it in fur. Unfortunately it's not the colour fur that I wanted because that wasn't available (sniff) and I can't help thinking that it looks more like a dog than a bear (!!!) but hopefully that will change when I put his hat on him - which I've still to make.

Made some eyes last night and attached those in place. Again not as good as I'd like but I think that's because I'm too much of a perfectionist (another reason why progress is slow) and I know that it's not perfect hence I'm focussing on the negative rather than the positive. Bad Kitten!

I also shaped a piece of 'green stuff' for the end of his nose so I'm waiting for that to dry so I can cover it in black velvet before attaching it in place.

21 Jan 10 (Posted 22nd January 2010)

Paddington potentially now has body squishiness thanks to an old quilt. Yay, who needs foam! XD

16 Jan 10 (Posted 18th January 2010)

Fur for Paddington gets =^_^=

17 Oct 09 (Posted 20th October 2009)

I am now the proud owner of lots of scarlet red wool and lots of royal blue fleece =^_^=

10 Oct 09 (Posted 11th October 2009)

After spending months finding the perfect colour wellington boots (everywhere I checked only seemed to do navy blue) I finally managed to buy some in Bristol ... love for Kick shoeshop! =^_^=