Zombie Beginnings

I was looking over past posts today and noticed that I had somehow failed to blog about my favorite creation to date: zombie frog.

Zombie frog was the first truly twisted (but still cute) plushie I ever created. I had dabbled in strange before, but nothing that had gore, not to mention removable body parts! I started out with the same pattern I used for my regular frogs, which was hand-drawn by me. I decided to use wool felt instead of my usual cotton, as I knew the details I wanted to add would be easier to accomplish if I could needle-felt them in later.

I started with the face. Before sewing the two sides together, I used wool roving to needle-felt his details. I cut a small hole for each eye, and a long slit for his mouth. I needle-felted little cup-like shapes, then pushed them through the holes I created, using the felting needle to felt the shapes into the wool face. I kept shaping with my needle until I liked the result. Next, I needle-felted two eyeballs, giving one of them an optic nerve
so it could dangle from its socket, then I needle-felted each eye into
its socket.

Then, I sewed the two right sides of the head together and added stuffing.

I wanted one of zombie frog’s legs and his head to be removable, and
for him to be able to hold either his head or his leg in one of his
hands. So before I sewed his head closed, I glued a super strong craft
magnet into the bottom. I also glued a magnet inside the body where the
leg would attach, another inside the body where the head would attach,
one inside his right arm, and one inside his left leg. I then stuffed
both arms and legs, sewed all but his left leg into his body, then
stuffed the body and sewed the opening closed. The final touch was to
add some gore. Again, I did this by needle-felting roving into the
areas that I wanted to look bloody.

Creating this guy opened up a whole new world of crafting for me, and was pretty much the start of Plushroom Soup. Look for more zombie goodness this month; I am currently making a zombie octopus and a zombie pegasus. What other zombie critters would you like to see?