Tuesday, January 24, 2012

The Dragon Has Arrived - Review of DIY Fluffies Yoki the Dragon Pattern

I'm naming him Skye Blue (Yes, I am name stealing from Beyonce)
My very first dragon and likely my last.  This was from a pattern, DIY Fluffies Yoki the Dragon.  I paid $9 to find out that I would need to draw in the one centimeter seam allowance on most of the pieces.  What an absolute pain that was!   Some pieces such as the arms and wings could just be traced onto the fabric with that being the sewing line.  Most of the larger body pieces, though, are sewn to other curvy pieces.  The seam allowance is not only essential, but needs to be exact.  Why create a pattern with sewing lines rather than seam allowance lines???  I also needed to figure out placement of the wings, arms, eyes and nostrils--no nice little dots marked on the pattern pieces.  Also no nice little dots to match one pattern piece to another.

After making about 40 stuffed creatures last year, I felt I would easily be up to this, but I found the pattern to be confusing or vague in several essential places.  I finally blew the pattern up to twice the size (if I'm going to do this work, I want a good size beast to show for it),  ignored half the directions, and improvised.  Some of the changes were to make it more kid friendly.  The original seems more like a "I'm going to sit on the shelf stuffie" rather than a "I'm going to get dragged around by the ear" one.  I started to write up the changes and take pics, but this would have been one very long post.  Should you decide to make one and have questions, I'd be happy to share.

This is the third time in the past few years that I've gotten a pattern from a small company only to find that I am going to be doing a lot of work to actually have usable pattern pieces.  Too bad we can't see what's inside before purchasing them.


8 comments:

  1. Wow, Baye, what a pain!! All your trouble did pay off though, he's adorable! I'm so glad you stuck with it, I would have dumped it in the trash!

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  2. He is so cute! You did a great job! He doesn't look so big for having enlarged the pattern.

    I and my MIL also had similar problems with patterns from independents. You want to support small business but a lot of these crafters know what they want to make, just not how to put a pattern together. And to pay $9 for a bad pattern is a raw deal, IMHO. Thanks for sharing at Sew Darn Crafty.

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  3. He is very cute! You did a great job! Visiting via Creative Spark!

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  4. He's definitely cute, considering his not-so-great beginnings, lol! I would be VERY unhappy paying good money for a pattern only to find out it was so poorly done. A quilt pattern I bought recently came with a front cover picgture that wasn't a proper photograph, but was printed on a home printer on regular photocopier paper. It doesn't even look like an original pattern (I bought it from the designer herself) - it looks like a crappy copy. The instructions weren't very well written and there were no pictures drawn of the varying steps - colour me not impressed!

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  5. I know this has been up for a while, but I love the little people you made. They are so adorable

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    1. I love it when people comment on my old posts! You know I have about 50 of them all around the house right? I think you need a black one with red trim, though, in the slightly punk mode--an apartment protecting troll. Must get to work on that! I shall have him/her deliver the towels. Although I always have a finished goal in mind, I never know whether they will be male or female until they are finished. My best ideas for females have ended up looking like male beasts in drag.

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  6. Hi, I've been asked to make this (I'm a toy maker) and now I'm a bit scared :S I will definitely need some help once I get started. Where can I contact you for help?

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  7. Was going to get this for my son and now I'm having second thoughts....my time is limited! Thanks for the post.

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