Little critters

I can't remember how it started. It was either the Wee Viking telling me I should make zipper pouches with bendy tails like a chameleon or tie dying on our back porch and realizing it looked like koi spots.

This has grown into an obsession for me, creating small zipper pouches that look like animals.  

I've made white cartoony bunnies, then found amazing spotted suede to make the softest bunnies ever. There have been super silky soft purple suede bunnies with lime green interiors and sparkly purple eyes in Fabrikate colors. 

I designed an extremely over zealous cloth lobster bag with way too many little fiddly parts that almost killed me, helped me meet my cursing life quota and also practically swore me off sewing but is still one of my favorite things that I just can't bring myself to sell.

Then came the armadillo. 

One day I sent my husband a text with a photo of the chameleons my daughter had suggested, maybe some glow in the dark fish zipper pouches and some bunnies. He writes back "you should make more of these little critters. You should totally make a freaking ARMADILLO." Never one to pass up a challenge or dare or recognize a brilliant suggestion I spent the next two days drinking wine while he made dinner and creating one. 

Then a friend suggested I make a smaller lobster. She suggested I market it as a "menstruation crustacean" and have it sized for a couple of tampons. Genius. I have had lots of people come to my booth over the summer at the market and buy armadillos, bunnies and chameleons. I'm nosy and I often ask people what they will be putting in my bags. This is seriously one of my favorite parts of my work, talking with people and either making custom dream bags or getting ideas for how we like to organize and carry our stuff. Several teen girls have shyly told me they will be putting tampons in my critter bags. So when my genius friend said the words "menstruation crustacean" I literally jumped up and down. If you know me at all you know that I actually did jump up and down at this thought, and began cackling like a lunatic. The menstruation crustaceans were my first attempt at using vinyl. 

Then I started thinking about how much I've always wanted to make an orca pouch. Since I had gotten a little familiar with vinyl I got some black and white and made my dream a reality. I even found some awesome orca print to line them with and I feel like I've put a little bit of magic out in the world. I really dig the meta-ness of lining the animals with teeny little prints of the actual animal. The lobsters have teeny red lobsters, the orca have orcas.

Then came the possums. I've had so many people ask me for possums. I've only ever sewn fur when I was dancing and needed a few pairs of fur shorts for some psychedelic tree nymphs on spinning tree stumps in a piece I had choreographed. No I'm not making that up. That actually happened. But anyway, fur is not my favorite to use because it frays so much and covers me in fuzz but these possums absolutely had to be fur. I could only find solid colored fur and I really wanted them to look a little scraggly and have variegated fur. So I ended up using a sharpie to help scraggle the fur and make it have two tones. The result is magnificent, and they came out just as I had envisioned. I love when that happens.

I made a special order custom crossbody bag for a lady from Pittsburgh's sister's Christmas gift. She described her sister as being obsessed with chickens. When I suggested this kooky egg fabric I had for the lining she practically lost her mind. Her sister was thrilled. This got me thinking how cool it would be to make chicken zip pouches with those eggs in the lining. I now have a whole flock of them in my sewing room, all arranged by wee viking in some sort of cluster that makes them look as if they are plotting and I may or may not talk to them as I work as well as keep checking over my shoulder to make sure they aren't poised for attack.

I wanted to try a vinyl whale as well, utilizing this awesome silver stripey vinyl I had found for the belly and started out making it sort of cartoony. After two or three prototypes my absent minded professor/crochety old man of a 10 yr old son came in, picked it up, squinted deeply and then thoughtfully suggested I invert the whole shape. Genius boy with a surprising knack for design. It was just what I had been struggling with, I wasn't nuts for the cartoony whale silhouette and this made it perfect.

The looks on people's faces and giggles when they pick up these critters are magnificent. I've heard things like "I need this in my life" or "I can't believe this exists" or "I never knew just how much I need an armadillo zip pouch." I am always so joyful when someone takes home one of my kooky critter zip pouches. I've spread a little happiness and quirk and it just doesn't get any better than that.