You'll Need:
Here's the finished spider with really long legs. You can make them shorter if you want to (more on that later). The spider is a ragdoll (no, not the cat) but it still has a certain charm of none-ragness when positioned just right.
A couple of things that you should at least have tried before beginning this project is sewing small round things. And in the case that you haven't got a loop turner, you'd better arm yourself with a lot of patience when turning the legs inside out.
Well, enough chit-chat, let's get on with it!
Firstly, draw the outline on a piece of paper. Make sure that the rear is larger than the front (but not way larger, because then you will have to create an incision to make it look nice).
We drew two large circles to make it simple. Don't spend too much time on this step, as we are going the ignore the drawing when we cut it.
Now, fold the paper in half along the length of the spider. Try to fold it in the middle of your drawing to make sure that the piece you cut out is similar to what you drew.
And... Cut! Just the outline though, we don't want to stitch-up our spider before it has even been born.
Pin the spider pattern onto the fabric. Draw around the spider pattern with the amount of seam allowance you want to work with. We have chosen 1,5 cm as our standard, but you can use whatever you want (as long as it is more than 2 mm).
Done drawing? Good, now cut the spider out. Be sure that you have folded the fabric so when you cut out your spider you get two identical pieces! Otherwise, you'll have to do this step again.
It may be a bit difficult to see, where this is going, but we'll enlighten you - IT'S LEGS! Still confused? Just do as we say and you'll be perfectly safe.
This piece is going to decide the width and length of the spiderlegs. We used the side of some regular A4 lined paper. They usually have some kind of vertical line down one side - that's what we used. You can use what ever you want - hell, who says that the legs have to be straight? Make them curly, wobbly or something. However, we use the straight ones, so if you don't know how to make wobbly legs, then you're on your own, for now (unfortunately).
... Cut the piece. The wider the piece, the wider the legs - the longer the piece, the longer the legs.
Pin you leg on to the fabric. Ermm, you spiderleg pattern, that is. Okay, first things first - get your leg off the table! Second, fold the fabric so your leg pattern can fit on both sides of the fabric (see the picture, it is impossible to describe).
Once again, trace around the pattern with your chosen seam allowance. Again, we have chosen 1,5 cm but you can't really see our measurering thingy because of the flash.
Now, cut the piece. And repeat this step three times more. We know, it sucks, but the spider has a LOT of legs - so get to it.
There are other ways to make these legs and some of them might be easier or faster. One way, might be to create all the legs out of one long piece of fabric that you later cut in according pieces.
Unfold the leg pieces and fold them along the length of the fabric. Sew right down the length of the fabric (don't bother fastening the thread).
And now, ladies and gentlemen, the tricky leg part! Turn the long tubes inside out! This step is easy enough to do, IF you have a loop turner (or similar device). If you haven't - then we feel sorry for you :)
As for the fabric that you use for the legs, consider using something with a bit of "fluff". This would make the legs long AND hairy - just like the real thing.
Because the spider has eight legs, and not just four, these long tubes of legs that you have been creating has to be cut! So fold them in the middle and cut them into two. As simple as that.
Now for the poisonous pincers. Start by making two circles, one within the other. The outer should be larger than the inner. The greater difference there is between the two circles, the wider the pincers will become.
We used a small bowl and a large glass as "patterns" for the circles. Note that the inner circle should be in the middle of the outer circle.
When you are satisfied with your circles, fold the paper twice so your circle becomes a quater of a circle. We don't hope that you have become too attached to your circles, because now you are going to cut them out. If you cut the circles, while the paper is folded, the circles will be more even all around.
Sorry to have made you cut a whole circle, because we are only going to use one half of the circle. So cut your circle into two equally large pieces (cut in the middle :).
As with all of the other fabric cuttings, fold the fabric so you can cut both half-circles at the same time. Just remember to pin it (the semi-circle pattern) to the two layers of fabric to ensure that the thing doesn't displace.
You will notice that we have not used the same seam allowance on semi-circle as we have used on the rest of our pieces. This is because this piece is round, and to make it easier to cut and to turn inside out. We used only 1 cm seam allowance around the circle edges.
Note, that we didn't provide any seam allowance to the small semi-circle ends. We could have, but we chose not to. You can do what ever feels best :)
When you have cut out the soon-to-be-pincers, there is still one more thing you need to do before you can begin sewing them.
Because these pincers are going to be turned inside out, we need to cut into the seam allowance. So cut small incisions, along the "inside" of the semi-circle, with approximately 1 cm in between. The incisions should NOT be as deep as the seam allowance. Say, if you have a seam allowance of 10 mm, the incisions should be 7-8 mm deep.
Whenever you are working with circles, round or arched fabric, you should always make these incisions. They just make the arched look so much better when turned inside out.
Good, check up on what you have done so far. By now, you should have:
For the following pictures, we chosen to work with only half of these, to make the tutorial more simple.
Firstly, you should trace (with your fabric marker) where your spider-body-pattern used to lie (only trace the front part, though).
Now, pick up your pincer, and turn inwards. Pin it to the spider-body (pinning it from the inside out).
Make sure that the pincer is placed around the middle of the line you just traced. Otherwise, your spider is going to have a crooked mouth and legs (which might be a little cute, come to think of it :)
For the long legs, we apply them sort of the same way as we applied the pincer. Note that the leg is crossing over the middle. Now, pin it from the inside out (so you don't sew into the head of the needle).
The other legs are applied just as the first leg is. The "trick" is to distribute them evenly on the sides.
If your spiderbody is smaller then the one shown here, you might have trouble cramming the legs into place. Here it is important to be aware that the outline of the spider is NOT where you are going to sew, but rather the line you traced a few steps back. So the way the legs are put in place at the line is how they are going to be when sewn.
As said before, these four steps are only half of the spider to provide you with a better overview. When you are done with one side, it should look something like this.
Another tricky part is to apply the rest of the legs to the other side, without yanking too much at the fabric. It might help if you fold the first four legs, so they do not cross the center, while you are pinning the remaining four legs.
As you may have noticed, the pincers are a bit too large and the tip of them actually cross the traced line where the seam is going to be. Also you will have noticed some difficulty with getting all of the legs inside og the traced line. Our advice is try to use as many pins as it takes to keep the legs under control. Also remember to pin the pincers, so you won't sew into them, when sewing the body.
There is no other way to check if you have pinned your spiderlegs and pincers out of the way, than to sew the bodies together. So take the other bodypart and sew it onto the top of the mass of legs.
Hopefully, you have done a nice job at pinning, and your spider suffered no ill effects. It should look somewhat like this.
The legs are still in the way, and a good idea would be to pull out the pins and stuff the legs into the part of the body that you have just sewn. That way, they will be out off the way when sewing the rest of the body.
Remember: DO NOT sew the entire body... There has to be room for you to turn your spider inside out AND room enough for you to put in large amounts of stuffing :)
So, the stuffing hole should be at the side of the back of the spider body and not at the end. It is just easier to sew when it is in the side. We know that our "spiderhole" is located around the rear, which is why we can now tell you NOT to put it there :)
If your hole is large enough, then invert the spider and stuff it full of stuffing - whatever your choice of stuffing might be :)
If you have a lot of seam allowance, like we did, it might be easier for you to stitch it together if the seam allowance is "folded" into the spider.
To do so, simply stitch it like that very loosely, using thread and needle. Do not fasten the thread to the fabric, as you are going to remove these stitches later.
Check that your spider entrails are in order for it is time to sew up the spiders rear wound. We used a simple stiching technique, but if you want your stitches to be more invisible, we suggest that you use a bit more time than we did.
Also make sure that you sew along the folded edge, that you created at the last step - otherwise it would have been for naught :).
Done stitching? Then remove the temporary stitch, and your spider only lack feet.
Another repetetive task is at hand. 16 small circles needs to be cut. They are used for the feet.
Actually they do not have to be circular - you could make them square or triangular if you wanted to. But we made them round - using a toiletpaper roll as a measure unit. And it fitted nicely, we must say :)
A small piece of advice - make the circles in pairs. And when you have drawn your circles, then take a small pin and pin the two pieces together before you cut. It ensures that you do not loose your overview and that the spider feet match when you sew them on.
Now - for the pinning of the feet to the legs. Place half a foot on either side of the leg. Make sure that the leg goes the whole way "through" the foot, to make sure that you will sew the foot to the leg when you get that far
When you have pinned the feet onto the legs, check to see if you think that the spider legs are too long or just right (no, there is no too short because there is no turning back! :). Please keep in mind that, if you think that the legs look just right, they are going to become a foots length longer. Just for your consideration :)
Tip - when you are pinning, pin inside out. Otherwise, you'll have to make sure that the pin isn't in the way when you start to sew.
1) - Take your foot-pinned-to-the-spiderleg-leg.
2) - Sew the foot along the marked line. Make sure that you do NOT sew all the way around. Also, be sure that the gap that you leave open is large enough. It is better to work with a large gap than a smaller one. You just can't seem to stuff things as easily into a very small gap :P
3) - Now turn the sewn foot inside out. And stuff it. Cram the stuffing in. All that you can fit into the bloddy gap!
4) - Stitch the overflowing gap. There - done! With that foot at least. Only seven more to go. So get on it, otherwise the spider is going to limp about, and we can't have that, can we now?
Not a step, as such, more informative: Sewing the feet may prove difficult, due to the fact that the feet are very small and round. So try to sew these slowly and nicely - otherwise, your spider will end up with edged, and not, round globs for feet.
If you were wondering how we managed to stuff the feet without spending 2+ hours at each foot, then we have the answer for you here. It's a machine :)
No, actually it is just a spool of thread with a plastic core that by accident fitted into our foot-gap.
So from the left: spiderleg - spiderfoot (inverted) - spool (that fittet into the hole - you can use whatever fits your hole ;) - a paper cone taped to the other end of the spool - our choice of stuffing (heavy dried split peas) - the pea-bag
When we applied this technique our foot-filling sped up like you wouldn't believe it. But we had a problem - the peas got stuck in the spool. So, we'd fill the spool up with peas (using the cone as a... well, cone) and used a pencil to force the peas out of the spool.
If you are having the same problem, we advice you to hold on tightly when you force your pencil into the spool. Otherwise, you are are going to end up gather the peas from the floor instead of stuffing them into the foot.
Now for the last step - the creepy eyes :)
Simply stitch your choice of beads to the top of the spiders head, and you're done.
If you want, you could always apply more eyes to the spiders head - experiment a little, be overly creative :)
So here are a couple of pictures of the finished spider. It has many appliences :P
The spider isn't too pretty when thrown on the table, because the long legs gets entangled. Also the legs are a bit too stiff for them to be really pretty as a ragdoll.
Thanks to the heavy peas that we used, we can now hang the spider on edges of tables, window sills or shelves. However, it doesn't hang too well from smooth-edged surfaces.
Also, it is great when hung from various lamps, candle holders, picture frames, etc.
Lastly, it can deadly if treated wrongly - here our cat Byld wanted to play with it and it attacked him! Right in the neck!
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Sun 15:10 19/September-10
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