Baby Squid!

Last year I created a life-sized giant squid for my sister for Christmas.  It was 8 feet long and yes, it was green.

Well, the squid had a baby...

...in a matter of speaking.

Here is the birth story:

It all started with a couple pieces of fleece.

I divided the length into 8 triangular sections for the tentacles and roughly cut them out.

After pinning the fleece pieces together I sewed along the edges of the tentacles.  Since I made the inner (red) triangles smaller than the outer (orange) ones the tentacles a bit of natural curl to them.

After folding the outer (orange) panel down, I folded the whole thing in half by matching up the outer (orange) side edges and the inner (red) side edges.  I marked up a semi-circle on the inner (red) panel and then sewed around the edge of the semi-circle and down the outer (orange) side.  After trimming around the semi-circle I folded up the outer (orange) panel and turned the tentacles right-side out.  

Then came the eyes.  I embroidered the black center of the eye onto a circle and then sewed a strip of fleece into a loop with the same circumference as the circle.  This strip was then sewn around the circle's edge.  A little stuffing and then the eyes were sewn onto the body.

It's starting to look cute, huh?

For the top of the squid I drew a semi-circle onto a piece of folded fleece.  I also made some small triangles.  I sewed up two of the triangles' sides and then flipped them right-side out.

The triangles were then sandwiched within the fleece of the squid top with the open side facing outward.  I then sewed along the semi-circle, clipped the curve and flipped it right side out.

The squid top was then stuffed and pinned onto the squid body and sewn in place.  I didn't sew directly on the fold itself; rather, I folded the edge of the squid top down about an inch or so and sewed there.  This made a little "flap" where the squid top and body met.

For the large, long tentacles I folded long strips of fleece in half lengthwise and sewed up the side, leaving length at the top where I trimmed out a point.  After turning the long strips right-side out I sandwiched a leaf-shaped piece of fleece between the pointed ends and sewed it in place.

All that was left was to tack the long tentacles onto the underside of the squid.

Voila! A baby squid was born!

...a baby squid that also makes a fun baby "hat!"