#-my other projects are all TMA. One painting one with tape lint one with red thread one with wire

[guinevere01]

Time for Marius!

[ID: a plush Marius octokitten made from black fabric with lighter contrast fabric for the bottom of the tentacles. He wears a red waistcoat with a string chain leading from a "button" to a "pocket", a coat from a greenish blue fabric with glittery floral embroidery, and a leather bullet belt with black and gold shells (indicated by bands of black and gold marker on the leather). He has one irregular brown button eye, and one monocle, a large dark blue button with a gold rim reminiscent of a steampunk raider attached to a black band that runs diagonally across his face. He has grey embroidered whiskers, there's messy stitching visible at the lower part of the front tentacles.]

I finished this one over a week ago, then finally made photos last week on Thursday but everyone was screaming about TMA (including me) so that was Not a good time to post, so here he is at last!

The coat was a bit of a struggle as the fabric was frankly horrible to work with but I'm really happy with how it came out! Here's a shot where the cut of the coat is more clearly visible:

[ID: a photo with flash of the same octokitten, taken at an angle. The blue glow of the monocle is more clearly visible as well as the back strap against the black fabric of his face. Now also clearly visible is the cut of the coat: it has a high pointed collar and cuts back just above where the waistcoat ends, the coat is longer at the side. The leather bullet belt gets thinner at the end and finishes on his back, attaching to the other end with black thread running up over his back. /End ID]

One huge struggle I had with this one was that the black fabric was incredibly stretchy, which meant I had to be super careful with stuffing cause rather than making the tentacles stiffer I would just make them bulge by adding more stuffing. I also was lazy and thought I could sew the tentacles just by my cut of the fabric without actually drawing the pattern on it. This was a Mistake™ and meant his bottom turned out super lumpy cause I did not cut the tentacles in deeply enough. (I was on a high from listening to the TMA season 4 finale and meanwhile following a much anticipated liveblog of those same episodes whilst sewing and stuffing the tentacles, it was also the middle of the night, don't blame me). I eventually fixed this by pushing away the stuffing as much as I could without undoing my work and sewing them in deeper and then cutting off the excess fabric which led to the messier look the inside of the tentacles have now but also a much better shape.

Here's a shot from the bottom showcasing both the messy stitching I ended up with (half of it done by hand cause I got over confident once again and cut too close to my original machine sewn stitches), and the pretty fabric I gave him cause I A) saw I had this fabric and wanted to use it for someone and B) knew Marius would rock it and thought it was a nice ode to his scarfs.

[ID: a hand holding the octokitten with the bottom up. The fabric is white with irregular colourful patches with a somewhat marble like pattern, this is mainly yellows and pinks in the centre and bright green on one tentacle as well as several grey veins throughout. /End ID]

Oh and here's the obligatory picture of them all together so far!

[ID: a photo of three plush octokittens of similar size, left is Ivy - red fabric, white floral underside of tentacles, black waistcoat, white button eyes, black whiskers - middle is Marius who turned out slightly taller than the other two, right is Tim - grey fabric, brown waistcoat, white unbuttoned shirt collar, leather coat, uneven yellow eyes with black cracks throughout, white whiskers. /End ID]

This was the last one for a bit as, for my sanity, I need my sewing machine, ironing board, huge sack with stuffing and huge Ikea bag filled to the brim with fabric to be gone from my living room for a while. ✨ (I JUST finished putting the fabric stash back in the overhead storage and managed to almost kill myself thrice, lets go gays). Also I got other projects I really really wanna make some process on.