Check it out! Our first ever unboxing video! I got inspired by my daughter's college mascot and am planning on making a mountain lion partial. 

I finally joined the modern age and got a mobile phone, which makes better videos than my camera. I thought I'd take it for a whirl and do a brief studio tour with it and test out how I might use it in blogging. Here it is!

I've been working on the paw design in fits and starts. It seems to be my fate to come up with ideas for super cool improvements just before I think I'm done. And then I write a blog post about them. So, here goes!

Here we have paws from two previous blog posts, the one on the left being loosely stuffed with Polyfil and the one on the right being supported by an internal foam structure. In this current blog post I'll talk about a new idea I had for this support.

Above, one of the feet I've made since those previous two posts. The reason for making yet another paw was to try out the pattern reduced by 4%, as that would allow me to get the majority of pattern pieces on one sheet of 8" x 11" paper, making it easier for others to download them and print them out. This new paw looks fine at this size. I also used the internal foam structure described in this post to give it shape.

However this method began to present some challenges. One, I had a difficult time gluing the foam and the fabric together neatly, causing the fabric to bunch in places. (Check out that wrinkle on the top of that outer finger in the left hand photo.)  Two, as the thickness of the foam built up inside, I had an increasingly difficult time turning the paw inside and right side out again, requiring some parts to be stitched together from the outside using a whip or ladder stitch. Thing is, sewing from the outside requires a fair bit of guesswork ,as all the guide marks are (duh) on the inside of the fabric. You can see above that the area between the palm and sleeve is bunchy where the sleeve got pulled a little too far to one side. You can also see the distinct lack or a dewclaw or palmar or carpal pad, which would also have been needed to sew on from the outside. At that point I was thinking I needed to try something else anyway.

And then, a brainstorm. Foam interfacing!! What would happen if I used interfacing to support the paws?  I haven't seen it used at all in fursuits, as it is mostly ironed on and fake fur melts. But, could I use the sew in kind? Lets see!

First, printing and cutting out the patterns. Part of me can't believe I haven't posted pics of these before, as they've been the total focus of my studio work for months.  

Here I've attached the patterns to 1/4" plain foam interfacing with temporary spray on glue and traced around them. I could do this without the glue but I find the patterns shift around a lot that way, and frustrate the hell out of me.

Cutting out the foam pieces and removing the patterns.

Attaching the foam pieces to the fur using temporary spray, being careful to align the direction of the fur on the fabric with the direction of the fur indicated on the pattern pieces.

Cutting out the pieces again. I left a tiny 1/16" lip of fabric hanging over the foam, as this will help insure when I sew everything together I'll catch both layers with the needle.

A view of the tiny lip of fabric  sticking out from the layers of foam.

The inside view of a couple of stitched up toes.

​And tadaaa....

Wrinkles dammit.  I wound up using some thicker foam to form the tendons but didn't line it up quite right, so, wrinkles. I have ideas to make it better next time.  However, the sleeve looks much nicer and the dew claw was not just relatively easy to sew on but looks fantastic.

Another view. The fingers mostly look nice and smooth, though I don't know why there's a weird dent in the inside finger in the left hand picture.  I suspect it's a sewing mistake. Something to figure out. 

I have to say though that the underside of the paw looks fantastic. I'm thrilled. 

​I might have an idea for future improvements... Onwards!

A quick little video showing how this newest handpaw draft looks while moving. So far so good!

Attempt one.  I came up with this version by enlarging and tracing top, bottom, and side views of an illustration of a paw onto a large piece of paper, cutting the tracings out, then transferring them onto foam. I then cut out the foam pieces and glued them together to make this paw. I never taped it up and made a pattern from it, as at this time I couldn't figure out how I'd pattern  the area in between the toes. I did come back to this technique later on.

​Let's call the above Attempt 2a. This paw was made from the pattern I got from sculpting a foot out of clay, taping it up, and enlarging the tape pattern to the correct size. (more here: http://www.sanssoucistudios.com/blog/onto-bigger-things) I believed I might better understand how to pattern in between the toes if I did this.

I'm looking at that seam across the knuckles, running higglety pigglety every which way, and wondering what the hell was I thinking?? Maybe that it might suggest different ways to approach that area, and to try them out on different parts of the paw? But it sure is a screaming mess.

This one we'll call Attempt 2b, an attempt at neatening up the seams from 2a. The seams across the knuckles are  ugly but at least they're consistent. This is also the only pattern where I ran a seam down the center of the underside of each toe. Future attempts would move the seams into a less visible spot along the sides of the toes. (I'm not sure I should letting these pictures see the light of day...)

From this point forward I was building paws out of foam and making patterns from them. The above, my first such attempt. Reconstructing my thought process here,  I made the fingers like tubes and the toebeans like plugs in the ends, as I could imagine how I'd tape up such an arrangement. You can also see how I changed the seams on the fingers from one central seam underneath to two more or less parallel seams on the top, where they blend in better with the overall design.  More here: http://www.sanssoucistudios.com/blog/feet-of-foam  

Here I played more (a lot more!) with building up detail in the foam. The finger tubes are still under there, but they have carved  knuckles and joints glued on top of them. I also gave the tubes a bit of a downward bend by cutting out notches on the undersides and gluing the edges together.

Above, mockup from first attempt at a pattern from this foam. We'll call this 4a. 

And, a second attempt from this foam paw and pattern. We'll call this 4b.

​The big difference between 4a and 4b is that 4b has more refined seamlines between the toes and the top and bottom of the hand (compare the green lines).  4b also has shorter toes. In other words, it looks slightly more like a dog's foot and and less like a gecko's. For more:  http://www.sanssoucistudios.com/blog/pause-for-paws  

Above, the final (ish) foam paw build. I revisited what I did in Attempt One, which is,  I enlarged top, bottom, and side views of an illustration of a paw onto a large piece of paper, traced and cut them out, transferred them onto foam, and then glued them all together. At this point I've also traded in the idea of cylindrical tubes for fingers for that of narrow rectangular boxes, hoping that this would allow the fingers to lie closer together, with less of a splayed appearance. I also did a lot less carving on this paw to keep the angles and edges as sharp and clear as possible.  

Here is the first attempt at a pattern from the above foot, which I shall dub 5a. This is also my is first attempt at translating the tendons into actual fabric. The toebean pattern has also been refined. More here:  http://www.sanssoucistudios.com/blog/getting-out-of-hand 

And, 5b. At some point I must have swapped out the toebeans on this foam paw, as they're noticeably larger here than the ones on 5a.

I made several versions of the pattern, switching from tape to fabric and adhesive spray to be better able to get into all the little nooks and crannies. I also cut apart the resulting paws several times, tweaked them, and used those for patterns for further attempts as well. For more:.  ​http://www.sanssoucistudios.com/blog/frankensteining

Which is what these poor things are, cut apart and tweaked paw attempts that have served as patterns. I think there are three different attempts contained in these four bags. 

OK so let's tote it up!! 1a + 2a + 2b +3a +4a + 4b + 5a + 5b + 3 random extras and.... eleven paw attempts. That's a few!!

​Now to go and get some more work done in my (for the moment anyway) immaculately clean studio!

So here we have the before and after pic from my last post, in which I talked about deblobbinating the paw by repatterning it using "Frankensteining", a method using felt patches and temporary adhesive spray. Here I'll talk about deblobbinating by using inside supports.

As this paw is so much bigger than the wearer's hand, it was clear from the get go it would need some kind of internal support, as otherwise it would look like a weird bag hanging from the end of the wearer's arm. I had some faint hopes that I could just stuff it with fiberfill and use the lining to hold the fiberfill in place, but nope, too blobby. See above left. 

The next solution to present itself was stuffing the original foam hand (from which I made the pattern) inside the fabric one. Remember this guy? 

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 Nice thought but nope, doesn't fit. The wrist is narrower than most other parts of the hand, and squish as I might the foam fingers don't really fit through the fabric sleeve at the wrist. Plus, there's a lot of bitty details to line up and glue down, like tendons and knuckles, and I don't know how I'd see to maneuver a glue gun between the foam and fabric once one is stuffed in the other. There is also the very significant consideration that I would really not want to recreate the entire foam hand every time I made one of these. 

So.. next approach, two considerations... First, can I use only parts of the foam hand? What is the minimum amount of foam I can get away with to get the look I want? Second, since I can't stuff a finished foam hand into a finished fabric one, to what degree can I add foam as I sew up the hand and build the support as I go?

My first take on the  bare minimum. A foam "tube" to support the palm and back of the paw, and foam detail to add definition to the knuckles, tendons, and first joints.  

​ I removed the sleeve from the fabric paw so I could maneuver the foam inside, and held it all lightly together with temporary adhesive to get an idea of how it would work. (The palmar pad is missing, I know.. I hadn't added it onto this particular draft as I I was already pretty confident it worked. Pardon the little foam bitties.)

 And, ouch. The toes could easily bend uncomfortably backwards at the spot where the foam support in the first joint ended. I did not like this at all.

Here I've added foam that goes all the way to the tips of the fingers. 

More  views of the support piece with its additions. (The black thing is a patch of sorts, as I ripped a hole in that piece of foam in my zeal.)

Now that the support piece is that much more complicated, I need to be able to better see what I am doing while installing it.  I turned the fabric paw inside out, sprayed the support piece with temporary adhesive and laid the tops of the two parts against each other, tugging and fiddling to get everything lined up and in the right place.  The tube thing for the palm will flip into the correct position when the hand is turned right side out, though with some difficulty. That stupid piece of black foam that I used as a patch did not help. I've also added foam to support the toebeans here, as I'm curious to see how that will look. 

When I flipped the whole thing right side out again, I was much happier with how the fingers looked while moving, from above anyway. When viewed from the underside, the palm and fingers bunched and folded in some pretty odd ways. Time for more supports? I decided to try  adding some foam to the undersides of the fingers, in the process connecting the palm piece with the toebean pieces.  Also, putting the parts together as above allows me to line up and glue the top carefully before turning it right side out, but not the bottom. (I imagine I could do it the other way too, lining up the bottom but not the top, though the top being the more complicated piece it makes sense to do it that way.) How could I line both the top and the bottom parts up carefully before turning everything right side out? If I left one end of the foam tube open, I could lay the tops of fabric and foam together, line them up and glue them down, roll the fabric and foam over like a giant burrito, repeat with the bottom pieces, glue the ends of the foam tube together, then turn right side out. Viola!!

I also found that when the bottom of the finger was supported, the top didn't bend back as easily as it had before, so I could get away without foam all the way to the fingertips, just stuffing instead. 

The support that's actually in the finished draft. Look familiar? That's because it was one of the paws I made a tape pattern from, partially disassembled. 

Finally, I sewed the sleeve back on, using a ladder stitch as I had to sew on the "good" side (such as it is with felt) as opposed to the underside, as it was now very difficult to turn the paw inside out again. The spray adhesive complicated matters, as it wanted to collect on and knot up my thread and needle. I'm not sure if I'll be using the temporary adhesive for paws I plan on selling, so this may or may not be an issue.

Next, to make a pair of finished paws using this pattern, and actually offering them for sale! Stay tuned!

PS Fun fact!!  Trying to describe hand parts in this post made me go on a somewhat useless Internet search for the terms. I did find the term "Flagina", which supposedly is a name for the fold of skin between your thumb and forefinger. Hee hee!

Can I be honest here? This brown sleeve drives me nuts. It soooo triggers my OCD. I wanted it to be the same color as the rest of the hand!! I had used up all my tan felt so I used  this brown, the least offensive color I had in a large enough quantity in my stash. Normally I'd address this issue by running out to Joann Fabrics and buying some more tan felt, but... 

On July 10 much of Vermont was hit with catastrophic flooding and the local Joann Fabrics, along with all of the other stores in that particular shopping plaza, were wiped out. Four feet of water in the store. Sob!! As of this writing just about two months later, Joann's is still closed.  

Here is a video of the commercial area next to my hometown. Joann Fabric can be seen towards the very end, at 1:21 minutes.  We ourselves at Sans Souci Studios are grateful we only suffered a damp basement, but our hearts ache for all the people who lost homes and businesses. 

Ah, such high hopes. Previously I'd posted about my glorious latest paw draft, shown above taped up and ready for patterning. And also above, the paw I sewed up from that pattern. You can see the one does not look anywhere near as good the other. The sewn up paw looks short, chunky and blobby.

Well, at least the underside looks pretty good, though I think the wrist could use either some padding or other support.

I came to the conclusion there were two issues here, one with the fiberfill used for support and another with the duct tape used for patterning.  The duct tape often sticks to itself before it sticks to the model, so It's hard to get a pattern with any kind of fine detail. I had problems with the tape sticking to itself especially around the knuckles and tendons and in between the fingers.  This post will be about the solution to this problem with the tape.  Look for more about the issue with the fiberfill in my next post. 

​​I combined this newfound willingness to work directly from a paw with the rediscovery of an overlooked supply in my studio- temporary fabric adhesive- and invented a new patterning method, which I dubbed... Frankensteining! Scary!!!

Starting the edits to the paw for realz. Here, I've cut the top of the paw along the line between the knuckles and the first joint of the fingers. Easy to see how the knuckles grew larger and shifted forward from the original foam paw to the fabric paw. (The original knuckles are outlined in green, the shifted fabric knuckles outlined in white.)  It also appears that the knuckle and first joint of the pinky finger (here marked with a 4) merged completely. 

Reining in the oversized knuckles. I've pinched up the excess fabric with sewing clips, cut it off, and stitched it back together again with a blanket stitch, highlighted here in pink. 

(What are all the random thick black marks on the paw on the right hand side, you may ask? These are where I'm anticipating cutting the revised paw apart to make the new pattern.)

Tightening up the toes. Again, I pinched up the extra fabric, trimmed it off, and sewed the new edges together.  I've highlighted those seams in pink. I like how this process made the finger joints more clearly defined.

​Now it's time for the temporary fabric adhesive! I sprayed some adhesive onto scraps of felt to make patches of sorts. I laid these patches over any gaps in the fabric on the paws, tucking the edges of the patches under the preexisting fabric. Then I traced along the edges of the fabric onto the patches with a Sharpie, cut off the excess, and stitched the patch onto the paw using a blanket stitch.  

Above, showing the before and after of this process. There are gaps in the fabric  between the knuckles and the first joint on the first, third, and fourth fingers. These gaps are outlined in pink in the picture on the left, and the finished patches outlined in the same manner on the right. 

This next change was a critical one, though it's hard to see in photographs. The duck tape was too sticky to allow it to be positioned as far back between the fingers as it needed to be, which totally threw off the relative proportions of the fingers and the back of the hand in the resulting pattern. In other words, the back of the hand turned out too long and the fingers turned out too short and stumpy when I stitched them up!!  You can see how much further back into the back of the paw the fingers join now.  

Here's another visual to help illustrate the problem with the fingers attaching to each other in the incorrect spot. The photo on the left hand side shows the fingers joined correctly and in the proper proportions to the back of the hand. The photo on the left shows the fingers joined incorrectly and too short in proportions to the back of the hand.   

Imagine also, how the two different paws would move. The one on the left could wiggle its fingers more easily, and spread them more widely than the one on the right.

All edits made! Now, disassembling... cutting the Frankensteined paw into pieces in order to make the new, refined pattern.

The various pieces need to be cut in a way that they'll lie flat in order to make a proper pattern.  Here I've made the knuckles lie flat by cutting them into some pretty groovy shapes. Then I've traced this piece onto paper. I am planning to scan the traced patterns for all the handpaw pieces into the computer, make them pretty with GIMP, and make the whole thing available as a download.  

You can see the palmar pad and dew claw still attached to this piece. I am happy with the patterns I have for these parts already, and since whether or not they're there doesn't effect whether or not this piece lies flat, I've left them there.

And here we have the official Before And After! The original blobby paw on the left, and the edited, refined paw on the right. I'm very happy with this progress. 

Really and truly. Here I am mugging with the new foam paw I made, all taped up and ready for patternmaking.

I get so excited about whichever phase of my paw I'm working on that I can't wait to make some more and then I think, you know what would make it *really* great?? And off I go again. I was so pleased I got a reasonable interpretation of tendons with the previous draft, and then I thought, the paw would be even better if the fingers lay closer together, tamping down a little more firmly on that inclination they have to spread out and morph into bird's or lizard's toes or something. 

Here is this newest foam paw, prior to taping. 

Here we have the previous foam paw compared to this newest paw. One big difference between them was my focus on getting the big, overall shapes of the new foot correct and worrying less about smaller details, such as carefully rounding all the edges and making sure the angles between the first and second joints of the toes were correct. Another big difference is the basic shape of the fingers. The fingers of the new foot are more or less elongated rectangles made from foam, rather like boxes, so they can lay fairly flush up against each other. Fingers from previous drafts were tubes, sheets of foam rolled up and the edges glued together. The curve of the tubes tended to push the fingers away from each other and make them spread out more.  
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I'm excited to sew up a felt version of this foot, stay tuned!!

It's been a while, hasn't it?? We've had hit after financial hit lately, with unplanned furnace and washing machine replacements delivering the final blow to a savings account already staggered by my hip operation, so when two full time coworkers took long vacations and a lot of extra hours became available, I signed up. I've wanted to use the scant time I have in the studio actually making stuff, and not posting on social media. But hopefully, I'm back to my regular schedule for the time being. I did take lots of pictures of my projects (and cute cats!) so there should be at least several new posts coming in short order. So I'm peeking in now to say hello and stay tuned!!