Making Monsters with Jenny Harada

I spent last Saturday afternoon at a plush workshop taught by the famous Jenny Harada!

The workshop was held at Etsy Labs in Brooklyn, where Jenny took us through the basics of sketching pattern pieces and putting them together with a sewing machine. My hands were too busy to take any photos during the class, but Jenny let me take a quick photo of her with her mound of plushes afterwards.

Aside from making my own plush toy, I had a lot of fun looking through Jenny’s crazy creations and picking her brain about her design process. It’s funny how there are some similarities with making knitted toys, but sewing is still a little foreign to me. I think I’m gradually getting more comfortable with it, though.

So here is the monster I made! His name is Herman.

Herman’s shape is something I’ve had in mind for a while—I sketched out his body freehand, and I used Jenny’s patterns for his legs and horns. Don’t you love his purply furriness? The fur is great because it conceals less-than-skilled sewing.

Herman’s a lot of trouble, though. As soon as I brought him home, he started trying to eat everything in sight!

He tried to eat John’s stuffed elephant…

Then he went for the Woodins (log and all!)…

Even John wasn’t spared!

So we’ve got our hands full with our new friend. Maybe sometime soon I’ll try sewing something completely on my own!