My new Beartato stuffed animal
in which a picture is shown and a brief abstract is given.
If you don't know what a beartato is, I really have no clue what you're doing making one, but you can find him and the rest of Nedroid's comics here.
You can see the one I made in the picture up top, in which he looks "very smooshy."
How to make your own
in which we discuss the making of a plush beartato.
You will need:
• Some dark brown (think potato colored) fabric. I used an old T-shirt that I didn't care about any more.
• Some light brown or tan fabric. If you have old khakis you don't mind being destroyed or made into shorts, use those.
• Some black fabric. This is for the eyes, nose, arms, and legs,
• A needle and thread. This should really be self explanatory.
• Black embroidery floss, a sharpie, or yarn. For his mouth. If you want to get fancy, use a white T-shirt for his teeth.
• Fluff. You can buy it at a craft store, of just raid your Q-tips. The latter gets expensive and takes awhile, but it gives your stuffed animals that authentic "cotton that may have been in someone's ear" smell.
• Scissors.
• This pattern
Procedure:
Print out the pattern.
Take the big piece of the pattern and trace it onto the T-shirt or fabric. Cut it out about half an inch away from the lines. Repeat this for the other side.
Line the pieces up and sew almost all the way around them. Leave about 3 inches un-sewn between where you begin sewing and where you stop, because you need a place to put the fluff in.
Turn the Beartato husk inside out. If you've done everything correctly so far, the seam will be on the inside andyou'll be holding something that doesn't look much like a bear or a potato. That's okay, it's supposed to look like that.
Put the fluff in until your Beartato feels the correct amount of smooshy. Then sew the hole closed to keep the fluff in. (I used a whip stitch with the two edges folded in, which is a lot less compex than it sounds and you probably know how to do it already. Here's a tutorial if you aren't sure.) Congratulations, you have a Beartato torso.
Now you'll need to put the face and limbs on. This is the part where it stops looking like just a blob.
I started with the ears, but it's not really important. To make them, I used the thicker collar part of the shirt (it was a turtleneck.) I cut two "D" shaped pieces and folded them in a crinkly fashion. You don't have to crinkle them, you could just sew the bottom part of the ear along the seam that already exists and it would look fine.
Then I put the eyes on. Trace the two little circles onto the black fabric (chalk will show up). Cut them out and sew them on with some black thread.
Now you need to make the snout. Use khaki if you have some, but if you don't use some kind of tan fabric. I used the back of some really tacky tiger-print fabric I got as a gift. Trace the pattern onto the fabric, and sew it on with some fluff between it and the torso.
You should put the nose on now, which is just a folded piece of the black fabric. I folded it in half a couple of times and made sure to have the loose edges tucked under the smooth part. Sew that on with some black thread.
For the mouth, I used embroidery floss to stitch across the front of his face once, and then drew over it in permanent marker a few times so it would look less like a voodoo doll. Again, if you want to, you can use a white t-shirt to make his teeth and then add those, but I was feeling a bit lazy and didn't do that.
For the legs, I used some old brown corduroys. Black would probably look as good or nicer. Trace the pattern onto the fabric of your choice and cut it out. You'll want to roll the limbs into tubes, and then sew up the side of those. Roll up each finger and sew those too. For the legs, I bent them in at a ninety degree angle about half an inch (a centimeter or so) from the end. Sew that in place.
Now sew the unadulterated ends to Beartato's torso and you're finished.
Congratulations!
Edit: If you want a bigger, softer, and more fluffy Beartato you can buy one now.
