Sunday, September 21, 2014

Sunday Sew-Day: Frankenstein

I got back to sewing today, but the project was a little... different than usual. First, let's flashback to roughly 46 weeks ago, when I introduced you all to our newest family member, Laika.

Laika

One of her first toys (and probably her favorite) was a stuffed alligator we creatively called "Gator."

Laika

Laika got bigger and more destructive, and we went through three Gators, each of whom had many surgeries to prolong its life before we would give in and buy her a new one.

Laika

Sometimes there even would be multiple surgeries in a single day when she would rip him open again almost immediately after I returned him to her.

Laika

Eventually, we gave up. The third Gator was retired (to the closet in my craft room), and we vowed to only buy her hard rubber toys after that.

Laika

But the three Gators stayed in my craft closet, wondering if they would ever be restored and reunited with their canine companion (Stockholm syndrome much?).

Now, with Laika's first birthday tomorrow, I decided to give her the gift of Gator. I pulled out all three and surveyed the damage. A detached leg. A notched tail. A single remaining eye, the other having been torn off and the socket closed up. And of course, many, many tooth holes and gnaw marks, mostly on the heads. For some reason, the heads were always her favorite part.

Gatorpillar - Before

Since the heads were more my stitches than original fabric, I decided to just remove them from the equation entirely.

Gatorpillar - In Progress

I joined two bodies together, tucking the damaged tail inside the rear-most body's neck hole.

Gatorpillar - In Progress

Then, I reattached the severed leg to the third body...

Gatorpillar - In Progress

...before attaching the third body to the first two.

Gatorpillar - In Progress

Next, I salvaged a fourth squeaker (there's one in each Gator butt) from another disemboweled toy and stuck it in the front of the third body. Then I used the most intact swath of fabric I could find from the three heads to patch the last neck hole.

Gatorpillar - In Progress

Tada! Headless Gatorpillar!

Gatorpillar - After

Gatorpillar - After

Laika was camped out in the hallway outside my sewing room the entire time I was stitching these guys together. She could smell her long lost toys and was very upset with Mommy for playing with them without her. The whining and sniffing and pawing at the door was too much to bear. So the birthday girl got her present a day early.

Gatorpillar - After

I think she likes it! This was the least blurry picture I could get.

6 comments:

  1. Love your dog photos and story! My son's dog also chews her stuffed toys to remove the squeakers. She is surgically precise and very quick at it. We got "indestructible" hard rubber toys for her, which took her an hour to chew open for the squeakers. Now we just restuff her toys every couple of days. She's happy with that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, yes, Laika still destroys the rubber toys as well, just not as quickly. She likes the squeakers in the Gators too, but for some reason the heads were always more delicious. Who knows!

      Delete
  2. I do this exact same thing. We have about ten of the same elephant, creatively named Ellie, in various states of dismemberment. I periodically restuff and stitch them, much to my dogs' horror. They always snatch them back when I'm done repairing them and run off to protect them from the horrible torture of Mommy's needles.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did the same thing with the Gators for months before giving up. Hopefully, she's outgrown her chewing a bit and this time it'll last a little longer. Probably not, but we can hope.

      Delete
  3. Hilarious! And touching! ... and hilarious :)

    Laika is so big - and her colouring is beautiful. Happy birthday girlie!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! It's funny how she was almost entirely black when we got her, but as she grew, it's like the black stretched out and little bits of tan popped through the cracks.

      Delete