Handstitched Yoyo Clown

I finally finished it! The cutest and funniest clown ever! A few months ago, I borrowed this book Stitched Toys: 20 Stunning But Simple Designs from the library. I thought it would be cute to flick through it and get some ideas. I ended up extending it for about 3 months and it is now permanently on my Amazon wishlist until the next gift-giving event. I love it!

This clown was a present for a girl at work, the same one I made the car pillow for. It was so easy to make although quite time consuming. A few supplies were needed and a ton of time to make 60 yoyos... I had lots of fabric scraps so that wasnt a problem but nearly 60 yoyos is quite a lot really...

Ok... they dont look like 60 here, but there are about 57 and I was still a few short!

Curious? Let's jump right in!

THIS is my version of the clown from the book. A little skinnier than the version from the book but I really like it. The yoyos were all made freehand so some were larger than others and in the end I just sorted them by size. Putting all the larger yoyos on the legs means I ended up with this very cool huge clown pants look :) It's put together with elastics so very bendy and stretchy and I had to hold it up to get this shot, but my hand is a great reference for the size.

(picture found here as I totally forgot to photograph this page and have already returned the book to the library)
This is the model shown in the book (so NOT the clown I made, just to be clear). A lot more Michelin-Man which is why I am really pleased with mine :)

The colours are a bit different from the book as I used a lot of print to get it as clowny as possible

Check out all those yoyos! For Christmas I bought the bf this mini studio which I borrowed to take some wicked shots of my creations on the weekend so my clown had to model a bit to show you all the details :) Plus I managed to get it to stand without my help!

Detail of all the piled up yoyos forming arms, legs, and torso

Pompons on the shoes, very clowny

The head turned out a bit thinner but considering the new body shape it really works I think. I didnt copy the pattern for this from the book so this also had to be freehand. I decorated the hat with two rows of different coloured rickrack and two pompoms. For hair I used some green plush (I was then stuck with half a meter of bright green plush but I made something else really cool with it, will blog about that soon also). I handstitched the felt facial features on and embroidered the black on the eyes. There was no way I would find a button small enough in my stash for this!

Ooooh, all the modelling can make a clown tired... I think he needs to sit down...

I really love this shot, very closeup and detailed. I have a feeling I will be using the studio a lot from now on ;) so, on behalf of the clown (and the entire reason for this photo) thank you for reading this post everyone, goodnight!!! *clown waves goodnight*

UPDATE: Yay my lovely clown was featured on Creating My Way to Success!
Thank you so much Jill :)