Groxie

I mentioned before that I played around with my sewing machine a bit to get more comfortable working with it. The product of my play time was this little ninja pillow. I have no idea how my brain settled on this particular design, but from the moment I started cutting out a square of black fabric, I started thinking about ninjas. I love my little ninja pillow because he’s imperfect; I love his pink mask and his unevenness. But I love him even more for being homemade, completely safe, and made entirely of crap we had around the house.

John sometimes talks to me about the HeMan castle his father built for him out of cardboard back in the day. It was modeled on all of the store-bought plastic ones, and it even had a throne that spun to reveal a hidden trap door! My favorite toys when I was little were my grandma’s old clothes. She had a closet full of great vintage dresses, shoes, suits, and sparkly things that my sisters and I would prance around in. The dress up closet helped us create banks, farmhouses, swank dinner parties, or entire villages full of fascinating characters. Now don’t get me wrong, we both grew up with video games and plenty of Legos, but we also have some great memories of those simple toys that were powered by imagination.

Also, it’s more fun to sit down and make a ninja than it is to hem some curtains. When’s the last time you made something fun for yourself? I love knitting, but I’m always making useful things, even though I adore so many of the knitted toys I see. After this ninja project, I plan on making all sorts of toys to stash away—who wouldn’t want a ninja as a present? Or a little knitted turtle?

So I decided to put together a little step-by-step of my ninja making process. If you’re an expert seamstress, then you can disregard this completely and probably come up with a great design on your own. But if you’re like me, with a little knowledge and very little experience, this could be a useful guide. I made this up as I went along, and each ninja gives me new ideas for the next; don’t be afraid to jump in and create whatever strikes your fancy.

You ‘ll Need

• 2 types of fabric
• some batting (or other stuffing material)
• thread
• hand sewing needle
• sewing machine (you could do this all by hand, but it would take a long time)
• index cards (optional, but handy)
• ruler

First, pick your fabric. I’m a bit of craft hoarder, so I had some smallish pieces leftover from a long-ago abandoned dress project. I think the ninjas would be great made out of old towels, sheets, t-shirts, whatever you can get your hands on. How much you need depends entirely on what size ninja you want. For the batting, I used leftover batting we used to move our furniture. If you don’t have any on hand, it is super cheap at the craft store, or you could alter the bottom a bit and use one of your pillows! I used white thread on my black ninja and red on the flowered one. This depends entirely on how much contrast you like. I like my black and pink ninja best; I think the light mask with a dark body looks great. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of the creation so I’ll use my flower and polka dot one for the tutorial.

Cut Your Fabric

• Cut two 10″ by 10″ squares out of your main fabric, or cut whatever dimensions sqaures you want; I used 8″x8″ for my polka dot ninja.
• Cut a 1″ by 1″ square out of each corner of the bigger squares (I forgot to do this until later).
• Make a arm/leg pattern by tracing the bottom of a cup on one end of an index card (or just freehand) and cut.
• Trace arm/leg pattern on to main fabric eight times. You could save some time by folding your fabric and cutting a few at once.
• You could make your face here, but I like to save that until I can see what size the finished ninja will really be…

Make the Arms and Legs

• Pin together two leg pieces, with the right sides facing inwards. Sew a 1/2″ seam along the sides and the curved edge, leaving the flat edge open. Trim seam, and cut tiny notches along the curved edge, just outside of the seam. Repeat for the other leg and the arms.
• Turn the arms and legs right side out and stuff with batting, as full as you want. Make sure to leave some space at the top to sew them shut. The more space you leave, the easier it will be to sew closed, but you don’t want floppy legs!



• Sew the gaps closed with a 1/4″ top seam. Don’t worry, this seam will be hidden inside of the ninja later.

Make the Body

Now the tricky stuff begins!

• Decide where you want to place the arms and legs of the ninja. I’ve tried three different variations here, and they all look fine. My favorite leg placement is on my as-of-yet unfinished polka dot ninja. I placed them at an angle at the bottom. That placement is a little trickier than just putting them on the bottom, but I’ll explain it, too.



• Pin the arms and legs onto the right side of one of the big squares, with the arms and legs facing inwards. I recommend basting them into place before sewing together the body, but I tried it once with just pins, too. If you want angled legs, only place the arms right now. Place the other big sqaure of fabric on top, so that the right sides of the squares are facing and the arms and legs are inside, hidden from view. It will be a bit bumpy, but do your best to pin it together, matching the corners.



• Sew a 1/2″ seam around the two sides and the top. Do not sew around the cut-out squares in the corners—just sew the big edges. If you are placing the legs at the bottom, sew a 1/2″ seam from each side, leaving a gap in the middle that is large enough for stuffing. Trim seams, except around the gap. If you are doing angled legs, you should still sew from each side, leaving a gap. You’ll add your legs in a moment.
• Originally I just sewed together 2 squares and stuffed it, but I thought the ninja came out a little funny looking. That’s why I added some room; I thought of it after making a tote bag off of a Craftster tutorial. She links to a square bottom bag tutorial, so if you need more of an explanation, check there. At the top where your 1″ holes are at the corners, grab and pinch together the 2 seams. So you should have a side and top seam pinched together. Make sure the seams line up, and pin.



• If you sewed your legs onto the bottom, you can treat the bottom corners the same way. If you want angled legs, now’s your chance. Slip the legs in between the big squares, and manuever them so that the flat seam comes out of the bottom 1″ square. Pinch the seams together with the legs seam in the middle, and pin. If it sounds goofy, that’s because it is. It wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but I really like the way it came out. You might not—experiment and see what works.
• Sew a 1/2 seam over all of the corners, and trim.



• Turn right side out, and you should have a boxy looking thing with arms and legs!
• I think next time I will only do the square bottom, and forgo the cutouts on the top. That way, there’s a little more definition for his head, and I can still make the angled legs I like so much.

Make Your Ninja Face

John helped me with the face; we tried a few iterations of the mask before finally settling on one piece of raw-edged fabric hand-stitched on. I like the simplicity of the design, and you can make it into whatever expression you want!

• Trace your design out on an index card, or bigger piece of cardboard. I did a lot of folding and measuring, using round objects, and erasing before I was happy. Once you have a pattern, cut it out, and test drive it on your ninja. If you’re happy with it, trace it onto your second fabric and cut that baby out.



• Center (or don’t!) your face and pin it down. How you hand stitch it on is completely up to you. I did something like an oversewing stitch, but I made it a little bigger to accentuate the thread color. Play around and see what you like&mdashmaybe your ninja needs crosses?

Stuff and Sew

Stuff that ninja until it’s almost as full as you want it; leave a little room for sewing closed. We’ll add the last bit of stuffing later. Sew closed using the ladder stitch. It’s an easy stitch, and it does a great job of disappearing. When you’re almost finished sewing the hole closed, stuff in the last bit of batting. Sew shut, and rejoice! You have a ninja pillow.

Bonus

I’m sorry, I know this is cheesy, but I couldn’t resist! I like to take the leftover scraps of fabric and make little catnip toys. I sew two squares together, leaving a small gap. Once it’s filled with catnip I just sew it up; I don’t bother hiding seams for the kitties. They go absolutely crazy for it—the catnip is fresher than in the store bought toys, plus it lasts longer than when I just dump some on the floor for them.