Well, this is the first entry for Typewriter Orange. I love the way certain words sounds, and I also love the color orange. It is just a bright and happy color. “Don’t you just think orange is the friendliest color?” Anyway, so the name of this blog is Typewriter Orange. I have attempted to blog in the past which just turned out to be an epic fail. I am trying again, but this time I am going to blog about art projects and crafty things and see how that goes.
First Project to blog about:
The Totoro Backpack
For those of you not familiar with Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro, let me say that if you want to enjoy a great film that the entire family will absolutely LOVE, watch it. But NOT the one with what’s her face Fanning doing the voice, the first one that was dubbed into English. For those of you who already know and love Totoro, you can understand the obsession that my nephew has with Totoro, or Totro as he is called by my almost 2 year old niece.
My nephew Brandon loves Totoro, and he always wants to read/look at my Totoro picture book before bed when he visits. So, when I found out his family would be visiting close to his birthday this year, the idea popped into my head for a Totoro something. Now I have done a few Totoro related projects in the past.
The Totoro Hat:
The Soot Sprite Christmas Ornaments:
The Totoro Computer bag (Just a premade bag I screen the Totoro Log on):
And most recently the Totoro Shoes:
Now my first idea was to do a pair of Totoro shoes for Brandon, but plain kids size canvas shoes aren’t as easy to find as I thought they would be AND he can get a longer use out of a back pack than he can shoes, so I shifted my focus. I have never even attempted to make a back pack before, so I just sketched a little idea in my little handy dandy notebook and set to cutting up fabric and sewing things together.
The material choice was mostly for color and texture. Totoro is a soft and cuddly creature, so a Totoro backpack, to me anyway, should be soft too. I used the same material as the Totoro hat and used a more durable canvas material for the lining. Note to self for future projects, this soft material gets caught in sewing machine like mad and will make further adjustments for future endeavors. With that said, the eyes and belly pocket are made of white felt and the black parts of the eyes are just black buttons. The nose is just black thread. He comes with a zipper top, hanging strap, and adjustable padded shoulder straps. Over-all I think he came out quiet cute.
Sadly I was VERY sick the day his party came, I actually spent the day of his birthday party in the ER…gastro enteritis you are NOT my friend and I hope we NEVER meet again. So, I missed the big reveal, but my husband was very sweet and took the present over and recorded the birthday boy opening his present. Which I am happy to say he loves! The other nieces and nephews immediately began making requests for their own Totoro bags, so I will be hard at work getting the kinks out of the design flaws. If things work out well, I will try and post them on Etsy to see if anyone else might like to get one!
Project one: check!
