felt katamari damacy prince and katamari ball - with magnets! AND tutorial!

I made these for the Katamari Swap, but did not finish the ball in time unfortunately. The prince is already at his new home, but here are pics.

He has magnets in his feet!

Eventually I'm going to paint/decorate the magnetic beads so you can roll up cats and trees and things. But for now, I'm just happy I finished sewing the darn thing.

*edit - I just remembered I was inspired to do this by this post http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=70397.0 *

Katamari Materials:
-felt or fabric of choice (I used one craft sized sheet for the main body and from half a sheet to a full one for each color circle)
-12 magnets (as strong as you like. mine look like watch batteries, called "strong craft magnets")
-polyfil or stuffing of choice
-dodecahedron pattern ( vg" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dodecahedron_flat.s vg)
OR 12 pentagons about 1/2 the diameter of the finished katamari you want
-needle and thread (dunno how many yards, sorry)
-magentic beads, paint, scraps (optional for decorating objects to roll up)
-patience!

** you can change the number of bumps on your katamari by picking a different polyhedron. wikipedia has other images you can use as patterns, like a buckyball for example **

If you have more time than money, lay out your pattern and rearrange (6) pentagons so you can use the most of the sheet. Otherwise, cut out the pattern as is.
Pick a contrasting color (or not) to be the largest circle closest to the body of the Katamari. Cut out circles about the same size as the pentagons in the body pattern. Larger if you want really poofy bumps, smaller if you don't, or want it to be easier to put together.
Pick a different shade of the largest dot to be the smallest dot's color. Cut out circles slightly larger in diameter than your magnets.
Choose a similar color (or not, it is yours after all) to be the medium circle. Make these half-way in size between the large and small dots. Mine were about twice the diameter of the smallest.
Now you can begin sewing! Sew the smallest dot to the center of the medium dot with the magnet sandwiched in between. You can use contrasting or the same color thread, depending on the look you want. My stitches were quite visible, but I thought it looked neat. I started from one point inside the circle, then went radially around. So inside, just outside the edge, come up inside again.
After sewing 12 little dots onto the 12 medium ones, sew each "magnet nipple" onto the large circle with a pinch of stuffing in between the layers. This makes your bumps really pop! If you have a lot of fluff, you need to make sure your cicle is poofy enough by sliding the fabric closer together so you get ridges in between the stitches. But only a little bit or else you'll run out of edge!
Next stitch the large circles onto the pentagons with a large pinch of stuffing. Use as much or little as you like. You can stitch half way around before stuffing if you find it easier, but remember to make it 3D by scrunching a little as you go, as described in the previous step.
Finally, you stitch the pentagons together. This is the tricky part, because all those strong magnets either want to stay away or won't leave each other alone! Use it to your advantage if you can, to hold the pieces in place while sewing. Leave one or two pentagons unsewn so you have room to turn it right-side-out and stuff it. If you had single pentagons (because of limited fabric, like me) attach them by pushing one side of the right-side-out ball in, and sewing one side at a time.

Please tell me if anything doesn't make sense. I plan on making more of these, then I can show pictures of the progress if you want.

(if you want to make the prince, I used the paper doll pattern and scaled it up-- oops they removed their website. pm me and I can e-mail it to you, thank goodness I saved it haha)