This is my first Craftster challenge, so here we go! Since I’m in the UK, I used a currency converter to translate $20 into pounds, so (as of January 14th) £12.77 was my limit.
The item I used for this challenge wasn’t ugly in the traditional sense of the word, but the sheer drabness of it was what made it ugly. It was an unloved, quite sad looking thing, but I was determined to breathe new life into it. I was browsing the thrift shops in Liverpool when I saw a really dull, duvet cover and 2 pillow cases. I paid £7.99 for them. (I also bought a cute greeting card with a bulldog on it while I was there, but that was for my personal collection
).
Here it is, in its original dullness, awaiting its magical journey into the washing machine, on the way to becoming something beautiful! Please excuse the mess in the kitchen, I have several projects on the go and the house does go to pot when I’m engrossed in my crafting. I dyed the duvet cover and only one of the pillowcases, since I needed the other pillowcase to stay white to make the horns and parts of the sleeves and leg warmers.
A quick math quiz! 1 liberated duvet set plus 1 box of blue fabric dye plus (additional supplies from my stash divided by my scissors) plus my sewing machine and glue gun equals…
A shiny Houndoom gijinka!
I’m sure most of you know what a gijinka is, but for those who don’t, I’ll explain. A gijinka is when you take an inanimate object or an animal and translate it into clothing. To get a better idea, type ‘gijinka’ into a Google image search.
I’m also sure that most of you are aware of what Pokemon are, and Houndoom is a Doberman-like animal with horns and a pointed tail. Normally, Houndoom is black and orange, but the shiny version is blue and peach. Here is a picture of Houndoom in its shiny form
.
The tail is a long grey foam thing (insulation for a pipe) inside a tube of fabric. I made a ribbon to go at the top so it didn't look just plonked on, and because it's detachable it is a bit er... wonky
The point of the tail is made of funky foam.
The horns are made out of upholstry foam - something I always have a lot of because I make costumes heads out of it - and covered with white fabric from the undyed pillowcase. I then stuffed them and glued hair slides to the bottom.
The white round ‘alien head’ is also detachable, so the garment can be machine washed.
And so to the leg warmers. Made to form-fit my legs, they're elasticated at the top. This was my first attempt at leg warmers, and the fact that there are tutorials here on craftster for making them certainly made it easier.
All in all, I only paid for the duvet set and a box of Dylon Ocean Blue machine dye - because I'm such a tremendous hoarder, everything else was already in my stash
It felt really good doing this challenge. I did some good by buying from a thrift store and recycling something unwanted into something really cute that I can wear to meet ups and anime cons/expos.
Hope you all like it! x
