If you've never purchased from AliExpress before, it can be confusing. I've seen many people say they are hesitant to buy from Hopen because of it. I hope this guide will make it easier for you to purchase what you want!

I'm going to use mochi minky for this example.

​Hopen's store is at this link:
https://www.aliexpress.com/store/1724559

Their mochi minky is located at this link:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000058595483.html

There are about 200 colors of mochi you can select from, however, there are only 45 items you can select from at the top. But you are able to buy any of the colors located in the description of the item.

The images are not the best compared to what they look like in real life. I recommend contacting them to purchase a mochi swatch set. If you'd rather not do this, you can check out my color guide, but it is not comprehensive.

When you hover over the square it will tell you which number it is. If the color you want is one of the 45, select it and click Add to Cart.

If it's not, select any other color instead. You will tell the seller in the comments which color you actually want. (In some of their other listings, like their 1.5mm minky listing, they have a 'note for other color' option. But there is not this option for mochi).

In this example, I do want color #202, but I also want a few other colors that aren't listed. So I am going to select color #202 and increase the quantity to 6. Then I will specify in the comments what I want. On AliExpress you are buying a little less than a yard and multiple quantities will come in one continuous cut. On their Amazon store it is pre-cut yards.

If none of the 45 available selections are a color that I plan on actually buying, as a safe guard, I select a color I wouldn't mind receiving if Hopen makes a mistake. I have heard they can accidentally send you wrong colors and will not send you a replacement or refund. AliExpress customer service is very different from Amazon. Keep this in mind when purchasing from them!

Now you can view your cart to check out. It should look something like this. You want to select the check box by Hopen's name to select all the items from them. Then your total+shipping will show up. I'm also buying their mochi stuffing.

If you have applicable coupons they will show up in the Savings drop down menu to the right. I bought these items during the Black Friday sale, so I had a $10 off $100 coupon that I earned by playing the Money Hop game.

Coupons are somewhat common on AliExpress, but mostly for small dollar amounts. They may pop up while you are browsing the website. On the app, you can play the farming game when you click on the 'Coins' icon in the main screen. Before and during big sales they will have games like Money Hop where you can also exchange points for coupons. You can't always exchange coins or points for coupons. It's only before and during big sales.

Red Coupons are the coupons that are only available during big sales (I find this site handy for tracking when they will be). Any dates marked in red will be when you can redeem Red Coupons. The Red Coupons will often pop up BEFORE those dates, and they sell out. So it's handy to stalk the app before the sales to keep an eye on when the coupons pop up to be redeemed.

Be careful buying on AliExpress before sales. Sometimes prices will increase to offset sale amounts, or increase before the sale to encourage you to buy during the sale.

There are also invite codes for friends and also 'Coupon Pals' that can result in larger coupons, but I haven't explored either one of these yet myself.

Another way you can save money on AliExpress is by using Rakuten (used to be eBates), which I find always has some amount cash back on the website.

From here hit the Buy button. On this screen, you can double check your coupons by dropping down the two triangles on the right and browsing any available. My $10 is already selected and it's the one I want to use. If you have other coupons you can combine, select them here.

There may also be store coupons beneath the Subtotal below your items.

On the same screen, click the small notepad button to leave a message with Hopen for what colors you want.

A pop-up box will come up and here you can type what you want. You can't see what I wrote in the image below, but here is what I put:

Please send:
2x #202
2x #20
1x #49
1x #44

Keep these things in mind:

• Use simple, concise language
  • English is NOT their first language
• Make sure your totals add up to the total quantity selected
• Double check your color numbers

Copy the note you send them as you will use it again in a bit.

Now, you can check out.

I always use Paypal as they have buyer protection. AliExpress has also been giving out $3 coupons to people who check out with Paypal. Win-win!

Follow the pop up and check out with Paypal as normal. When you finish, you'll get the success screen.

Click "check my order" and it should bring up your order history. If you click past this stage, you can just pull up your order history under the 'Account' drop down in the top right of AliExpress next to the Cart icon.

From here you can see the note you left on the mochi. Here you can click Contact Seller which will bring up a chat with Hopen.

It should show your most recent order as the last conversation with them.

From here you can "leave a note" and it will bring up another very limited box of 40 characters. Instead I just write a message directly to them reiterating the same note I left earlier. I also am lengthier and kinder in this area ("friend" seems to be the polite term to use here). I speak with Hopen semi-frequently, so don't feel obligated to say anything you are uncomfortable with!

If you send the note outside of business hours for them you should receive this auto-response. Usually I receive an "ok" once they get the message.

Then, you are done! In my experience it takes about a month to get an order from Hopen to the US. They will split up orders into several packages.

Sometimes the tracking is unhelpful. I did find this website which displays more info than other tracking websites, so maybe you will find it useful: ​www.17track.net/en

Hope this guide was helpful! Happy shopping!

I was in the planning process of making a Metro nuiMO inspired plush for Aubryjoi when I was looking through the nuiMO clothing shop and found this adorable set of pride overalls. Since it didn't really fit Metro's style, I decided to surprise them and make a nuiMO of Taro as well! Taro is relatively straightforward in design, and it would help me iron out any kinks in my skinny nuiMO pattern that I was developing for Metro before offering it on commission.

This was the 2nd time I made Taro, the first being with my floppy ragdoll style plush!

Taro had a shiny new reference sheet! I didn't mock up anything for this plush, but rather designed their face right in my photo editing program. Having designed Shifty and then Metro's face allowed me to get a feel for how it would turn out without having to make a prototype to draw on the face.

I decided to do sublimation for all details except the applique paw pads. I did not have a mochi color on hand that would match Taro's purple. Unlike Metro, I could do sublimation for the mouth even though Taro also has a visible fang. Since Taro's base fabric is white I could leave a gap in the purple color to suggest a fang and an outline was not necessary.

Once again it took a few hours of testing to get the right colors for Taro. I have difficulty producing really bright colors but I was pretty happy with the purple and yellow I was able to make. I was experimenting with different printer settings: one with automatic color correction, one with no color correction, and one with my new favorite printer settings for sublimation.These settings produce nice bright colors so this is my preference now!

Of course I can never get through a project without errors... Somehow, i managed to leave a black outline on the bottom of the tail in the sublimation design, which outlined the purple tip 🤦‍♀️so the tail needed to be reprinted.

Unlike Metro, since Taro's sublimation was done on white fabric, I could sublimate the mouth with a fang sticking out. It took a few trials to get a nice color for the nose and mouth. The fang also needed to be made much larger than it appears in art, since the dye is pressed into the fabric so long, the blank space that forms the fang became smaller from the purple sinking further into the fabric.

Another thing I was experimenting with was doing the face in 325F to get clearer lines, but the rest of the sublimation would be done in 375F to get the dye deep into the fibers. I was hoping that the color difference wouldn't be noticeable but the purple was not close enough to the rest of the plush to let it slide. While the clearer lines definitely look better, the color matching was more important to me.

Taro's head came together pretty well on the first try! Usually I always have to redo heads at least once, but they came out well on the first go. Once again I did a similar technique as Shifty's ears and cheek fluff: Instead of making the ears and cheek a separate piece, I make the entire head pattern (except the bangs) a single pattern piece that includes the ears and cheeks. The entire outer seam is sewn and then the head is flipped right side out. Then I top-stitch the area below the ears and the cheeks to section them off so no stuffing gets through. It simulates sewing these pieces into the head without having to worry about getting them even!

Their cheek fluff came out too big which I realized after I did this top-stitching, so I had to remove it and shorten it by taking the seams in.

I don't have any pictures of this, but, since Metro's legs came out too long I stupidly decided to shorten Taro's legs without testing them first. I smartly decided to not trim the seam allowance and boy am I glad I didn't, because they were too short. I'm not sure what caused this discrepancy in the legs, but Taro's did not need to be shortened.

I decided to remake the legs by reprinting the sublimation, but for some reason, I could not recreate the purple color. This was also my fault for pausing this project in the middle of it to make my summer dittos, since it was getting much later in the year than I realized! I thought at first I was printing on the wrong settings but no matter what I did, I could not recreate Taro's purple!! I tried different printer settings and temperatures but the same purple would just not come out.

It was also my fault, and a good lesson learned, for not writing down the exact settings I used to print and press these pattern pieces. I was able to make the legs work, however, by doing an extremely short seam allowance on the legs. The purple points of their legs came out too short, but, oh well. This was a gift and they would be covered up by the overalls.

Taro's arms, legs, and tail are posable with a skeleton made from plastic-coated electrical wire. Since the wire is too thick to wrap around itself and stay put on such a small scale, the wire is glued to the spine with hot glue. The plastic coating helps prevent the wire from sticking through the thin mochi.

Taro's hands also have magnets in them!

Taro's head is attached with a hardboard joint. Rather than use the cotter pins that come with it, I use a technique taught to me by planetplush. Using two of the hardboard disks, I thread a bolt through the disc that goes into the neck and glue it in place. This bolt sticks outside of a hole in the neck part of the plush. The head also has a hole where the neck meets. The bolt is put through this hole, and another hardboard disc is placed on top as well. This disc is fastened with a hex nut and a locknut.  

Even though I consider this my "skinny" nuiMO pattern it still has cute chonk!

At this point I am not looking to make any nuiMO clothes because of how small they are - it's insane how detailed and clean they get these! As expected, Taro looked adorable in the overalls but the shoes were SO BIG!!! Luckily they are just fabric so I was able to take in the seams a bit to make them more reasonably sized.

I also bought them a 20cm K-pop/idol doll button-up shirt to see if it would fit them and... nope! Lol. Maybe a 15cm would be better, but I didn't buy one to try.

Taro also has a pouch with a magnet in their butt so they can go for rides on their owner!

While designing my Shifty nuiMO, which was a much chubbier version of a nuiMO inspired pattern, I  decided I wanted to make a pattern with more traditional nuiMO shapes to offer for commissions as well. Aubryjoi revealed their new OC, Metro, and I knew I was doomed! They were kind enough to let me use Metro as a guinea pig. I knew it would also be a good challenge to see how detailed I can get these little plushies as well!

Metro was quite detailed but I could get most of his features across in a simple design. The one area that needed to be tweaked was around his eyes. The red area connects around the eyes and nose, but with a simplified, flat face, I didn't think that this would translate well. I mocked up both versions but Aubry and I decided that the non-connected version was better.

The hair, ear tufts, inner ears, cheeks, and neck ruff would be made from faux fur. The rest would be made from mochi minky. I would use grey as the base and sublimate the rest of the colors. I had a suspicion that I would not be able to get a bright teal color; when I made Taro , I had issues getting a similar bright teal on their shirt. I believe this is an issue with my ICC profile, which I can't really work around at the moment. As a backup I could use Big Z's new aqua mochi. and color block in the belly.

It always takes me several hours and lots of tests to figure out the right colors for sublimation. Because sublimation dye is transparent, the color you sublimate onto changes what it looks like from your monitor significantly. On top of that, your ICC profile, printer settings, time, temperature, and pressure of your heat press all play factors.

At the beginning I was using auto color correction for my printer. Besides making Metro, I was also making nuiMOs of Aubry's other character, Taro, and Jade's OC, Biv, as well. I was having issues getting bright colors for those characters, so I decided to try out the settings shown above, which I had found on a sublimation facebook group.

I got much better results with these settings overall, so this is now my preferred way to print for sublimation!

However, I still could not achieve a bright teal color to my liking. I decided to use Big Z's aqua mochi instead.

This was the runner up set of colors for Metro. I wanted the brown to be a little darker and closer to taupe, and the reds to have a bit of a pink undertone. (Changing the brown would cause a problem later :/)

The pattern was made by modifying my chubby nuiMO pattern. The belly needed to be shrunk, the legs lengthened, and the arms sewn into the body rather than being jointed. I was not worried about it warping the shape of the body since the arms were significantly skinnier.

The first test was pretty good, but I didn't like the way the legs looked where they connected to the body. I also wanted the body to be more bean shaped. The plush was also too big.

I was really liking the shape of this plush but where the legs connected with the body was still giving me issues. I lowered the seam too much here. This area of the plush is very tough to sew; there are bulky seams in the crotch area and when sewing it together, it's really hard to see what's going on. I also didn't like how the ears were bowing inward, but it would be an easy fix. Since I was going to use a different color mochi for the inner ears rather than making them sublimation, I was going to make a folded ear and sew it into the head anyway.

Since the plush would be posable with wire, the arms T-pose without any wire in the plush. Makes for some funny photos 🤣

One more test and we were good! The leg issue was fixed and I liked the body shape. It had some chonk, but not too chonky to not fit comfortably in nuiMO clothes.

Due to how small the plush is, the faux fur neck ruff would be top-stitched onto the mochi rather than color blocking it in.

His markings were drawn on. I took apart the plush to scan the pattern pieces in and designed the sublimation in Affinity Designer.

These nuiMOs really push how small I can make plushies!

Their claws were made by creating double-sided mochi minky by applying heat-n-bond. Then I sew a piece of this double-sided minky into the seam of the foot or hand and trim the claws into shape after turning the piece right side out.

I ended up making Metro's face with embroidery instead of sublimation for a few reasons:

He has white fangs sticking out of his mouth.
Since the sublimation is done onto grey fabric, I would have to sublimate the outline of a fang and pretend the tooth is white (because you cannot sublimate white).

The high temperature required to get the colors deep into the fibers meant the details would be blurry.
I was sublimating Metro's colors at 375F for 5 minutes. The high temperature and long press meant the edges of the designs get blurry. This would not be good for the outline of the fang especially.

His nose was also teal, which I had a hard time sublimating.
It was also so small that it was getting lost in the design.

Doing sublimation and then embroidery on top of it is trickier because you have to ensure that your fabric is perfectly aligned. To do this, I copied an image of the head pattern with sublimation into my embroidery program, designed the embroidery on top of that, printed out a centering object from the program, transferred the centering object to the sublimated fabric, and then used that to line up the fabric in the embroidery hoop.

I use safety eyes for my nuiMO plushies. For Metro, I wanted to try spray painting the eyes teal. However I felt like something just felt off - he felt more lifeless, or more demonic maybe, with the teal eyes rather than black. I think it's because they are less glossy. So we ended up choosing black!

I ended up redoing their face for a couple reasons: 1. to make the face slightly larger on the head and 2. I ended up making the freckles the wrong color brown, because somehow I missed changing the color from my 2nd to last test of color 🤦‍♀️

The hair was quite challenging for this size. It begins at the bottom as all white, then has teal running down either side, then transitions to white again, and finally ends in a teal tip at the forehead. This required a transition for each segment. The plain segments just needed a single piece of fur sewn into the seam. These pieces were raw, without any sides finished, and just the faux fur itself sticking through the seam, To make the segment with teal on either side, I top-stitched together rows of fur. This big fur piece was then sewn into the seam. It was VERY fiddly work for such a small head and required hand basting to get it right, then finishing it off once I got the placement right.

I'm so thankful for sublimation at such a small size! Doing those color transitions with color blocking or applique would have been such a pain, and severely effect the stretch and softness of the mochi.

The tiny spikes on the back were stitched together by my embroidery machine and then sewn into the seam, rather than hand-sewing them on.

The body is wired for posability. I have traditionally used just plain floral wire from Joann's, but I wanted to try and use plastic coated wire to help with softness but also to help prevent the wire from poking through the thin mochi. I found some coated wire at Lowe's that is used for electrical work, but it had a good strength.

I created a skeleton by tracing the stuffed body in it's T-pose and then cutting and wrapping wire around a wire "Spine". The wire was not tight/strong enough to hold together, so I hot-glued the wrapped pieces into place.

The head is jointed with a hardboard joint. Rather than use the cotter pins that come with it, I use a technique taught to me by planetplush. Using two of the hardboard disks, I thread a bolt through the disc that goes into the neck and glue it in place. This bolt sticks outside of a hole in the neck part of the plush. The head also has a hole where the neck meets. The bolt is put through this hole, and another hardboard disc is placed on top as well. This disc is fastened with a hex nut and a locknut.  

After stuffing the plush I decided that the legs were a little too long, so I needed to take them off, shorten the legs, and reposition the feet to face frontward.

Stuffing the plush around the armature is definitely a pain, but is made easier with a pair of forceps/hemostats!

Some needle sculpting helped the feet look a bit less plain. I decided not to do any on the hands because they are so incredibly small.

​All Metro needed was a haircut!

Metro also has a little pouch with a magnet in his butt so they can ride along on their owner!
​

My friend Jade commented that she was interested in a plush of her cat OC, Biv, when I posted the original Shifty nuiMO. Since I wanted to do one more iteration of the chubby nuiMO pattern before I opened it for commissions, I was happy to make this adorable character!

Since Biv's color transitions are easy, besides the one on her eye and back, I decided to do color blocking for most of the color transitions rather than sublimation. It would also be a good example for commissions. For the face and back I would do sublimation and goal seek a color as close to the fabrics as I could.

I already had a bright green and orange that I'd like to use for her. I ordered some bright purple mochi that I'd been eyeballing for a while because it's such a beautiful color.

For her base color I was between ivory from Joann's (left) and color #20 from Hopen Textiles which is a more saturated cream color. I took out the pin I had of Biv and thought that #20 was a better option compared to it, but Jade uses ivory to make her Biv plushies. But we both decided to go with the creamier #20!

Once again it took me a few hours to find the right colors to match the mochi I was using. They weren't spot on, but they were very close, especially considering that the sublimation will not be right next to the color I'm trying to match so the differences won't be obvious. I used my preferred sublimation settings (above), but I turned the saturation all the way up to the max of 25.

While I typically use 375F to get the dye deep into the fibers of the fabric, I decided to use 325F for a few reasons:

1. I can get brighter colors with a lower temperature
   
2. Since the sublimated fabric would not be over a seam, I didn't have to worry about the base showing through more than with a higher temperature
3. The lower temperature would result in the designs being more defined/less blurry around the edges. Since her face would be made with sublimation, this was appealing to me.

Biv's beans - omg! They are some of the cutest things I've ever made! And those colors really got me in the Halloween mood too!!

The only pattern pieces that needed sublimation were her face and back. I based her face off of Shifty's but changed the mouth a bit and simply guesstimated where the eye spot and whiskers should land.

Somehow, I ended up printing the head and back pattern pieces too small. I don't know how I managed that - I guess maybe my paper settings were off? I had to redo those pieces entirely. So as usual, I have to remake the head at least once for every project :)

Since I was color blocking most of the details, Biv's ears are separate pieces sewn into the head, unlike what I did for Shifty and Taro.

​I decided to spray paint the safety eyes purple. I found a really nice glossy purple that matched the color scheme well. I spray painted them, let them dry overnight, and placed them on my work table the next morning. A little bit later I found one of the eyes on the floor and the other was gone. My cats had stolen one of her eyes and took it somewhere to play with, and I still haven't found it to this day! My husband and I looked for it for a long time and we could not find it! I'm sure I will find it one day and I can't wait to see where it ended up XD

Biv's head is attached with a hardboard joint. Rather than use the cotter pins that come with it, I use a technique taught to me by planetplush. Using two of the hardboard disks, I thread a bolt through the disc that goes into the neck and glue it in place. This bolt sticks outside of a hole in the neck part of the plush. The head also has a hole where the neck meets. The bolt is put through this hole, and another hardboard disc is placed on top as well. This disc is fastened with a hex nut and a locknut.  

I had to hand-baste the feet bottoms on because they are so small. 

Biv's arms were jointed with plastic joints, but they gave me some trouble and I ended up having to replace them after I locked them in place. I bought these joints because they were the smallest I could find, but I could not lock them in place by hand. They were WAY too tight. I used my heat gun to heat up the locking piece so I could slide it in place. However, I think this made the locking mechanism too loose, so her arms were very loose as well, and had trouble holding poses. I had to remove the locks with a pair of plyers which was a LOT of hard work, and replace them with some 20mm joints that I had that I could lock myself. (that seller is sold out of them, otherwise I would link the ones I like).

Her legs and tail have a skeleton of plastic-coated electrical wire. Since the wire is too thick to wrap around itself and stay put, I glue the pieces into place on the spine.

Biv is just so cheerful and cute!

Finally, she has a little pouch with a magnet in her butt so she can ride on her owner!
​

Another Shifty plush in my growing collection! I don't remember what inspired me to make a nuiMO inspired pattern, but boy am I glad I did!

This little girl was tons of trouble with lots of learning about sublimation and wasted materials, but I'm in love with how she turned out!

What I liked about nuiMOs were how posable they were and all the clothing available! For Shifty, I wanted her to be significantly chubbier than standard nuiMOs. I also wanted her to have a jointed head. I knew the chubbier proportions would mean it would be hard for her to fit into some nuiMO clothes, but I wanted the chubbier look more than the clothes!

nuiMOs are very small, so a standard 3mm minky would have been too long of a pile and look strange. 1.5mm minky would have been fine, but I didn't have any on hand, so I decided to use mochi minky instead. Mochi loses its stretch and can warp with significant embroidery/applique. Doing embroidery and applique at such a small scale would be difficult as well. Because of that I wanted to do most of the markings with sublimation - after all, I just got a new giant heat press anyway! It was a good first project for that.

I ordered a nuiMO and some clothing for test purposes and ohhh my god are they small. I knew they were small but just seeing them in real life was eye opening! I typically do not work on this small of a scale; I find it very difficult and fiddly, and prefer to work on much larger scales. So it would be a unique challenge!

​My K-Pop style doll was similar in shape to what I was going for. The image on the right is me adjusting a photo of the doll in Gimp to fit the proportions I wanted. This way I can keep track of the % adjustments I make to each piece and adjust the paper pattern by that % in an imaging program. It's a fast way to make adjustments to an existing pattern!

As usual, the first attempt came out very ugly.  The area where the legs meet the body needed to be bowed outward to suggest the bean shape of the body I was going for. And of course, the arms were much too large. Part of the poor body shape was due to sewing the arms to the body instead of having them separate. Because the arms needed to be large and chonky, I decided to joint them instead of having them move with armature.

I adjusted the seam where the legs met the body which was done by lowering it. Removing the arms also helped me get that bean shape I was going for. I wanted the legs to be a little chubbier and closer together, but this test was promising!

I made the first test head which was made with the pattern I always use that does not have a gusset running down the nose. Since it was entirely mochi, the nose would stick out more than with normal minky, so I made it stick out less just by taking in the seam more. I would remove the seam below the nose for the final product.

The head needed to be a little smaller to fit the proportions I was going for, and the entire plush needed to be smaller as well! It was crazy, I was already struggling to get the plush this small, and it was still over an inch too big!

The plush was resized and the head redone, including removing the seam in the area around the mouth. However, I still felt like the head was too large and out of proportion compared to the concept art I had drawn.

I felt like her face was also lacking the cuteness I was going for, but only because of my inability to draw well, lol. I could adjust that more easily when designing the sublimation. But the pattern was shaping out to be so cute!

I drafted a shorter head and also added in the circle gusset in the neck area that was necessary for jointing the head. Both the head and neck would have this circle piece with a hardboard joint in the two to have them rotate. I still wasn't happy with the proportions of the face, but again, I wanted to make those adjustments when designing the sublimation since it's easier to do that in an image editing program rather than real life where I'd have to continually wash and dry off the marker.

Getting the right sublimation colors for Shifty was indescribably hard. I would use plain white mochi and replicate the latte Shannon color with a close match to either simply taupe, cocoa, or brown for the stripes. My technique is to make small squares of test colors, print them out, press them on my desired settings, and make adjustments to the colors as needed. Because of differences of monitors, printer ICC profiles, sublimation ink, and the combination of time, temperature, and pressure, colors that you see in your program do not match what comes out during the sublimation process. I also had a new factor of a new heat press in play. 

At this point I was still using Gimp to test my sublimation colors. I found a nice color that was close to latte within a couple hours of testing. I moved to Inkscape to design the sublimation since I'm more comfortable with vectoring programs than freehand drawing. When I started printing the pattern pieces with the exact colors I chose, the colors started printing differently across different files, despite it being the exact same hex code! Even if I copied a file where I knew it would print the right color and adjusted it, the color was coming out differently. If I went back and printed an old file that printed fine once, it would misprint again. I wasted so much paper and so much fabric trying to figure out what the hell was going on!

I had this issue back when I very first got my sublimation printer and was making sugar cookie dittos. I found a color I liked and suddenly it started printing differently for no reason. I tried everything to try and fix this including cleaning the printer heads countless times, printing in other programs, creating new files, etc. But for some reason I could not get that color to print the same way again.

My suspicions were related to pasting in images to draw over to create the sublimation design. I also found out that Inkscape does not handle CMYK which could be another cause. I decided to buy Affinity Designer since I refuse to support Adobe. Affinity Designer is a one-time purchase and supports vectoring and CMYK. Overall, I like the program a lot, and for the most part, I stopped having the issues once I switched entirely to AD to find the colors I want and to design the patterns. I did end up having this issue again with the purple on Taro, but... I wasn't exactly convinced it was an issue with the program and not me forgetting what printer settings, time, and temperature I used ? ​To this day, I do not know why a color can suddenly change, and I've still experienced it in the new program I use as well... Maybe one day I'll figure it out!

The plush would have safety eyes, but I wanted to do some tests on the head with sublimation before moving forward. Overall it was looking cute, but I wanted to make the mouth smaller and bring her cheeks and stripes closer to the middle of the face. I also noted how crisp the sublimation was coming out!

When I put it together, the head was still looking too big to me. I made another smaller head with the sublimation adjustments I wanted, but it still just wasn't looking right to me.

While struggling with the head proportions, something else started to bother me. Shifty just wasn't... soft. After sublimation, the mochi was now rough to the touch when running it the opposite way of the pile. I didn't know why this was happening. It was reminding me of printed Spoonflower minky that has a very similar phenomenon of being soft in one direction but rough in another. The sublimation was also much crisper along the edges than what I used to get when I did long 5 minute presses with my easy press. I didn't have the issue of softness being lost with it, either.

Then I realized, there was one factor I never had to account for that came into play when I got my new heat press... pressure!

There is no pressure setting on the easy press. The pressure is determined by how hard you press (or not at all). In my long presses, I just sat the easy press on top of the fabric and left it for 5 minutes. On my new press, I had to shove the heat press closed. That meant there was a LOT of pressure being applied.

I decreased the pressure significantly and ran more tests. At first, it was too light, and the dye was not being transferred at all. Eventually I found a nice pressure that was enough to transfer the dye but preserved the softness of the mochi. But, the edges of the sublimation became fuzzy and less defined. So you win some, you lose some.

Of course changing the pressure also meant... the colors changed again ? which meant I had to do EVEN MORE TESTS.

I redid the plush with the new sublimation technique.

I jointed her arms with plastic safety joints. And... I cut the hole on the wrong side of one of her arms. D'OH! I was not about to remake it at this point with how wrong this project was going, so I hand-sewed the hole shut. This plush was just for me - had it been a commission, I would have redone it.

​At this point I was very close to flushing the project. Between the mistakes I was making, it still just was not looking like I had envisioned. I was tired of having to continually redo the head and the legs were just not right. I wasn't happy with it. And then... I put the safety eyes on.

OHHHH, precious, precious baby ??? I could save this project! It gave me hope!

And then I realized....

I GOT HER EYEBROW COLORS WRONG!!!

They are supposed to be brown, but somehow, I forgot my own OC's eyebrow color! She looks like she has shaved eyebrows!!!
​
This was truly the project from hell!

Back to the press... again!!! Thankfully since the head was jointed I could just remake that piece rather than having to take apart the entire plush.

This time I decided to approach the ears and cheek fluff a different way. Instead of making them separate pieces and sewing them into the head seam, I decided to add them to the head pattern itself. The outer seam of the head is sewn together including ears and cheeks. After it's turned right side out, I top-stitch the bottom of the ears and cheeks to separate them off. This way stuffing cannot get into these pieces. It simulates sewing the ears and cheeks into the head without having to worry about getting them even! The only downside is that you cannot do anything fancy with the shape of the ears, but this was fine for Shifty.

Just look how deep the sublimation gets into the fibers this way! A lot of peoples' dislike of sublimation is that you can see the base color. While it is still an issue, especially on darker colors, if you do a long press the problem is decreased significantly. I also love how the colors with the blurry lines give this plush an antique-y feel!

Shifty's head is attached with a hardboard joint. Rather than use the cotter pins that come with it, I use a technique taught to me by planetplush. Using two of the hardboard disks, I thread a bolt through the disc that goes into the neck and glue it in place. This bolt sticks outside of a hole in the neck part of the plush. The head also has a hole where the neck meets. The bolt is put through this hole, and another hardboard disc is placed on top as well. This disc is fastened with a hex nut and a locknut.  

You can see the difference between the sublimation in these two plushies. The one on the left was done with high pressure at 375F for 5 minutes. The one on the right was done with light pressure at 375F for 5 minutes. The plush on the right is much softer abut has less defined markings.

Her wings are magnetic and were made from normal minky for a texture contrast. I used a new technique I learned from dollphinwing for double sided ITH patterns: using tear-away stabilizer, you put both sides in a single embroidery file with them mirrored between a line that is stitched down the middle. You tear off one side from the stabilizer and pull it taught against the middle line, lining it up with the mirrored design. Then you stitch the line, completing the object. It is SO MUCH EASIER than trying to line it up yourself!!!

Shifty's arms were jointed with plastic joints. I bought a new smaller size, but these were some of the "new" kind where you can't connect them without a tool or heat. I used my heat gun to heat up the locking piece, but the joints have become very loose, and I think it's because the heat gun caused the lock to become less tight. I figured it was poor application but after making Biv whose arms have the same issue, it's clear it's a problem with my application ?

I used some floral wire I had lying around to make her legs and tail posable. Fine for my purpose, but I decided for my next nuiMO that I would switch to a plastic coated wire so there was no risk of it poking through the soft and thin mochi.

She also had mochi paw pads and magnets in her hands for holding objects and a magnet in her butt for going for rides!

​While it's a tight fit, she was also able to fit in nuiMO clothes. She can also fit in some 20cm and 15cm K-Pop/idol doll clothing!

I also did some research and found that IKEA sells doll furniture that is a great scale to nuiMOs!

What a fun character and plush!! Phoebe has such an adorable design - I love her color palette and umbrellas! This was also another great opportunity to use my floppy quad pattern with a variety of materials. There was no question about taking on this commission!

Phoebe is a bellringer which is a closed species owned by MangopoptartART and MokoBuns. They all hoard a type of object found in the space that they live! In Phoebe's case, she collects cocktail umbrellas from the resort that she lives in. My client's request was for the plush to be made to a scale where cocktail umbrellas could be stuck in the neck fur. So, it would either be my medium or large size floppy quad pattern, but I needed to see how cocktail umbrellas compared in size first!

Phoebe was supposed to be the last plush in my queue, but due to fabric supply issues holding up another commission she ended up being second to last. I ordered some cocktail umbrellas early on to determine what size she would be. Luckily, I had a prototype quad body lying around to test the size on. This was the medium size. It looked perfect!

I sent swatches to my client and boy am I glad I did, because this was another instance where I would have chosen totally different colors than they did. Phoebe appeared more grey on all of my screens, but my client chose simply taupe (the bottom most brown color in the middle column). Vanilla custard was also chosen, which is a random Shannon minky color that one day appeared on their website. It's between ivory and vanilla in color. Every once and a while they will list random new colors out of the blue that are very similar to existing colors. I believe they are either one-off runs or dye lots gone too poorly to call it an existing color. But how much Shannon colors vary over different runs make me 2nd guess that theory ?

The other colors chosen were shell and banana. All the colors together make me think of a neopolitan ice cream banana split!

I used my sugar cookie ferret version of my quad pattern, but it needed to be made longer for Phoebe. Somehow I managed to flub how long the gusset needed to be; it was longer than the body. That's an easier fix than adding extra length, so I just folded it and made a seam to shorten it. You can see the line in the belly above. This won't be in the final plush, just in the prototype.

The neck was elongated for the fur neck ruff. I always use the fur I used for  Kasuga Ichiban's  hair for prototyping, since I'm 99% sure I'll never use it again. This fur is longer than most furs I end up using, which is why the neck looks way out of proportion here. Also stuck in a cocktail umbrella to double check the size!

My client was open to alternative materials for the head, since it's supposed to be metal. She even mentioned 3D printing - which unfortunately not in my wheelhouse. I didn't want to use minky because of the fur texture. I wanted to explore non-plush fabrics with mochi minky as my fallback plan.

I dug through my giant stash of fabric and started with some PVC vinyl fabric which I thought might mimic a metal look well. I started with a tiny ball made from a 4 part sphere pattern. I wasn't sure if it would work at all so I made a very small size. It was misshapen and lumpy, but I thought it might be better on a normal scale because it's so hard to sew at this scale, so I tried it out.

Well the full scale was not any better - even though it was more misshapen, which could be fixed, the issue is in the stuffing. This is a non-stretch, thick fabric so stuffing it would result in those dents along the seams. Unless I stuffed it REALLY HARD, which I didn't want to do, it wouldn't be fixable.

So, I moved onto a plain non-stretch satin. The tiny test was promising so I moved onto a full scale. I needed to lengthen the bottom since it wasn't perfectly spherical.

Well I didn't do a good job and the full scale came out very football-like ?? but it behaved much better with stuffing, so I moved on with it. However, it was a nightmare to work with, very thin and shifty.

After correcting the head shape I drew on the face. This fabric was "absorbing" the marker over time, hence how smudged the face looks.

I also began patterning the ears. I wanted to do a built-in fold on the inner part of the ear and add a separate piece to work as the fold for the outer side of the ear, since the outer side of the ear was more curved. The outer ear also had some fur tufts on both sides which I could not do with a built-in fold. (By built-in, I mean that the ear is a single pattern piece and you fold it onto itself, like in my tutorial here).

I made another test ear with the additional fold on the side and the tragus (blue part in the middle, like a bat). Although, I managed to forget the ear fluff on the built-in fold ? Since the ears are symmetrical like ears tend to be, I just mirrored the image in photoshop to see how it looked. Looking good!

Phoebe had a couple different wing looks in her ref, so I tried them both. The one on the right was more detailed/complex, with the one on the left much more simplified. We decided to go for the one on the left since it fits the look of this plush better overall. They also needed to be smaller.

The 3D look was made by lining each wing with a layer of quilt batting. The individual feathers are defined by top stitching.
​
While they are just pinned on in this photo, they would be sewn into a dart added to the body pattern in the actual plush.

I was concerned about doing any embroidery on the fabric I was using for the head since it was so thin. I figured it would just rip apart or ripple. So, I decided to do sublimation. I started by using a scrap ditto printout I had to make sure it would take ok. Then I printed out some squares of  black for tests. I tested different times and temperatures since the fabric can burn, and you need to get it just right to get the color to come through while protecting the fabric.

I did a test on a satin head and while the eyes needed to be closer together, I was starting to get very concerned about using this fabric. Not only did it easily shred at the seams due to how lightweight this fabric was, which could be a concern while handling this plush, it also easily scratched, which you can see on the eye in the right side. 

Phoebe's tail is a rope. It's supposed to be silk rope, which couldn't be found at my fabric store, but they had cotton rope instead. I really wanted to use actual rope but I was concerned about size and how it would attach to the plush. I certainly could not sew it to fabric, because my machine would not be able to go through such thick rope and hand sewing would not be strong enough. My fallback plan was braiding mochi minky, but I wanted to avoid it.

I asked my plush making friends in a Discord server I'm in for advice, and they came up with the great idea to make a "stopper" that sits inside the plush. The rope is fed through a hole and the rope is tied at the other end. The rope comes out of hole in the plush, but the hole is too small for the stopper to fit through. It was perfect!

Since the rope is made from natural materials once it unravels it just comes apart - which was really good for the tassel end of the tail, but it needed to be stopped at some point. For now I just used tape to keep it intact and I'd deal with finishing it later. I also had planned on unravelling part of it to use for the details around the beads, but since it literally just -shreds- that idea wasn't going to work and I needed to go back to the store and buy thinner rope to add on.

There was one last thing I wanted to experiment with before starting the final plush: sublimating a light pink tone onto the ivory faux fur used for her neck. I was not convinced it would work since faux fur easily melts and you need to apply relatively high temperature for a period of time to transfer the dye in the process.

So I took out one of my spare ditto prints and applied it at my normal 350F for 60 seconds to see what happened. And, of course, it melted. But it applied!

I backed off and did 300F for 60 seconds, which was successful! While you can't really see it well here (you can kind of see some green and red to the left), it applies a very light tone to the very top of the fabric. Of course, designs like the ditto will never stay intact because the fur will separate once you brush it out.

Again, really hard to see but I  tested some different colors and was pretty happy with the tones in person. I ended up sending this to my client since it was so hard to take photos of, and we decided to use a very light pink tone for the fur!

You can see the effect better above! The fur gets smashed down in the sublimation process but you can brush it out. It's a real shame it can't be seen well in images or video because the effect is beautiful in person!

 I drew on her markings then took apart the pattern and designed the embroidery. I decided to color block the transitions for a couple reasons:

• I would have to hoop the side of the body twice to do the embroidery due to how long she is. Because of this, it's MUCH harder to do an applique transition over color blocking since they have to line up exactly.
• Since she is a floppy plush, color blocking is softer than applique since it doesn't have leftover stabilizer and the strength of a dense satin stitch
• Since the feet needed to be pink I would also have to do an applique transition there, which could lead to further trouble trying to align everything during the rehooping process since they're far away from the body
• I liked the idea of having the spots and "shawl" design be applique and the rest of the color transitions be color blocked for more visual interest/marking differentiation

The rehooping process went really well without any hitches! I recorded footage for a tutorial that I also have in the works :)

All the sublimation and embroidery!

Pink lemonade mochi paw pads...

... and neopolitan ice cream wings! Her colors make me hungry ?

The sublimation for the face and fur!

Her body came together without much issue! Just a -lot- of color blocking. I also -love- her wings.

The ears have a LOT going on - the built in fold (on the insides); the separate piece that forms the outer fold; all the applique; a separate 3D tragus; and applique spots. They are lined with a single piece of felt for stability; the rest comes from the sturdiness of the fold and extra pattern piece.

The outside fold is an extra 2D pattern piece that is attached to the front of the ear. The back of the ear is then placed on top of this with right sides together. The ear is then sewn together as normal. When you flip it right side out, the extra piece sewn in looks like a fold.

I was very pleased with the shape of her head and the sublimation! The darts also came out nice and clean too - these seams were pressed with an iron to make them crisp. It's very important to press seams on non-plush fabric for a professional look.

Time to go back to figuring out the details of the rope tail!

I ended up tying off the end of the rope with thread sealing tape, which was a good color and could be wound tightly around the rope to keep it from unraveling. On top of that I would add thinner rope.

The beads were made from a flannel-backed satin. These weren't as thin as the original satin I was using for the head because of the backing. The patterns are just small donuts with the hole just big enough to thread them onto the rope. My favorite tutorial for how to sew donuts is this one. I've seen several tutorials but this one was the easiest to follow, imo.

Now I needed to add the little rope details but again... how to finish the edges?

I picked up some rope that was a cotton/polyester combo. I was hoping I could finish the edges with a lighter since it was partially synthetic, but it also just unraveled like the 100% cotton rope once it's cut.

At the store when they cut it they wrap the end in tape and then cut through the tape. But I didn't want to only have a piece of tape covering the end. Shoe laces have a plastic cap on the end - I thought I could make my own out of clear worbla, which I had in my closet for cosplay purposes. Worbla is a flexible plastic that you can heat up with a heat gun and connect to itself. But while using my heat gun on the worbla with the tape-covered rope on it... the tape melted and formed a cover!

Of course! Tape is also plastic, like worbla, so it melts to the high heat. But it's thinner and does the job of creating a cap just as well. So, tape was the answer after all!

I tightly wrapped the areas in this thin rope.

When I was done wrapping a section, I covered the area I wanted to cut with tape and cut down the middle. I added more tape to this piece, making sure the tape stuck out a bit from the end. I heated it up with my heat gun until it started to melt and then carefully squished it down with my fingers to form the cap. (I wouldn't recommend doing this - I have "baker's hands" so I have a high tolerance for grabbing hot objects). The ends of the rope were tucked in underneath the gems of the tail and glued to the big rope for extra security.

Phoebe FLOP! Man, that flat face is the scariest one I've made.

Floppy minky plushies always take strategic stuffing involving poly pellets and soft mochi stuffing. Phoebe took extra care because I needed her neck to stand up. My technique involved:

• Poly pellets in the ends of the feet
• 1 lighter bean bag of poly pellets in the chest where it meets the ground for stability for the neck
• 1 large bean bag of poly pellets in the butt to act as a counterweight for the neck and to help with floppiness
• Fairfield silky polyfil in the head
  • Fairfield silky is the 2nd softest mochi stuffing I own - it has more structure than Hopen, so it's better for filling large objects without having to use a ton of stuffing
• Normal polyfil in the neck and chest for structure & stability
• Normal polyfil in the butt to help act as a counter-weight and to "hide" the foam/knotted tail base
• The softest stuffing I own, Hopen textiles mochi stuffing, in the limbs, stuffed very lightly
  
  • The legs need to squish into the ground when the plush is set down, otherwise the stomach will "float" in the air
    • It also helps to have heavy bean bags in the butt and chest to prevent this
  • Super soft stuffing also helps with maximum flexibility
• Fairfield silky in the middle of the body to help with flop, but also fill the body enough to prevent wrinkles

She is just TOO CUTE!

She required minor hand sewing - needle sculpting the paws, closing the stuffing hole in her back, and anchoring the ears in place. Because of how big the ears are and how soft the head fabric is, they were very floppy. We even had some back and forth on whether they were too big, but ultimately it was the angle.

And the final touch - the cocktail umbrellas! These just stick right into the faux fur. It takes some pressure, but they puncture the backing and stay in place well. I didn't want to make them permanent just in case they get damaged because, well, they are just normal paper umbrellas, and they can just be replaced.

Now she was all done! I'm beyond pleased with how she came out and I really hope I can make more bellringers in the future ^_^

Specs

• Pattern used:
  • Medium floppy quadruped
• Approximately 28" long without tail
• Stuffed with polypellets, polyfil, Fairfield silky polyfil stuffing, and Hopen Textiles mochi stuffing
• Minky colors used:
  • Simply taupe
  • Vanilla custard (one-off/discontinued color)
  • Shell
  • Yellow
• Misc fabrics used:
  • Hopen textiles #78 light yellow mochi
  • ​CR's Crafts ivory faux fur
  • Stretch satin for head
  • Flannel-backed satin for gems
  • ​Cotton rope for tail

​I love this character so much! Matcha is such a happy character with a pleasing color palette. My client asked for a chibi plush based off my standing Neko Atsume pattern. This plush presented more challenges than I initially expected, due to the color transitions and my lack of experience patterning standing quadruped patterns. But, I thoroughly enjoyed making him and I think he's one of the cutest plushies I've made with lots of fun details!
​

When looking at the available fabrics, I decided to use green apple Shannon minky for the main part of the body. This is a discontinued color, which is a shame because it's a beautiful yellowy green. 

None of the other Shannon greens really fit the color palette for his back, so I landed on color #135 from Hopen Textiles.

I added the extra pair of legs, but they came out too skinny and I wanted less of a gap between the legs. One of my patterning/prototyping tricks is to only do a test on 1 side if the thing I'm working on is symmetrical. So in this case, I only completed the legs on one side. Rather than remake the entire plush, I just tucked the legs that were on the side of the plush into the plush itself so I could pin on a new set of legs.

I also needed to add a gusset to the back of the plush.

I wanted to pattern the face and tail next so that the next set of legs was proportional to the rest of the body. I added the face next and boy, was it ugly. Some serious ET vibes going on here!

The face pattern was simple enough, just a basic circle with a dart on the top, bottom, and each side. But the front of the face was also too flat. And since it stuck out too far, I just ended up sewing a seam down the front of the face so I could get the round shape I was looking for and bring the face in more.

I would end up removing this seam in the final pattern and sticking with the 4 dart technique. I prefer not to have a seam running down the front of the face when I can, especially on a simplified plush like Matcha. It also makes embroidery easier. But, it's easier and quicker to sew the seam and then remove it rather than fiddling with darts.

The seam is removed by seam ripping the darts on the top and bottom up to the point where the seam is almost a straight line. Then the pattern would just be mirrored along this straight line, once again creating a circular pattern shape with just 4 darts in it.

Another issue was that the body wasn't chubby enough for my liking. Again, rather than seam rip the gusset and start from scratch, I cut down the middle of the gusset and added a vent piece instead, which widened the body. These extra seams would not be there on the final plush but it saved time & material from having to remake a piece over.

I was worried about patterning the tail but it actually came out nearly perfect on the first try! It's a 4 part pattern, with a gusset on the top and bottom of the tail. I wanted the spikes to be integrated into the pattern itself rather than hand sewn onto the end. To achieve this every pattern point ended in a triangle. The gussets were shaped like a W and M where they met at the end. The spikes needed to be a little longer on the final plush but the shape was really nice overall!

Matcha also has spikes on the top of his tail. My client said these didn't need to be 3D, but I had a neat idea for achieving a 3D look in a simple way - but I didn't need to prototype that for now.

I made 3 separate legs and pinned them on. I went back and forth on how I was going to do the legs.  I considered having them being separate from the body and being sewn to the body with a seam and the dart at the top of each to give them more definition. But ultimately I decided this was too complex for a simple plush design, and the added complexity would not add much value but just detract from the overall sleek look of the plush. 

This pattern had a number of several more issues that needed to be fixed: the tail was too large, the neck was too wide, and the head still stuck out too much. So I used my favorite technique, adjusting the image in a photo editing program, to see how much they should be reduced so I can translate that to my pattern.

Looking much better! I wrote down the percentage smaller each adjustment was so that after I scan in my pattern pieces I can adjust accordingly.

But ohh my godd, Matcha was already looking so cute!!

The only request from my client was to change the wings to lie flat against the body. I was planning on sewing them into a dart that would be added along the shoulder blade, but this would make them stand straight out like they are n the picture. I think that having them flat against the body is better for the silhouette!

Next was to draw on the markings. There was one color I wasn't sure how to handle which was the dark spot around his face. On the reference it's a soft color transition but it would need to be a hard transition on the plush. I thought it would distract from the look of the plush to have a dark color here, so I mocked up a different version:

This version removed the dark muzle and kept the entirety of the top of the head the medium green. My client agreed and we went with that instead!

​Time for embroidery!

Matcha has such a friendly face!! He only needed one embroidery test for the face to make sure that the tiny satin stitch around the eyes lined up, which it did!

So cute, so friendly, so soft

The bottom of the feet are one of my favorite details which is a shame they won't be seen! Little tiny round paw pads with white polka dots!

The polka dot details continue onto the front of the wings!

Time for the 3D spikes on the tail! My technique was to duplicate the gusset pattern piece but have it end in the 2 points. This required sewing 2 pieces with right sides together and flipping them out to avoid having a raw edge underneath the spikes. These extra pieces were basted to the bottom gusset piece in the seam allowance to keep them together. So the gusset became quite thick after 2 layers, but it didn't cause any issues at all and it looks great! It was so easy to do also.

I also repeated this detail on the back of Matcha.

I absolutely love how this tail came out! The applique was quite complex as it had almost every color in Matcha, and I had to be sure to get the order of laying down the fabrics correct when designing it.

I usually always stuff my plushies temporarily to make sure things are coming out correctly. At this point I realized I should make the back of his cheek spikes green apple to make that color transition "correct". So, those needed to be seam ripped out and redone. Thankfully, I baste my entire plush together before I decide everything is final so it wasn't too bad!

Matcha FLOP!

Matcha was stuffed with Fairfield silky polyfil stuffing for extra softness. It has a bit more structure than Hopen's mochi stuffing which is good for a standing plush.

Matcha required minor handsewing to attach the wings and smaller horns. After that, he was all done!
​

​Here is a timelapse of sewing this plush!
​

​Here is a vlog version of this writeup!

Pirate Ship is a FREE site that you can use to generate shipping labels at home in the US. It's also cheaper than what you would pay directly to USPS or UPS due to their negotiated bulk discount.

What many people don't know is that they have a service called simple export rate that you can use to ship to many countries that USPS isn't shipping to due to COVID like Australia. This service is not enabled by default. You need to enable it on your account.

Find out more & how to enable it below!
​

What is simple export rate?

Simple export rate is a cheap international shipping option offered by Pirate Ship. It is an EXCELLENT option for sending pins, small plushies, and other small merch internationally! I now use it whenever I can for shipping my own items.

You drop the package off through USPS. The package goes to a domestic sorting center (unless you're shipping to Canada, it will just go straight to Canada). Then the package is sent through Asendia. Finally, it is transferred to your customer's local post office for final delivery.

Because it is sent through Asendia and not USPS, UPS, or FedEx, it avoids some of the COVID restrictions associated with those carriers. It is only available if you enable the service on your Pirate Ship account.

You can read all about it on Pirate Ship here.

Pros:

• It's cheaper than USPS First Class mail and significantly cheaper than UPS
• You can ship to many countries restricted by USPS due to COVID like Australia and Hong Kong
• It includes door-to-door tracking to many countries
• In my experience, it's just as fast, if not faster, than USPS First Class International

Cons:

• It is not available for every country
• There are size, weight, and value restrictions
  • The maximum Length of a package is 22" in any dimension, and Length + Height + Width combined can't be more than 36" total
  • The maximum weight is 4 lbs
  • The maximum value is $400
• It does not include any insurance by default
  • You can purchase insurance through Pirate Ship while creating the label
• The package must be tracked through Asendia's website
• The quality of service will vary once it reaches the destination, since it relies on the customer's local post office
• I have heard that it may incur higher customs/broker fees than other methods, but I don't know this for sure
• You have to put up with Pirate Ship's pirate puns 🏴‍☠️🤪

​How to enable it:
​

First, if you haven't already, go to Pirate Ship and sign up for an account. Again, it's totally free.
​
(Also, if you do not have a scale for weighing packages at home, I highly recommend you buy one so you can input the correct weight).

For whatever reason, simple export rate is not available by default on your account. I believe they want to keep it on the down-low to keep rates low. So, use this knowledge responsibly 😉

To enable simple export rate you need to chat with their customer service bot. Click on the chat button on the bottom right of the screen.
​

Scroll down and hit "Send us a message"
​

Type in "simple export rate" and hit enter/send
​

From here click "Talk to a person" and it'll connect you to a "person" but it's really just another bot that will enable simple export rate on your account automatically.

If it doesn't pop up for you, try typing in "enable simple export rate" instead of just "simple export rate" and then hit "Talk to a person".
​

Typically when you create a label you can just hover over the "Ship" option and click Single. Below is just to estimate rates.
​

Click on "Rates" and you will see this screen. Just to demonstrate the cost I filled out a package going to Australia that is 4 oz. Australia has been one of the most common problem countries with COVID, with USPS frequently shutting down shipments to the country.

Click "Get Rate Quote"
​

​Now you will see Pirate Ship Simple Export Rate as the first option! ​You can see the price difference vs. USPS and UPS. You will save a lot of money!

If you do NOT see simple export rate as an option:

1. Your package may be too large, too heavy, or too expensive for it to be an option
2. You may not have properly enabled it on your account

From here you would hit the Ship now button and proceed as normal, filling out the customs form and adding insurance if you want. There is no difference in purchasing the label under simple export rate compared to USPS.

UNLESS you're shipping to Canada the label you print out will be a standard domestic USPS label. They first send the package to a processing facility who then applies the customs form and then sends it to the destination country. So don't worry that you won't see an international label!

You drop the package off through USPS (even though it will be delivered with Asendia). So put it in your mailbox or drop it off at the post office.

Again the tracking will be done through Asendia, and you can find a link here. Make sure your customer has a working tracking link.
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In my experience it's taken about 2-3 weeks to arrive in a country. It's pretty fast!

​Hope this helps! Happy shipping :)

Alfie's owner, fosbat, reached out to me a while ago about making a long nyanko style plush of their opossum. So I was thrilled when they applied for my spring 2022 commission round! I've been wanting to make another nyanko style plush since I made long Shifty in early 2021!

Fosbat wanted luxe cuddle seal minky for Alfie's coat and I suggested mochi minky for the tail, fingers, inner ears, and nose since the low pile suggests skin more than plain 3mm minky. The color palette of the seal and mochi minky was GORGEOUS!

I did a crappy drawover on my long Shifty pics to block out the colors. I thought it'd be cute to add a blep! Alfie would also have a 3D face, unlike long Shifty, so my pattern needed to be adjusted.

I made a small test plush out of normal minky to come up with the head pattern. I wasn't concerned about using minky instead of seal for the test plush. Even though there would be a stretch difference, it's a chibi plush so minor differences were not going to be a big deal.

Since I'm not the best at drawing, it always takes me a few tries to draw the face on. Here I liked the mouth but the eyes were bad, so they were washed off in this image.

Attempt #2 at the face; better, but not perfect. I wanted it to be smaller. Instead of redrawing again (which requires washing the face and waiting for it to dry) I did a crappy photoshop on the right to help me visualize it and to show my client.

Having a better guide, I redrew the face on. I ended up editing the mouth to be longer and more opossum like!

Alfie's ears are not set in stone, so I had freedom to do what I wanted.

The first attempt I patterned in two folds in a single pattern piece. This involved some fiddly darts that would have been too difficult for luxe cuddle minky, and I wasn't too happy with the overall shape either.

The second attempt I went for longer and much more stylized like some of the art of Alfie, but it went too into the rabbit territory for me.

The last attempt I decided to just to a flat pattern piece and would add separately sewn pieces to the front to mimic the ear folds (not shown here!)

I sketched on the remainder of the markings and now we were good to go!

From here I took apart the pattern, transferred the markings onto the paper pattern, and scanned them into my computer so I could design the embroidery and scale up the head pattern.

I decided to make a "smiling eye" design instead with heart and star shines! This was the first test run, which I purposely omitted the tongue for. I did not do anything special with the embroidery that I would not do for normal minky, even though this is luxe cuddle.

The eyebrows were small satin stitches which just got lost in the long pile fur. They needed  to be larger. 

The embroidery for the actual head (which would end up being redone). Looks much different on the pattern, since there's a huge dart that runs down the middle XD

The tongue is done with a similar method to my 3D fang tutorial.

I just looove how soft Alfie's paw pads look on the luxe cuddle!

The fingers would be sewn separately and hand-sewn on for precision. It took me several tries to get them right; I wanted something vaguely human-like, like actual opossum fingers, but stylized and chubby. The thumb here was the first attempt, with the 2nd one being the leftmost finger and the final being the rightmost finger (focused in the bottom pics).

The thumbs were 3 pieces each: 2 to form the bottom bumpy shape with a gusset running on the top.

Rather than sew the bottom pieces for all 12 fingers together by hand I let my embroidery machine do the hard work! I did this on tear away stabilizer for easy removal.

Here was the body sewn together! I used lots of pins, clips, and my walking foot to sew the luxe cuddle minky. The walking foot helped the most!

When I sewed together the head, I wasn't happy with the embroidery. The face was too small. I should have increased it more to compensate for the luxe cuddle minky; especially the satin stitch of the mouth needed to be widened. I also decided not to do satin stitching for the eyebrows, but did a fill stitch instead (this was even after widening the stitch from the first attempt). I also wanted to make the tongue shorter.

This is all pretty par for the course - I usually have to redo the head on each plushie I make at least once!

Even with a messed up head, he was still very cute!

I did my favorite mock-up method again to see the changes for the face: the eyes & eyebrows needed to be larger; the eyes rotated; the mouth more defined; the tongue shorter. By making these edits in a photo editing program (I use GIMP) I can see the exact percent and degree each item needs to be adjusted by and transfer those changes to my embroidery program.

The final face and ear embroidery!

The ear folds were made by sewing 2 separate double-sided pieces and sandwiching them between the inner ear and outer ear piece. When flipped right-side out, the 2 separate pieces are on the front and look like ear folds (and function like them too, since they are double sided and only attached along the outer edge).

The long faux fur of the luxe cuddle minky sticks out enough along the top of the ear where a fold up top is not needed!

I got the new face sewn in as well as the ears. Looking super cute!

The tail... o m g I love this tail. It is unironically one of my favorite things I've ever made. The weight and movement of it is so incredibly satisfying.

I also just love how it lays. This was achieved with polypellets and mochi stuffing (and mochi minky just being awesome for movement). I ended up making a pocket for the polypellets out of muslin because you could see the shape of the individual pellets through the mochi (you can kinda see that in the top right picture of the tail). This extra layer of fabric helped prevent that without sacrificing softness or movement.

Alfie FLOP!

So.. many... fingers! These were all sewn by my embroidery machine, but then I had to sew gussets onto every single one. Very fiddly work!

Each one was hand-sewn on for precise placement.

I also made a simple bell collar for Alfie, which was removable with a snap. We both liked the idea of a blue/teal, and we both liked the bottom color option!

I ultimately decided to omit the thumbs from the hands. It would have gotten really crowded around the face with the thumbs, and I think it helped sell the overall chibi/simplified design of this plush more.

So, Alfie was done!