stuffed stuff: 2HB Holiday edition

This is kind of like part 2 of stuffed stuff: 2HB firstborn edition, so check it out if you’re interested.

Shortly after APE (The Alternative Press Expo) in San Francisco, I was offered an amazing opportunity from the video game studio Double Fine to make a Two Headed Baby (a.k.a. 2HB) as a surprise holiday gift for the entire Double Fine staff!

stuffed stuff: 2HB holiday edition
created and stuffed: November ~ January 2013

The 2HB firstborn edition I made and gifted to Double Fine at APE was made with cotton velour which I had bought online in the past. I didn’t have enough of that fabric and we didn’t have time to order more.

So after going back and forth with the person in charge of this secret project, we decided to go with a smaller size and fleece as the fabric. Also we wanted to see if what it’d look like with open mouths and with different colors for the stripes, so I made two 2HB plushes with four different colors for the stripes on the swimsuit.

They picked the first one, and I went onto producing… a LOT OF BABIES. Twins? Triplets? Quadruplets?? How about around 70 BABIES?

It was probably the biggest project I’ve ever done, and Derek documented the process by taking photos so this post will be a bit long. If you want to skip all the reading, you can watch this video Derek edited which was shown to Double Fine staff at the party! It’s pretty awesome.

Now I’ll explain the production process. This was the first time I’ve bought bolts of fabric and it felt awesome. Also the staff at Jo-Ann Fabrics are always kind and extremely helpful. When the employee was measuring a bolt of yellow fleece, she asked me what I was making (like they always do when I buy fabric). I was about to say “Two Headed Baby dolls.” But I paused briefly, and said “um, stuffed dolls. A lot of them.”

Just like stuffed stuff: 2HB firstborn edition, I printed out the logo and used it as the pattern.

First I made the babies’ bodies. I traced the front and back patterns on fleece, cut them out, pinned them together along with hair on the head, and sewed the pieces together.

Then I poked tiny holes where the eyes are, put plastic safety eyes on, and put washers from the inside. For stuffing, I actually weighed each doll I stuffed, and made sure each baby was 80 grams when naked. I don’t usually weigh my plushes when I make multiples but if you’re making something in such a large quantity, it’s makes it easier to keep track of how much stuffing you’ll need. I also want all the babies to be the same size.

Making the baby bodies was not a complicated process, so I decided to make all the bodies first.

Since I started the project, Derek and I started talking about “making babies” all the time at home and in public.

“This would’ve been perfect for the baby’s swimsuit if the color was a bit different.”

“How many babies am I up to?”

“I gotta make babies on the weekend.”

“How many eyes do we need for the babies?”

After finishing the first batch of bodies, I moved onto the most challenging part – the swimsuit.

There are 7 stripes on each side of the swimsuit, which means I had to first trace the stripes on felt, cut them out, pin each of them to a swimsuit, sew them on, and then do the same on the other side of the swimsuit.

To make the neck and arm openings look clean, I put a liner on the inside of the each swimsuit piece, and then turned inside out.

After that I pinned the two pieces and sewed them together, trimmed it, turned it inside out, and there it was, one swimsuit ready for a baby to slip into! I sewed the ears, nose and mouth on the each face with embroidery thread. The mouth was one long stitch, and I sewed the embroidery thread onto the face with regular thread.

I knew this would be the biggest part of this project but it was pretty crazy to think that everything needed to be multiplied by either 70 or 140.

Bodies
70 babies = 70 front pieces + 70 back pieces = 140 pieces total
4 eyes per baby x 70 = 280 eyes total
2 strands of hair per baby x 70 = 140 strands of hair

Swimsuits
70 front pieces + 70 back pieces = 140 pieces total
14 stripes per swimsuit (7 front stripes + 7 back stripes) x 70 dolls = 980 stripes
70 liners for front piece + 70 liners for back piece = 140 liner pieces total

When we were preparing to ship the babies, we went to a supermarket to buy big plastic bags to babies in. We were rushing to get the bags so we could go straight to the post office, so we might have sounded a bit… strange.

“How many babies do you think will fit in this bag?”

It was a big relief when I shipped the last batch of 2HBs!

Here’s a photo of a batch of 17 babies! I wish I could’ve taken a photo of all the babies together but I was shipping them in multiple small batches, so you can just imagine four times this batch.

On December 19, the day of the holiday party at Double Fine, tweets from the Double Fine staff started coming in. Amongst them all this photo made me speechless.

Here are some photos of my babies with the Double Fine staff! (I received more in the emails, but I’m only posting the ones that were tweeted publicly.)

This project was hands down the most challenging project and also such an amazing opportunity and an honor to be able to be a part of the holiday celebration at Double Fine.

This is just for bragging, but all the tweets for the 2HB from Double Fine folks!

For more pictures of this plush, visit stuffed stuff: 2HB Holiday edition set!

You can also check out more stuffed stuff on my flickr.

Tagged as: Christmas, commission, doublefine, plush, tim schafer