monthly monster

Hello!
A new monthly feature starts today. The girl behind Peut-feutre will bring us each time into a different world populated by monsters. Text and images by Eisenauer.



INTRO - HOW IT STARTED

Generally sewing is considered as a female activity oriented to produce/repair clothes or other materials and objects that do have a practical use in our daily life.

For none of these reasons I started sewing; I just wanted to give a new shape to my doodles.

I didn't have skills in this field, and I had no idea about how to start, but I had the basic tools: some drawings, a sewing machine and people willing to help around me.

I normally do my illustrations on levels (with both analogical and digital media), so the easiest thing was to do the same with fabric. I started cutting pieces of paper and making sewing patterns for every level. When I got more confidence I started drawing directly on fabric.

My table looked like a monster factory and that impression was very nice.

I created the first monsters for an exhibition, there was this small construction with little hollows that looked like a condo, so I populated it with stuffed creatures. There can be a great interaction between spaces and characters, you can consciously or unconsciously make them interact, but it will always look like "there's a monster on your couch?" (where the couch can be substituted with bed, kitchen, bathroom or whatever).

People started adopting these creatures, and inspired by textures, colours and new sketches, I made more. I really like the design process, it's very intuitive and funny. I love to embroider little details that need time and attention to be noticed, but can make the difference between an industrial product and an handmade one.

WEIRD VALENTINE

Looking at my plushies, one day someone asked me a monster for Valentine's day.
I'm not really into holidays and observances stuff, but on the other hand, it would have been great to play with festivities and monsters: how many weird and funny textured fabrics exist for this theme?

In my favourite shop I found this red and green check pattern, with even hearts on!
Something that normally I don't dig a lot, but combined with red felt, little ears and an irregular number of eyes, the result was great.

I started cutting shapes and combining them. It's really fun to see how a particular eye shape matches better with one head shape and so on. At the end of the working session I had a large family of Valentine monsters and even if they're made with the same fabric, there's a different story beneath everyone of them.

For example, let's take this tiny monocle monster: he wants to be able to kiss, but unfortunately he doesn't even have a mouth!

Our guest blogger is a graphic designer/illustrator based in Cagliari, Italy.
www.eisenauer.tumblr.com
www.etsy.com/shop/peutfeutre