Meet Terry... the T-Rex.

For those of you who know me, I have a dinosaur obsession. So short of paying almost $500 dollars for a robotic Pleo dinosaur, I decided to make my own dino plush. Ok, so it doesn't move or interact or actually do anything at all, but he has a rad flanno, so go suck it Pleo!

This is Terry....

Look at how badass he is!

His flannelette says 'stoned 90s grunge fan' but his razor sharp teeth say 'I could royally fuck you up with a single chomp'.

I never use any patterns for anything and not because I'm a non-conformist and patterns are like 'so mainstream man', but because I can't read or understand patterns and i'm afraid of things I don't understand.
So I basically just make it up as I go and hope for the best.
Lucky for me, Terry turned out as I had imagined him in my brain.
I think when making anything without a pattern, I tend to think of things as a puzzle and map out what I need and how it will all comes together, I'm yet to have a massive sewing failure based on this method. So it's a 100 per cent success rate so far.....(I wish I could say the same for cooking, but we won't mention the epic gingerbread house fail of 2010 where I ruined Christmas.. I'll save that for another blog).
So basically what I am getting at is, you don't need to know much about sewing, you just have to enjoy it and maybe have a little natural flair and you can make anything you want.

So here's how to make your own terry.

You will need:

Half a metre of green felt
A square of yellow and a square of black felt
Flannelette material (But feel free to let your own Terry express himself whether it be 80s glam or 70s retro)
Some eyes
Sewing machine
Needles and thread
Party hits CD to rock out to while sewing

So I realise I said I don't use patterns so it's kind of hard to tell you how to make this but if you actually wanted to make one for yourself I could draw up a pattern for you. But with something like this, you can customise it and make it your own and you can't really be wrong if you have all the elements.

Here is a quick version of all the elements you will need, sizing isn't that important as long as he is all in proportion.

The wider panel of the nose is sewn in between the two side of the face panels and wraps around the back of the head. I also forgot to draw the lower face panel in the diagram but it's the same as the nose panel, minus the back of the head length.

Sew it all together, put the eyes in before stuffing, stuff it with hobby fill, hand sew the openings after stuffing, stitch on the limbs, bung up some type of garment and hey presto! You have your own prehistoric pal to hang out and listen to Smashing Pumpkins with. I made the shirt myself and totally winged it, so I'm sure you can too!

So have fun making your own Terry! Or if you paid me some sweet moolah I could make you one... Your call.

He is so Rawesome.

xoxo Tricky