hi ho, kermit the frog here!

Did I not promise you eyeball-melting cuteness? Bam!

Before starting, I tried valiantly to find the original source of this pin. I couldn't find it anywhere. But this is the image that started it all. From this, I interpreted, built, and eventually found a way to make a similar—but plusher—Kermie head. UPDATE: a commenter during the lead-up to Halloween 2014 found a link! http://www.pinterest.com/pin/190558627954115163/

Last year, when I made the Wild Thing head, it was big and round, and, to hear the mister tell it, uncomfortable to wear for very long. This year, I planned to make Kermit the Frog for the kiddo and Fozzie Bear for the mister. I didn't want them as large and unwieldy as the Wild Thing, but still cartoonishly large. I started with a wool baseball cap (brand new, found at Goodwill for 49 cents) and a sheet of 1-inch polyurethane foam from JoAnn Fabrics. 

(Aside: having since read up on polyurethane foam, I would recommend instead using the polyester crib pads found in the section where the batting is kept. I'll write about my experience using those in a future post.)

I removed the brim from the cap, after first checking that the cap fit my kiddo, with only a little give.

Using the cap as a pattern, I cut six sections from the foam: three matched the measurements of the hat sections (with about an extra half inch all around) and three with an extra four-inches on the bottom. 

Two short sections at the front. Two long sections in the back. The third short and long sections I cut vertically down the center, and together they form the sides (you can kind of see what I mean in the photo below). 

Everything is just whipstitched together; construction stitches don't have to be pretty since they'll be covered up later, luckily! The big running stitches along the bottom connect the foam to the hat base.

Two angled pieces make up the jaw; basically, two long rectangles with one end cut at a sharper angle. I attached this with pins while I test-fit everything. 

Then I whip-stitched and test-fit again. He was ready to call it "done" at this point, but I didn't think it looked enough like Kermit. Or really, anything like Kermit. He thought he looked like a robot.

Clearly unnimpressed with my plans.

Non-pill fleece in Kermit green, cut to fit. Ish.

I machine-stitched it inside-out, then stretched it over the foam head.

I pinned along all the seams to get a better, tighter fit and to match the fleece seams to the foam seams so there'd be a single edge. Then I pulled the pinned fleece off the  foam and stitched in on the machine.

Here it is, back on, right side out with the seams trimmed to avoid lumpiness.

The fleece was cut long enough to pull over the edge and attach to the cap on the inside.

I used a hidden stitch to attach the fleece to the cap. I know it doesn't look hidden here . . .

. . . but then I pulled it tight and the stitches pretty much disappeared. Voila!

Same deal for the jaw; I left one end of the jaw piece loose for velcro, so I cut the fabric a little longer to make a tab on that side.

I found a handball to use for the eyes. I used a kitchen knife to cut it in half along the seam.

I painted them white, too, then held them up to the head and realized they were way too small. Kermit needed bigger eyes.

I found a sack of foam baseballs at Goodwill and when cut in half, they made perfectly sized Kermie eyes.

I tried wrapping with felt and hot glue, but I didn't like the bunched up felt on the back, and the edges didn't come out smooth enough.

So I cut the felt smaller and stretched and pulled and ironed with a hot iron till I got nice, tight wrap, then hot glued in place. I ended up doing two layers per ball to cover bumps. 

Ba-bam!

With felt pupils attached with craft glue.

The stressful part: planning proper placement, then actually cutting into that fleece. Once you commit, you commit. I used washable Crayola markers to mark the placement so that I wouldn't have pen marks all over my finished piece.

Then I just tucked the eyes inside and attached them to the foam with hot glue. Completed head!

I used this photo of Kermit as a  guide along the way, including counting the points on his collar before cutting them out of felt and making a collar.

It's just a long, thin rectangle of felt cut to measure my kiddo's neck, plus an inch for the velcro tab. I cut out the triangles, then sandwiched them between the folded-over rectangle.

I wanted to go simple for the suit, so I picked up one size 6-8 t-shirt and one size 16-18 t-shirt from the boy's department at Target.

The larger shirt was used to make the pants. I used another of my kiddo's pairs of pants as a pattern.

Then I cut the pant legs from the large shirt's sleeves. Here's one tutorial on an easy way to do this, if you've never heard of it before. 

And if I wasn't such a perfectionist,  I would have been done. In fact, he wore his Kermie clothes and non-matching Kermie head to a birthday party, and it was just fine.

But since I'd bought the extra fleece anyway, and since it gets cold here around Halloween time, and (ahem) since it would match better, I sewed him a little fleece suit to go over his t-shirt outfit. Perfect match!

To quote Miss Piggy, "Oh Kermie! Mwahh, mwahh, mwahh!" (those are kiss noises).

We taught him to say, "Hi ho! Kermit the Frog here!" like in the old Sesame Street News Flashes. So cute.

What have you been working on this Halloween?

Fozzie bear post coming soon, but in the meantime, thanks for reading!

p.s. you can make these photos larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.

Linking up to:

Mop it Up Mondays #39

The Pinterest Challenge

halloween costumes, past and present

Halloween 2009—In utero. We didn't know gender yet, and it's hard to get a costume on a fetus anyway, so the kiddo just accessorized my "pregnant lady" costume. It was the laziest costume I could come up with, which was good because I was sleeping all the time when I wasn't working or pumpkin hunting.

Halloween 2010—What a difference a year makes! I knitted my sweetie's sock monkey costume freehand (without a pattern). As I'm a better crocheter than knitter, I always see a ton of flaws, but I still love how it turned out . . . just in time, too. I was still working on this on Halloween Eve.

I used a yarn needle to add this knitted "tattoo" after I finished knitting the sleeves; switching yarn in the middle of a row is not my favorite thing to do when knitting (and I'm not very good at it) so this shortcut was the perfect way for me to get this effect.

Halloween 2011—Max and one of the Wild Things from Where the Wild Things Are. The kiddo's Max costume and the mister's Wild Thing costume were blogged about here. I used a pattern for the Max costume and a Instructables tutorial for the Wild Thing head, both of which are linked in that blog. Two of my favorites ever, these were also a huge hit when we were out and about. It was the first time strangers ever stopped us and asked to take photos.

Halloween 2012—It's all about the Muppets. Here's a sneak peek of a costume in progress:

The sheer cuteness of my kid in a Kermit costume is going to melt your eyeballs, so be warned: a full Kermit post is coming soon!

Thanks for reading! 

p.s. you can make these images larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.

a long, long, time ago, in a college far, far away . . . (a frog's tale)

When I graduated high school, I was seventeen years old and still hadn't formulated a plan for college. I knew, vaguely, that I should go (lacking marketable skills outside of retail cashiering), but though a good friend's mom had tried to light a fire under me a year or so earlier, the idea of choosing from hundreds of schools, applying, getting accepted, packing up all my stuff, moving hours away from home, applying for financial aid and scholarships, and enrolling in classes seemed way beyond my ability. So aside from taking my SATs and requesting countless college brochures, I didn't actively apply myself to the challenge. I was afraid.

If I'd really thought it out, I would probably have seen this: that the person who tried to light that fire (Bonnie, I'm looking at you) would have helped me, if I had asked. In fact, I had numerous adults in my life who would have helped me if I had asked (parents, a stellar aunt, a language teacher who thought I was great). But that's not something I accepted or thought of then. I thought I was all alone.

I was lucky, or perhaps some unknown benefactor interceded on my behalf; I still don't know, seventeen years later, how the nearby college got a hold of my grades and SAT scores. I probably owe someone a huge debt of gratitude there. Because one day, after the time for choosing a college had passed me by, the college chose me. A phone call was answered, a partial scholarship was offered, and before I knew it, I was an eighteen-year-old freshman in college. Lucky.

All of which I'm writing about now because soon, I turn 35. I graduated high school a little over seventeen years ago, half a lifetime now. And there are still lessons I haven't learned completely.

But there are others I have. Like that change can be scary, but that I shouldn't fear it. Sometimes, change brings the greatest things to my life, like a guy with a big heart who tells the best jokes (my husband), or a little boy who can light up a room with a smile while simultaneously driving me crazy (my son).

And trying new things, stepping outside my comfort zone, can yield huge rewards, or at least teach me something about myself, like moving to a new city and graduating from a different college. Like starting new jobs and making new friends and running a business. Or, as I found out this week, taking a rock climbing class.

Asking for help is still hard for me, and being awake and alert to the unseen helpers around me is still something I struggle with (I'm disgustingly self-centered sometimes). But I'm still evolving. And that's as important as having evolved.

All of which, strangely, leads me to my friend Froggy, here.

Froggy was one of the projects I made in Sculpture 101 (or similar) class my very first quarter of college. Yup. He's almost as old now as I was when I made him. Carved from a block of plaster cast in a bucket, Froggy made me see everyday materials in a new light. One of the students watching me make him in class later commented during a critique that he could tell, while I was making him, that I was in love with what I was doing.

Froggy has seen quite a life, moving with me eight times, I think, in the past seventeen years. He's all banged up, but oddly enough, the big chunk out of his cheek came only weeks after he was finished, when a roommate's bongo drum was knocked over by one of his cats, and cracked Froggy's cheek off.

But though Froggy's seen it all and been battered around by bongos and babies, he's not done for. He's still evolving, too.

Thanks to a little Milk Paint, Froggy's looking fresh as a forget-me-not.

He's doing the same thing I'm constantly doing; adding something new and different to a solid base.

I still (as you know) love making things. A particular joy of mine is taking old things and reworking them. And that's what I'm thinking about as I start my 36th year.

Thanks for reading. Froggy thanks you too.

p.s. you can make these photographs larger just by clicking on them, but you probably already knew that.