A coworker is gettting married soon so we threw a Star Wars ‘Welcome to the Dark Side‘ wedding shower for him.
We waited in the dark with light sabers at the ready for him to enter.
For decorations made a wampa rug (as a place to put the gifts) and Darth Vader and Stormtrooper lanterns.
Wampa rug:
The $150 version on amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Wampa-Plush-Throw/dp/B00466TPAA) and these 2 blogs were the inspiration:
http://healthwealthandhome.blogspot.com/2012/05/diy-wampa-rug-star-wars.html
https://welivedhappilyeverafter.com/make-your-own-bear-rug-for-6/
Materials:
- faux black leather
- grey felt
- white faux fur
The faux fur was soooo soft.
The dogs couldn’t leave it alone. They fought on it.
They cuddled in it.
Made a pattern on tracing paper (similar to the bear in the make-your-own-bear-rug post). Bought only a yard of the faux fur (which was about 59” wide) so from head to toe was about 4 feet.
Cut 2 pieces of the pattern.
There were bits of fur everywhere.
Made the claws with faux leather by cutting triangles. Ideally the base should be at least 3 inches. Narrower makes them too difficult to turn.
Folded in half length-wise outer sides together, sewed, and flipped them right side out.
A chopstick helped turn them but some were cut too narrow.
Tried 5 claws like the rug on amazon but since this is smaller, it seemed a bit much.
4 looked less crowded.
Basted them to the paw section and put the 2 pieces of the body, outer sides together and sewed the section in green.
Only the head remained unsewn. Had to cut the section in red a bit to make the arms longer and sew the horns deeper on the head.
Flipped it right side out and Co investigated.
The face on the amazon rug and the diy wampa blog are kinda scary/ ugly. Wanted to go more cute than scary.
Drew a number of monster eye and mouth shapes. Was inspired by Domo’s square mouth and added a slightly winky eye.
Thought big eyes would be cute but made them too big – looked weirdly soulless. So cut it down to prob half the size.
Made the teeth with white felt and sewed onto the grey mouth.
Sewed the eyes and mouth. The mouth ended up upside down – looks like it has an underbite like a Hapsburg…
For the head, made a pillow out of fur, about 12” by 9”.
Stuffed it with scrap fur and top stitched the opening closed.
Top stitching was a pain – the fur kept getting caught on the needle arm.
The 9” by 12” pillow was too big and flat so folded in half to be 6” by 9” and hand sewed.
Cut out 4 banana shapes out of silver faux leather for the horns. Had originally planned to use the black faux leather but silver seemed more festive. They were a bit long. Should have made them about 8” in length.
Sewed the horns right sides together, turned right side out, and filled with poly fill.
With her curly apricot fur, Co looks like a wampa when she’s wearing the horns.
Sewed the horns to the inside of the fabric.
Turned the wampa inside out, sandwiched the horns, and sewed them all together. Left about 6 inches unsewn around the chin to have room to insert the pillow.
Inserted the pillow and hand sewed the chin closed.
Zo was quite fond of it.
It was a good gift storing rug.
In conclusion:
This is a really cute rug. But if making again would add a zipper around the foot or bum area so the pillow can be removed and washed separately and prevent the need to hand sew around the chin. Also make the horns a bit shorter.
Maybe the head on the top piece of the rug could be bigger so that the seam is more on the chin?