I make plushes, and I love it, but I don't see myself as being an artist. To me, I'm using someone else's pattern, and while it's hugely edited from the original pattern, the credit still belongs to someone else. I see sewing from someone else's pattern to be more along the logical than artistic side, as I am following someone else's directions to put together an end product. I guess that's why I've gotten really good at putting Ikea furniture together.

No matter what though, crafting something like a plush takes a lot of practice, a good seam ripper, and lot of patience, and a lot of extra fabric, because you are going to fuck up. There's no two ways about it. You will screw up.

I'm currently working on a Rarity Plush, and that means working with fabric. White fabric to be exact. This is my second attempt at her, because I had a different pattern before that was too imprecise for my liking, I ended up scraping the damned thing. My first try at her was...admirable, however someone who is not me cut the pieces, making the issues with the pattern worse than they already were, because the person who did it didn't follow the pattern well enough. This caused me a huge amount of stress that led me to 1. Scraping the plush. 2. Getting a new pattern because it simply wasn't up to my standards.

I'm usually a big picture kind of girl, not much for tiny details. However, people expect Rarity to look a certain way, and so making a plush of her that looked weird wasn't something I was willing to do. As I worked on the first version, I started to notice something. The "fur" of the minky was starting to bunch together. Then she started looking grimy. If you weren't staring at it for hours on end, it wasn't terribly noticeable. However when compared to the fabric that was uncut, it was obvious that there was some grody build up.

I wrote a blog entry last week about using baking soda to refresh the fur of minky, but apparently that only works once, so I decided to do some science and wash the plush. She turned out beautifully, but because minky is synthetic material made from polyester, it can be a bit scary to wash.

Now, I washed her pre-stuffed. Drying stuffed animals that have been stuffed can lead to mildew issues because it takes so long to dry. Jeric, don't click the spoiler.

Now down to the actual method:

• To wash a plush, unstuff if you have the knowhow
• Toss your plush into either a mesh bag or pillowcase and tie off (sheets work if the plush is too big)
• Use gentle soap. Woolite works well, but I used some hippie dippie, good for the environment laundry soap as it had no scent and was on hand. Do not use fabric softener
• Wash on coldest setting on delicate with the spin cycle off if you are able to
• If you had the spin cycle off, gently press out excess water
  

• To dry, I put her in on delicate again. My washer is one of those fancy shmancy dryers that senses how dry stuff is. I set it to "Damp Dry". That did nothing
• I put it on time dry for 8 minutes on the lowest heat and slowest spin. That made her damp, but no longer soaking. Keep in mind she was completely unstuffed, so if your plush is stuffed, 8 minutes won't do it. She was inside the pillow case up until this point
• Removed from pillow case, I used the clippy style hangers and left her to dry in a cool, dark room
• I used a comb to fluff her up a bit, but she's much less grimy now.
  

Overall, I'm quite pleased with using minky. It's a pain in the ass to sew because it tends to "walk", or slide against itself so that the pieces are no longer lined up correctly. I don't normally sew with pins because I feel it takes me longer, but using pins EVERYWHERE EVER helps.

Different pins, but you get the idea.

However, once it's together, it stretches enough that you can stuff the crap out of it without giving too much way. It can be cleaned in several ways that work well, if you know what you're doing, and it feels nice. Once you get used to it, you can become quite spoiled sewing with minky.