Bat Pillow

I don’t have bats in the belfry, but I do have a new bat pillow. I love bats and find them fascinating creatures. They can be cute until you see footage of them walking using the hands at the ends of their wings! Creepy indeed!! But they make such a spooky image whether at Halloween or another time of the year, what with their dark bodies and the way they hang upside down with wings outstretched or wrapped around their small forms.

The crux of my idea for a bat pillow was inspired by a stuffed animal that I own. The wings flop back and forth and can cover the stuffed bat. I thought it was a neat way to go, rather than making them stiff all the time. However, I think theirs is much better than mine. I’m not really happy with this pillow at all.

My bat body is okay, but I don’t really like the purple accents to the ears and feet. I do like having those areas outlined with another color, but I just don’t like the combination of these two colors in particular. Purple was Shawn’s suggestion as counterpoint to the red I had chosen for its eyes and mouth. I had thought about using a more realistic color, but he pointed out that I’m going kind of cartoony with my pillows so being practical with the color scheme might seem out of place. Since he knows colors and color combos better than I do I took his advice, but all in all I’m not happy with the look. I just don’t enjoy red and purple together.

I’m also not terribly happy with the face. I originally had larger eyes and correctly scaled them down, but they just don’t look beady enough. Maybe I should have made them even smaller or gone with another color besides red. The mouth is only okay as well. I’m not sure what it should be instead, but the overall appearance of the face just doesn’t appeal to me much.

I changed the feet on this one which I think is actually an improvement. I had pointy toes originally, and cut them out as part of the body pattern. However, when I stuffed them I ran into a problem. I created holes in the one foot trying to poke the polyfil into it, and I just couldn’t get the toes to fully turn inside out. I got so frustrated with it that I cut the feet off completely and decided to make new ones. I’m happy with the ones I created, and they were certainly easier to stuff. However, they are not part of the body which is what I intended and they were a little difficult to attach since I had already sewn the body up when I removed the original feet. I think I did a passable job, but they definitely don’t look as good as when the feet were part of the pattern.

As for the wings, I made a separate pattern for them because I wanted to be sure I could control the amount of stuffing in them so I could “close” them in on the body. I’m thinking now that it might have worked better to have everything as one pattern. I left two holes on the body, and stuck the wings inside them after I turned the body inside out and attached them that way. However, it was kind of a pain going that route and led to some frustrating moments making sure the entire end of the wing was inside the bat body. I made the wings puffier than the bat stuffed animal that I have to maintain the aesthetic of a pillow, but I’m not crazy with the end result. It’s too floppy, and they end up looking way too big despite the fact that I wanted them large in order to cover the bat body.

All in all, I really don’t like this pillow and feel I failed in its execution.