David has these great paintings by Johanna Wright. They’re both of the Whale Hero (though only one of the paintings has that title)–a scrappy-looking big blue/grey whale, smiling a nervous kind of grin, saving folks (Whale Hero) or being celebrated (Whale Parade).
Here’s Whale Hero:
And Whale Parade:
It was the little patches on the Whale that did me in. I loved them, and wanted to recreate them, so I made David his own whale.
I haven’t made a lot of softies, it’s never really been appealing to me as a thing to make, but boy oh boy did I want to make a whale! I just drew a simplified version onto newspaper, cut it out and traced it with seam allowance onto fabric to make 2 pieces. I embroidered a mouth and an eye on each piece, and sewed on some patches–I used white glue to stick them, and then zig-zag stitched around them, they were too tiny for pins. I got a bit stuck on the stuffing part, I left the open bit (to flip it right side out and stuff) by the base of the tail, so that turning it right side out would be easier, but it made it really hard to hand sew it shut. I did an imperfect job, but that’s alright because The Whale is a scrappy guy.
Ozzy likes it:
and David too:
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