Introduction:

Hello, everyone! Welcome back (to the Enrichment Center). Today, I’ll be continuing my Aperture Laboratories Personality Core plush tutorial. If you missed Part 1, check it out here first.

Last time, we finished our personality core’s optic and attached it to the front panel of the sphere. Today, we’ll be focusing on completing our core’s handles and sides, and then next time we’ll attach the handles and finish up the outer decoration.

So, grab your scissors and thread and let’s get started!

                                                                                                                             

Let’s begin:

Personality cores have to ports on either side of their spherical bodies. For the plush, these consist of two pieces, which, like the optic from earlier, have to be stitched together first before attaching them to the sphere. Below, you’ll see the pieces laid out:

You’ll need one of the 3 ½ inch gray circles, and one of the 2 inch black circles with a slot cut out of the middle. Stitch these together using the same method as we used for the optic: take a length of black thread, knotted at the end, and pass it up through the gray and out at the edge of the black circle. Then, pass it back through the gray felt to the WRONG side of the port. This is the first stitch. Make another one about an eighth of an inch away, and so on, all around the edge of the black circle. Don’t forget to also stitch around the inside slot!

 

Above, you can see what the finished port should look like. We’re going to need to make two of these, so grab the other gray and black circles and sew them together in the same way.

Perfect! Set the two ports aside for now. We’ll come back to them in a minute. Right now, we want to focus on the actual sphere. Grab the front sphere panel we made last time (the one with the optic stitched on) and one of the four remaining white sphere panels. We’re going to attach these two together. Place them together as shown below. Make sure that the optic panel is placed WRONG side out, (i. e., the second panel should be covering the optic, and the side of the optic panel with visible stitching should be facing outwards).

Pick a side, any side! (We’re going to use a blanket stitch to attach the panels on one of the curved sides.)

Grab a length of white thread, knotted at the end, and, starting at the top corner of the panel, make the first stitch. We’ll be using what is called a blanket stitch to attach the sphere panels together. Below, you can see how to make one of these strong, simple stitches. Remember: the smaller and closer together you stitch, the stronger, and less noticeable, the seam will be!

 

There you have it! The blanket stitch is indispensable for sewing plushies, and you just mastered it. This is what a several blanket stitches look like, one after another. They look ugly now, but don’t worry! We’re going to turn the sphere right side out once we’ve finished it.

REMEMBER: Don’t sew through the edge of the black circle when you get to the middle of the panel!

When you reach the bottom corner, tie off the thread a shown below:

Awesome! The sphere part of our personality core is now about 2/5ths completed! Look how adorable he already is…

Now, attach another sphere panel to the other side of the optic panel, just as you did a minute ago. Remember to sew on the wrong side of the fabric!

When you’ve finished with that, and you have three panels sewn all together, it’s time to grab those side ports we made earlier and stitch them onto the sides of our personality core. You’ll want to put these in the center of the panel, like you did with the optic, but set them back towards the raw edge of the felt, as shown below, so that they will be more centered on the side of the sphere.

Stitch these on exactly the way you did with the optic in the first part of this tutorial, using a length of gray thread. When you’re done, it will look like this:

Here’s a couple more photos:

And the inside…

Now, it’s time to make the handles that sit above and below the core’s optic, which can be used to carry him around. Set aside the sphere for now, and grab the four handle side pieces (the solid ones, not the similar ones with holes cut out) and the eight small white circles, as shown below:

Stitch them on as shown. When that’s done, grab the two long white rectangular handle pieces. These will become the actual handles of the core, the part you hold with your hands. Fold the pieces in half and sew each of them down the long edge, using a blanket stitch, to make two white tubes:

Turn both of the tubes right side out. I use a ‘special’ stuffing skewer to help with this. They’re really just little wood sticks, which often come packaged inside bags of stuffing. They really come in handy when trying to turn narrow or small pieces right side out, or when stuffing small corners. You can use the eraser end of a pencil as well, which I have often done.

Now that the handles are right side out, you can attach them to the interior handle sides. These are those gray pieces which look just like the four side pieces we saw earlier, but with two circles cut out. There are four of these pieces, two for each handle. Attach the white handle piece at the smaller end of the interior side piece with a blanket stitch, as shown below.

Sew all the way around, then tie off your thread. Do this for all four interior side pieces.

Phew! Still a few steps to go, but don’t worry. We’re nearly done with the handles! Grab the four black rectangles (they’re 2 inches by 1 ½ inches), fold them in half, and blanket stitch them up the shorter side to make four small black cylinders, as shown below:

Turn them right side out, like you did with the white handle pieces, and stitch them to the interior handle side; again, just as you did before:

Now, it’s time to finish off these finicky handles, once and for all! Now, bear with me here. Turn the handles inside out, as shown below:

Now, all the raw edges will be on the outside. It’s time to grab those exterior sides we made earlier and attach them to the interior sides with a blanket stitch, as shown below:

Stitch all four handle sides together, all the way around, matching small ends to small ends and big ends to big ends. You should end up with something like this:

Okay. We’re almost done. Now it’s finally time to turn these right side out, once and for all!

Finally, stuff the handles firmly. Don’t skimp on the stuffing! The handles need to hold their shape.

And… here are the finished handles!

Wow… We are about two thirds of the way through! Next time, we’ll attach the handles, finish up the sphere itself, and add the last few details. See you then! Bring celebratory digital cake… 🎂🎂🎂

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Please let me know if you enjoyed (Part 2 of) this tutorial! I’ve been wanting to do sewing tutorials for a long time, but this is the first one I’ve ever made. I know there’s probably a lot I could do to improve, so… give me a chance to make another tutorial! If there’s something geeky that you’d like to be able to sew, please let me know. I’d love to hear you suggestions, and if there’s something you want me to make, I’ll definitely see what I can do!

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