Tails’ Blography

Margerita, the flamboyant, gay, Mexican/Latino octopus who loves to party!

Sometime last year I found a blog written by a girl who goes by the name Futuregirl. Her blog, being very well written and captivating, enthralled me enough to read it from start to finish. Amongst her lovely postings, was this adorable octopus who made a few appearances under the names Sigmund the Octopus and Octophrost, Santa of the Sea.

By the time I found it, her pattern was available, free of charge! What luck! I quickly downloaded, and then proceeded to take weeks to finally get around to buying the material need. Our material store had a limited selection of felt, but nevertheless I took ages deciding on what colours. I settled for a cheery, citrus green and yellow.

The material sat in my flat for a few days, what with me being the Queen of Procrastination and all, and eventually I got around to buckling down to make this octopus.

The pattern itself is fanstastically written, but I tend to overthink things and got flustered with the how-to’s of everything. Of course, futuregirl anticipated this happening to people (not me specifically, I’m sure) and made a tutorial on whip stitch. Yay!

After sewing and stuffing and sewing and stuffing, with the occasional frustrated grumble and bad stitching, I eventually got to the sucker part. No really, I mean sewing on the suckers. I threaded the needle, knotted the floss, sewed my first thread, put on a sequin, put on a bead….and realised my needle was far too thick for this little seed bead. Sigh. So, for every 48 beads, I hand-threaded each and every one onto the thread. Some of them even twice (after finding out there were two sequins instead of one, or the bead fell off, etc etc). Yes, I hand-threaded my octopus. Futuregirl, for the sake of people like me who dont think ahead, you might want to mention either a bead needle or beads that are large enough for a normal needle on your pattern haha.

Whilst finishing up on the last few touches, I was thinking of his name. Bonsai. But try as I might, he just didnt look like a Bonsai. So after more thought, I decided I’d call him Margerita. But, that named seemed rather feminine for him. So with more thought, I made him into a flamboyant, gay, Mexican/Latino octopus who loves to party. I even have his voice in my head (sounds like the hermaphrobot from Futurama in the episode “Fry and the Slurm Factory”…”Why you so stupid, stupid?”)…

And so, Margerita was born! A huge thanks to futuregirl!!! You rock!!