We all know that Halloween is October 31st, but
do any of you know what anticipated scare day comes before that? That’s right…October 14th;
the season premiere of AMC’s the Walking Dead. This week’s DIY combines those two days into one completely
silly confection of undead delight. Read on if you dare to make the Candy Corn Zombie (insert
scary organ music here)…
What you’ll need:
Three felt squares in coordinating colors (I chose what all
the undead are wearing this season: black, cream and putrid green)
DMC pearl cotton 5 in black (it’s the thicker thread, but
you could also use 6 strands of their regular embroidery thread)
Craft paint
Small paintbrush
Sewing machine
Needle and thread
Cut two pieces of each of the three felt colors and using a
¼” seam allowance sew them together (I cut the black and cream each 3” and the
green 4” and ended up with a pillow about 8” tall).
Using a piece of paper draw a candy corn shape making sure to add a bite mark somewhere on the pattern and after cutting it out place it over the wrong side of your sewn felt. Trace the shape onto your felt.
Following the trace marks sew your candy corn together;
leave the bottom open. Carefully
trim and clip around your bite mark.
At this point you can sew a straight seam across the bottom or add a
bottom piece to give your pillow extra dimension. To get the correct bottom size just adjust your pillow to
the dimension you want, set it on a piece of paper and trace around it. Cut a piece of felt to that size, pin
it on the bottom and sew. Don’t
forget to leave an opening to turn your pillow right side out.
Using a stuffing tool, or your handy chopstick, carefully
push out the points of the bite so that you can see the detail. Stuff your zombie as loosely or firmly
as you like. Mine is somewhat squishy, all the better to grip and cover my face
during particularly disturbing Walking Dead scenes (like every time Rick’s wife
Lori speaks). Using a ladder
stitch sew up the bottom of your zombie.
Now comes the fun part. It’s time to gore up your zombie! I decided to make some eyes for mine to bring even more
dimension and silliness to my poor little candy corn. All it took was two 2” circles of felt. Sew a gathering stitch around the edge
and add a little stuffing and pull the gather tight. I sewed one eye in place and loosely attached the other with
some red embroidery thread. The
hooded eyelids were made by cutting two half moon pieces out of the green and
hand stitching them over the eyeballs.
Making one long horizontal stitch and then short vertical stitches over
that formed the mouth. It wasn’t
until I finished that I realized that I had sewn my poor zombie’s mouth
shut. How sad that he will have to
eat his brains through a straw, although to be fair I’m not sure he had teeth
to begin with. I painted some dark
red and green to highlight those teeth marks and thinned the red and let some
drip on to make my zombie even more gruesome. Using a toothpick I drew thin little lines to create the
bloodshot eyes.
Your zombie candy corn is now ready for a brain feast.
Look out, Max!
