Radish Spirit

I have a new little fiend to share with you. Those of you who have seen the movie Spirited Away will (hopefully) recognise this strange looking creature as a Radish Spirit. This gentle but large vegetable spirit is one of many spirits who visit the bathhouse owned by the witch Yubaba. The Radish Spirit is based on the japanese daikon radish or white radish.

I found the perfect pattern to use for this Radish Spirit, only having to edit the facial features and add the roots or hairs to the hands, mouth and facial features which I did using a silken cord. I also had to design and create his accessories, the apron tied around his waist and an upside-down soup bowl he wears as a hat.

The soup bowl, or hat as this Radish Spirit prefers, was a little tricky to design and then piece together. Once I had created a shape I liked, I decided to sew the fabric pieces over the same pieces cut from a plastic sheet in order to give the finished hat a more rigid bowl look and not just have a floppy fabric piece to place on his head.

The apron was easy enough to put together, just a bit time consuming as I only hand sew. The Radish Spirit would not be complete without his leafy greens on top of his head. This was made simply by hand cutting a piece of green fabric into a leafy shape and attaching to the top of his head by a few well placed stitches.

With black safety eyes this Radish Spirit is complete. Standing at just over 6.5 inches tall, this Radish Spirit is a gentle reminder to treasure the simple things in life, for even something as simple as a humble radish is worthy of reverence. He is also a welcome addition to my ever growing collection of hand-sewn plushies and dolls.

The pattern used to create this Radish Spirit was from Choly Knight, it was her FREE Cthulhu Plush pattern with a few alterations as described above that brought this unique plush to life. This pattern, and other FREE patterns, can be found on Choly's blog Sew Desu Ne? on the Free Patterns page link.