Tatter

Tatter is a maximalist raccoon.

She’s into:

• Ska
• Cottagecore and Homesteading but in the queer way
• Quilts

I made a pattern a couple years back of a raccoon, and she was born this year in fall 2025.

In 2022, my social group came down with a good case of the pregnants. By the beginning of 2023, there was a small baby cult that had big dreams of spending lots of time on playdates in the upcoming months. Life got in the way, and the playdates have been sparser than intended, but on birthdays, oftentimes they still gather together to have a good time. In that big-goal sorta way that I operate, and with the naivete of someone who had a lot of second-trimester energy and no kids yet, I set on the task of making a stuffed animal for all the kids in the cohort.

I wanted them each to have their own, of an animal related to their name. I wanted them to be unusual animals that you don’t usually see stuffed animals of. I wanted them to be loved and personalized, and made from thrifted scraps for the most part. I wanted them to have the same size body so that you could swap clothes I would make (in theory, for all of them, every year… hindsight is 20/20).

So many requirements. So many ideas. The raccoon was the first. I wanted an animal I think about a lot. I wanted something I would love. I wanted something pretty anthropomorphized already so that I didn’t have to figure out how to make the body work.

Sketches turned into guesses on the pattern shapes. Mock-ups became initial drafts. A ripped pair of pants became Scrap the First. Scrap was a proof of concept. A place to make mistakes. A little trash goblin, just like his creator.

With unbridled queer audacity, I charged ahead, starting with the next birthday. I made a flashy diva peacock. I made an armadillo with a backpack made of the little pod that headphones come in. I made a rad iguana with liberty spikes. I made an egret and a tapir. Each had tiny clothes gifted with them. I even had a list of ones I wanted to continue with.

But life struck. Raising my kiddo became too consuming. The stuffed animals got put on hold while my attention for crafts changed to resetting myself.

This fall, I dusted off my patterns. I started with Scrap the raccoon. Instead of trying to mimic the colors of a real raccoon this time, I pulled a pile of floral quilting cottons out. I made bold and reckless decisions. She’s perfect.

We named her Tatter. Like her cousin Scrap. But Scrap is from the city, living busy. Tatter is a forest raccoon, living in fields of wildflowers, making tenderly along with me.

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Following Curiosities:

• All the names Tatter could have been
• The Tatter pattern available
• A simplified pattern
• A Tatter for Tatter
• A remake of all the others
• New animals
• Return to form? Continue the project?