exciting new patterns available soon

This week Miss Chelsea has been especially good with her sleeping. Which has been a god-send as I've been especially tired! So, my exhaustion, combined with my plan to get my amazing designer friend to 'professionalise' all my current patterns for sale, along with a heap of new ones, has meant that NO bear making has been done this week at all!

And I have some fun ideas for some little creepy Halloween bears that I want to bring to life too... maybe on the weekend...

So, if you have any interest in some Emma's Bears Patterns at all, stay tuned! I am thinking I should have some of them up for sale in my etsy shop over the next few days/week or so. These are some of the patterns you can expect to see...

and Molly has arrived home now too..

Molly, the second of the bears in my last giveaway has arrived in her new home as well. You can check her out at her new mum's blog.

Adoni the sunset bear

This is the big guy I've been working on quietly over the last few days. Meet Adoni. He's 20" of gorgeous, bright mohair goodness!

I will admit it was a bit of a gamble, (in my eyes anyway) putting these colours together. I really didn't want him to come out looking like a bumble-bee... and wasn't too sure how it would all come together in the end. Even last night, when I was sewing his nose and jointing his limbs I was a bit worried that he just wouldn't look right. But with fresh eyes this morning, and a touch of shading and some accessories, I think he is pretty damn good! (lol - how modest is that hey!?)

Chelsea didn't get to have much to do with his construction this time round. Most of the work on him was done while she was asleep. But she did help me soft through my ribbon and beads box to find his accessories, and reached over to give him a kiss on the arm. (another little habit she has picked up from somewhere. Oliver gets forced kissed on the nose all the time too!)

So Adoni comes with a free 'kiss of approval'!

A most generous package

A week or so ago I purchased the sweetest little elephant from JRB creations. Mimi arrived this morning. Along with a massive assortment of other goodies!

Chelsea 'had' to inspect Mimi. She was actually really gentle with her which was a surprise.

Then I gave her the twin care bears Jeannette had included especially for her. She has just started a really cute trick in the last few weeks of actually cuddling her toys/baby dolls. So the bears got tucked under her chin and patted on the back. I'm still trying to work out where she picked this up from...




AND, I also found some adorable baby boy clothes for Number 2. (as the poor little thing seems to be getting called! - Mark and I really need to hurry up and name him, or at least give him a more suitable nickname!). These are so perfect, the right size, the right season! And for boys clothes, they are actually really cute! (which can be hard to find sometimes!). The little overalls are exactly like a pair I was deciding to buy yesterday. In the end I left them in the shop cause they were too expensive. So thank you so so much Jeannette!


Mimi is now sitting in pride of place on my bear display, with a little crocheted friend I bought from the USA a few years ago. They look so sweet together!

Cuthbert is home

Cuthbert has arrived at his new home!
Check out the awesome place he gets to live in now! I think he's going to enjoy it more than being cramped onto my display shelf with all the other bigger bears taking up all the room!

Another girly bear

This lovely lady in pink is Shelby. (named by my little sister shown in the post below). Click on each of the little photos above to get a better look at her if you so desire. She was made to fit those gorgeous handmade pink overalls. I bought them at the same time as I purchased Gracie's little dress.

I am really happy with Shelby. I am experimenting a bit at the moment with keeping my bear's faces furry - but still feminine. I think if I hadn't designed Shelby specifically to fit the hot-pink overalls, she probably would have been a he... but the addition of the head bow really softened her look a lot. And I think she makes a handsome girl.



Chelsea and Oliver thought so too...

School holidays

Normally i don't pay much attention to School holidays. Mainly because i don't do the school run yet, and am not driving in morning school traffic to get to work. But this time I am very aware that it's school holiday!

We have my 8 year old sister staying with us for the next few nights. My mum and step dad are taking a well deserved kid free break. Lilly came to stay with us.

She has been an incredible help with Chels. And i get the feeling Chelsea is really going to miss her when she goes. We decided to fill in some of the time while Chelsea has her day naps making a bear. Lilly chose the fabric. Drew out the pattern herself. Cut some of it out herself. Pinned some herself. Sewed some herself ( on the machine and by hand). Did some of the joints herself. Helped me set the eyes. Sewed most of the nose herself. Did ALL the stuffing herself. And ALL the seam closures as well. She has blown me away! She called her bear Violet.


Also - thought I'd throw in another photo of Oliver. He's 11 weeks old today. And you can really see that his nose is starting to blacken compared to his earlier photos! He's heaps bigger too, but thats probably hard to tell in a photo. (also - check out the pregnant belly sneaking into the shot! )

Free Pattern!

The free Emma's Bears Pattern is now ready for download! Many Many Many thanks to my amazing friend who helped me get this looking so professional too.

I am totally hanging out to see how this bear looks made by others in different fur, different eyes, different techniques! So, if you do make a 'Gracie', and feel happy with showing it off to the world, send me an email at eleb2000@hotmail.com with your name and blog/website details if you have them, and I'll publish it here.

Happy sewing guys!

Gracie

Earlier this week I purchased some really sweet handmade dolls outfits from the display of goods the local craft group had for sale at the shopping centre. There were some amazing quilts and baby clothes and incredibly inventive stuffed toys... I could have gone crazy buying up things! But I limited myself to two outfits. One was a tiny pair of hot-pink doll's overalls, and the other a sweet dress and bloomers set. They are both so well made and even include some amazingly neat and tiny hand stitching! I really don't think they charged enough for the time that would have gone into them!

Tuesday I sat down and tweaked some of my existing patterns to make them work for the size/shape of the outfits. Gracie is the bear I built to fit the dress and pants set. They fit her so well you'd think the clothes had been made for her - not the other way round!

I used some of the design points I learn from playing around with Booth and Acorn's patterns last week to give Gracie's pattern a more girlish shaped head. The bear I made from this pattern originally was called Totole - and had quite a different look. I also knew I wanted Gracie to have fluffy cheeks, and know that sometimes my bears looks more boyish with facial hair - so tried my hardest to get her looking like a lady.

I think she does... just a grumpy lady! And her eyes were a bit of a pain in the rear end as well. They are handmade glass eyes, in the exact colours to match the dress, so I really wanted to use them. Being handmade though, the pupils aren't exactly centred, which leads to a slightly squinted look from Gracie. Its definitely not as bad as some of the other bears I've tried to make with these eyes... but enough to annoy me. After many attempts at re-setting the eyes and placing them differently, this was as good as they were getting! I think it actually gives her a bit more of a comical look as well!

So, as I promised on facebook, I will be offering Gracie's pattern as a free PDF download for anyone interested in having a go at making an Emma's Bears bear. Its a pretty simple pattern with nice shape, so should be suitable for most levels of experience. I hope to have the pattern available in the next 24hrs or so. So stay tuned!

It's a boy... continued!

After getting the result from the gender test (see last post), I decided that was enough evidence for me, and took Chels down to the local shops to see what they had in the way of newborn boys clothes for the middle of summer! (oh - and to post a bear and pick up some groceries... but those were minor tasks! :P)

I will admit I felt a bit sad walking past all the gorgeous pink frilly things with butterflies and flowers... There just doesn't seem to be as much variety for boys. I did find a few little outfits that I liked though, (see below) all that for a tiny $13! Chelsea thought she'd be really clever and climb onto the table too...


Then I had the smart idea to maybe check what boy-appropriate newborn clothing I had left over from Chelsea...


This is probably two thirds of Chelsea's newborn stuff - blue blue blue as far as the eye can see!! So yeah... don't think I need to buy any more newborn boy clothing! A lot of it is for winter though... so I may just need a few more cooler items for during the heat of our stinking hot summer days. But how awesome to basically have all the clothing sorted already! This whole second baby thing is great!

Yep... its definitely a boy!

Molly and Cuthbert have left the building!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the blog giveaway. I really enjoyed this one. Both bears are now on their way to their new homes - Cuthbert to the USA and Molly to Lithuania. I often hear a lot of bear makers say this - but you really do get a bit jealous of all the amazing places the bears get to visit while you have to stay home!

On another note, I was just reading through one of the pregnancy magazines they give you when you visit the hospital (they give you a 'bounty bag' full of nappy samples, and stretch mark cream samples and brochures and magazines...), when I found an ad for an pre-natal gender test with 90% accuracy! And all you need is a little bit of pee!!!

I can do that! I was pretty excited (correction: I AM pretty excited!). I just ordered one then, and hopefully through the wonders of Australia Post, I should receive it either Wednesday or Thursday. I have no idea if this is going to be a gimmick or not. But it seems pretty legitimate. Wish I'd read that magazine sooner! Perhaps it will prevent another line full of confused clothing like I have pictured above. This was my attempt at having lots 'neutral' baby items ready, with a hint of pink and blue (just in case)...

...which was very quickly replaced by all things PINK once Chelsea was out - a small glimpse can be seen in this photo of me and Chelsea on the first day home from hospital, she's about 4days old here.

We have our winners!!!

After seriously surprising myself to find over 100 comments under my blog post this morning, I busily set about sorting out three lists - those who guessed the right gender for bubba no. 2 (entered into the first draw), those who posted a link to their blog or facebook page (also entered into the first draw) and lastly those who guessed the other gender (entered into the runner-up draw along with everyone else).

This was A LOT of names!

After a short break this morning to participate in a Unity Walk for Parkinsons research, and a BBQ lunch with the family, I finished the list just now. There were exactly 100 unique guesses. Most of you chose correctly... and it looks like bubby no. 2 is going to be a little boy!!!

I'm going to put a short disclaimer on this though, and explain that I am still not 100% convinced they've gotten this right. We were told 70% likely to be a boy at the 13 week scan. Then at the 20week scan they said it looked more like a little girl (insert confused look here!). But at the 3D scan on friday, I am pretty sure I got a good look at what appeared to be a very boy-looking bottom! They were pretty convinced too and congratulated me on a perfect pigeon pair. I suppose we'll only know for sure once he/she is out and about!

So anyways, enough stalling from me! The winner of the first prize (your pick of one of the two Onion Skin Twins) was The Paper Princess. The Runner Up was Neri

I haven't been able to email either of you guys, so if you could send me an email at eleb2000@hotmail.com I can sort out getting your prizes to you asap!

Thanks again everyone for joining in on a bit of fun!

Rainy Day

Meet Rainy Day, the latest in the odd new bears I have been experimenting with. Rainy is made from an old mohair jacket with a slightly fluffy pile. I used the same basic design as Booth and Acorn bears, but changed Rainy's head completely. She has a 4-piece head with a centre seam.

I'm not 100% happy with the look, but might keep playing with it to see if I can get a bear looking more like I see them in my head!

Oh, and on another note we had the 3D scan today. It took a little while to get a good shot of the appropriate area, but eventually bub's legs were parted and we got a nice unobstructed view. Only problem is that they've now told me that gender we were given at the original scan at 13wks was correct. Not the gender they told us on Monday! Very confusing! So for the purposes of the blog give away, I'll go with what they told us today. But am keeping an open mind for either gender. And definitely won't go buying too much of either pink or blue just yet either!

update on baby no. 2

We had a scan this morning. Bubba is BIG!!! All of the measurements were in the 80th and 90th percentiles for the gestational age... which is a little scary! Chelsea was big too, almost 9lb... but i just thought that was because i ate a lot of chocolate in those last few weeks... :P

They did give us an indication of the gender. But couldn't be totally sure (and the technician changed her mind half a dozen times over the hour or so we were in there! Mind you, they gave us an indication of the gender at the 13wk scan too - and today's suggestion is the opposite to back then! So i don't know what to think!

I've booked in for a super cool 3D scan on friday morning - so with that I should know for sure!!!

Stay tuned, and keep those guesses coming for the blog giveaway. Only 6 days left till that gets drawn!