The rest of the rainbow gang

So, because all of these guys have found new homes - I'll just list all of their photos for your viewing pleasure ;)

This is 'Myrrhini':

This is 'Azure':

This girl is yet to be named. Feel free to throw some name suggestions our way if you have any!?

And this big guy (66cm tall) is called 'My Dream'.

Rainbow Bears (and some BIG news)

It feels like it has been a VERY long week! lol. And in many ways it has. I had been posting progress pics and promising to get this group of bears finished each day this week over on the facebook page - but it just didn't happen. Tuesday Byron has a temp at kindy, so we had to go pick him up early and he just wanted to be cuddled. Then thursday we get another call and Chelsea was vomiting at kindy - so again I head back down and collect them both early (we get her home and she has a miraculous recovery and eats all afternoon!).

Then today (friday) we had them both home because they can't go back to kindy until there has been no vomiting for 24hrs (though I doubt the severity of the original vomiting episode...). So we ran a few errands this morning, then tried to keep them entertained this afternoon while Mark and I ran around like headless chooks trying to get all the last minute parcels out the door, and getting the last touches on these bears finally done.

I JUST squeezed in a photo shoot this afternoon before the sun went down. In the midst of all of this craziness I got a phone call to let me know that the blood test I'd had done first thing this morning had come back positive - I was indeed pregnant. (this is the digital test I'd done yesterday - so I kind of knew what they were going to tell me! lol).

BUT - that's not all. The craziest part about this is that this baby is not my husbands. It's not mine either! lol

I'm currently a gestational surrogate for friends of ours who are physically unable to carry their own baby (this just means the baby is genetically nothing to do with me - I'm just the 'oven'). It's only recently become a legal fertility option in Australia in the last few years, and is only legal if done so altruistically - un-paid. It's still very early days (as in today would be considered 4 weeks pregnant) - so we're just taking it day by day, but I was too excited not to share with someone!

We actually did embryo transfer the day before I started work on the five bears in the top photo - so this has kept me nice and busy while we waited.

Legally I'm not able to share any identifying details about the intended parents, so will keep things anonymous in that department. But I do hope to be able to share this journey with you guys as things progress over the next 9 months :)

But - back to the bears! lol. Little Orchid is actually the only one left available from the batch of 5 at the moment. She can be found in our etsy store, but I'm not sure how long she'll stay available for?!

(if you like her - get in quickly as this was the last of our super long pile german white mohair - and I don't know if I'll be doing my rainbow dyeing in the forseeable future!)

I'll post the close up photos of the other 4 bears over the weekend... right now it's nearly midnight and the buzz from today is giving way to a desperate need to sleep! :)

A black nose on a black bear

We've still nutting away on the many custom bears we have on our to-do list this week. One of those bears is a massive 66cm tall black bear in our 'Ace of Spades' long pile faux fur, with blue hand painted eyes. He will be heading to France when he's done. The photo above shows him laid out on the floor with a normal spool of thread by his shoulder to show a size comparison! 

I set his eyes yesterday, then got to work on his nose today while I had day light. I must say I wasn't 100% sure on giving him a black nose on black fur... but I didn't think any other colour would look right. And I wanted the colour in the eyes to be the focal point - so needed the nose to be less obvious. So black thread was the best bet. The photo above shows the foundation stitches. (yes, I stitch my noses upside down!) This acts as my 'template' - marking out the size and shape of the nose that will suit the bear's face.

I then follow that template with layers of evenly-tensioned stitches. I stitch the first layer slightly smaller then I want the eventual nose - building it up slowly. This will give a nice 3-dimensional effect at the end.

This was the finished nose. The photo below shows the nearly-finished bear fully stuffed and just waiting for seams to be closed surrounded by our rainbow bear 'works in progress'. (all just waiting for their seams to be closed!).

My baby girl is nearly 4!

It's Chelsea's 4th birthday tomorrow (sunday the 21st). I still find it hard to believe that this gorgeous, VERY cheeky little girl is the same little baby that I used to feel rolling around in my belly. The same baby that refused to sleep on her own for the first 6 weeks of her life (until mummy and daddy got so tired that a new technique was necessary!). The daughter I dreamed about when I was still a little girl myself... But it is true. And she is indeed very much a little lady now.

Her daddy and I have been busy this week planning and preparing for her party. There was a lot of pink. And a lot of sugar!

I think she had a blast. She and her little brother certainly both went to bed very well tonight - the sugar had worn off and we were all feeling quite exhausted I think! And on that note I'll leave you to head to bed myself.

(No bear photos to show today! I don't think I even got a chance to look in at the sewing room today! lol)

Shadow, Bruno and the rainbow pieces...

This wide-eyed wonder is 'Shadow'. Made this week from a super luxurious piece of hand dyed midnight blue mohair I had left in my personal stash. Teamed with the silver and cobalt blue of his eyes and bow... he's just a blue beauty!

Shadow is currently available in our etsy store. He is made from our Kanoa pattern - so it long and lean, but has a decent amount of weight in that pudgy belly!

We also finished this big boofy-bear from the Collaboration Bear's box. He had a note in his bag saying his name was Bruno, so we kept it for him.

(Random cat pic - this is 'our' Bruno - our British Short Hair kitten. Had to throw a pic of him in too! lol)

Bruno the Bear is also currently available in our etsy store.

We've also been working on some custom rainbow-dyed bears this week as well. On the table above is actually the pieces for 4 new bears.

With colours like this, just pinning and sewing is a pleasure! A feast for the eyes!! More updates of these bright bears will come as I get them completed over the next week :)

Small Pink Bears

A little while ago (think years ago) I designed and crafted a 'pregnant bear with her un-born baby'. I called the set 'New Life'. It was a bit of an undertaking and not something I'll do again. BUT - I recently found the pattern I'd made for the baby bear tucked up inside of the mum's belly, and decided to just make a few sleepy little mini bears.

Avani and Avish were the resulting critters!

Avani (the little pink/purple bear made from our 'Lilac Dreams' mohair) has been adopted. But Avish (made from our 'Latte' mohair) is currently available.

We don't make bears under 6-8" very often - mostly because I find it to be quite a challenge! I really have to be very motivated to get busy with the fiddly little details of mini-bear-making. So, if you do like the look of Avish... it might be worth checking his listing out. Once he's gone he's gone!

~*~

The rest of the bears we've been working on over the weekend were Collaboration Bears. I had pink thread still in my sewing machine from sewing up Avani - so rummaged through the collaboration bear-bits-box to find some pink critters that needed finishing. This meant I ended up working on the very sweet 'Alice Rabbit'...

... as well as 'Calanthe' in a really unusual 3-tone purple mohair... (who has been adopted)

... and last but not least, little 'Strawberry'. Made in a stunning wispy baby-pink mohair. I fell in love with this girl while I was finishing her off. So it wasn't a surprise that she found her new home quite quickly too.