Inspiration from a little white lace dress

As the mum in this household, the task of grocery shopping falls to me (most weeks). Mark does it when I'm feeling lazy, or sick, or I'm busy with more exciting things like sewing bears :)

Last week it was just me, shopping on my lonesome. Doing the modern hunter-gatherer thing, when all of a sudden I stumbled across a display of girls 'party dresses'. This caught my eye because Chelsea's 4th birthday is coming up next month, and we're in the process of negotiating what she wants for her party. I thought she might appreciate a new party dress too.

Rummaging through the available sizes I found a size 4 in the gorgeous off-white lace, and also a size 0 (baby-size). I immediately had visions of a gorgeous, vintage looking bear in a short-pile mohair wearing the dress.

I got home (put away the groceries) and choose a piece of mohair to make the bear out of (I decided 'Red Brick' looked best). The dress was still too white though, so I pulled the very outer skins from some brown onions and threw a few tea bags into a pot of hot water, let it steep for a while, then soaked the dress.

It literally only took about 10min for the colour to stain the dress. A quick rinse and half-a-day on the clothes line, and the dress was ready for the bear...

... meet 'Florence' (named by some very creative facebook likers!). She comes complete with her 'aged' new lace dress, a stunning white flower headband, and a string of white beads. She's also a BIG girl, standing at 23" tall - and nearly 2kg in weight.

Florence is currently available for adoption.

The last bears for 2012!

This is our latest creation - little 4" 'Mallory'. I dreamed her up after finding this gorgeous mini chair during my christmas shopping expeditions. I pictured Mallory immediately - and she is one of the few bears who have actually finished the way I imagined when I started.

Mallory has since been adopted, but we are making her kit available for purchase (same mohair, eyes, joints and pattern - we just don't supply the mini chair!).

Then, earlier in the week we made these three cheeky bears. These three are made from our soon-to-be released 'Lyric' bear pattern. It will include all the pieces and instructions to make three very different 16" bears from the same basic design - a panda (complete with eye-patch insers and darker fur strip across the chest), a traditional one-colour bear, and a face/belly insert bear. This pattern can be made in mohair, faux fur or a combo of both  - as you can see above. It has been one of my most treasured designs over the years, and it just seemed right to release this one for you guys.

(we hope to have it available for general sale in January. Watch this blog for more information!)

This big fluffy ball is 'Caleb', and he's the face/belly insert example of our new 'Lyric' pattern. He has been made in a mix of faux fur (Golden Peacock) and kid mohair (Polar). These two colours have worked so beautifully together. I'm really happy with Caleb's look. He is currently available for adoption.

This is 'Macaroon', and she's the panda version of the 'Lyric' pattern. We decided to make her in a mix of our pink (Sweetheart) and light brown (Milk Chocolate) kid mohair colours. I don't know why I didn't do this pairing sooner - she is just so yummy I couldn't not give her a food-related name!

Macaroon is adopted, but we will make her kit available once the pattern is released, or you're welcome to purchase her mohair to make your own patterns/designs.

And last (but not least!) - we have 'Marmalade', so called after the mohair of the same name! Marmalade is a stunningly vibrant bear - this mohair looks so much better made up then it does flat off the roll. We gave Marmalade some bright, shimmering hand painted eyes to make her colouring 'pop' even more, and paired the whole look up with a handmade Czech glass necklace and some modern summer clothes.

Check out that funky butt! Love the small details on the Pumpkin Patch clothing - even the smallest pieces get all the embroidery!

This is a close up of the Czech glass necklace we strung just for Marmalade - made to match her gorgeous eyes, and to sit perfectly around her neck. She looks so lovely just sitting 'in the fur' with her necklace on as well (all her clothing and the necklace are fully removable so you can choose a different look for her everyday).

And that's it for our 2012 bears - unless we somehow whip one up tomorrow... but that's not very likely!

Aussie Beach Bum Bears

I was busy Christmas shopping for the many babies in our lives (friends and family - not ours! We're quite content with our Byron and Chelsea!!! lol), when I came upon these super cute mini clothes meant for teddies. The idea is that you can buy your child's teddy the same outfit as your child. They're made by kids designer clothing company 'Pumpkin Patch' - and are usually too expensive for me to even think about looking at.... but these mini clothes were too awesome to pass by.

So, an idea was sparked.... and these bears were the end result! Meet Bohdi and Belle - our Aussie Beach Bum Bears! 

Bohdi wears an incredibly detailed and well made UV resistant rashie swim shirt (yes, the tag actually had the UV information on it... Mark and I had a little giggle at that!), and a pair of trendy board shorts. Belle wears a modest two-piece swim suit complete with super cute tiny swim undies (with little bows).

Both bears are completely made from mohair, so can be undressed if their new owners prefer. But I have designed them to be dressed (matching the mohair colour/eye colour to the outfits), so I personally think they look best like this. The perfect homage to the start of the Australian Summer in a few days!

We decided that the bears needed to be photographed in the appropriate setting, so we took Byron (who was home from Kindy) down to the waterfront near our house to do the photo shoot. He spent the whole time babbling about the 'WAL- LL - LER' (Byron for 'water' - try saying it while twisting your tongue at the same time and you'll kind of get how he says it!). It was cute for the first 10mins or so, but after half an hour of the same enthusiastic cries about the water, and the non stop pointing, and the trying to climb over the sides of the walk way and into the water... we decided to go home again! 

(and were reminded why we don't venture down to the waterfront that often with a 22month old!)

The lighting from the mid-morning sun has given a really interesting feel to the images. Something a little different to the usual ones taken in our suburban backyard I think. I love the one above of Belle's face... with the sun shining over her shoulder and the sparkle of her hand-painted green eyes and sweet earrings... 

Both Belle and Bohdi are currently available for adoption. We don't have this pattern available for general purchase, but you can purchase the mohair these bears are made from. Belle is made from 'Dried Apricot' matted mohair, and Bohdi from 'Harvest' matted mohair. 

My mohair arrived!!!

I LOVE ordering new mohair. And i haven't done it in soooooo long. I'd managed to get my stock levels down to an all time low - so figured it was time for some new materials to work with.

Jim at bearycheap.com was amazing to work with, and chose some lovely 'guinea pig appropriate' pieces for me too. Along with some more vibrant and fun pieces. (I'm loving that blue/green one - it was called 'Jade').

So stay tuned for some new creations in some new colours! :D

Oh, and the rest of the day i spent creating a new outfit for Chelsea in this amazing rainbow butterfly cotton fabric on a black background. It was only a 1/2m piece (cause it was stupidly expensive), and i managed to make this little outfit out of it. With no pattern!




There wasn't much left of the fabric at the end either! :P

A different kind of sewing

I decided that i should sew an outfit for Chelsea. In the big batch of hand-me-down clothes i got from my mum were two outfits i had sewn for my younger siblings 10 and 7 years ago. So i knew i had done it before. Just not in a very long time!!

Sewing clothing is similar to bear making, but different enough to prove a bit of a challenge. I 'stole' the pattern from another commercially made outfit of Chelsea's, giving it a few tweaks to make it look more like i wanted it to look (and a little less complicated!). Cut it out. Made some more tweaks. Started sewing - yet more tweaks... a bit of unpicking. A bit of re-designing. A bit of experimentation and trial and error - and finally the outfit was done!

Its like an oversized romper, or one-piece bloomers, made in a sweet 'old fashioned' butterfly and flower print of muted creams, pinks and blues. It has two butterfly buttons down the back and some buttons and snap fasteners between the legs for easy nappy changes. I'm pretty happy with it. Some bits are a bit uneven, but I think it's great for a prototype!

Ikea to the rescue

We were very brave yesterday, and ventured into our local Ikea store in search of the elusive solution to Chelsea's clothing problem. I am always in awe of that place. I don't know if it's the sheer size of the building, or the unique layout, or the mind-boggling array of weird and wonderful pieces of furniture... but it just doesn't feel like shopping. More like an adventure!



We discovered one piece of furniture that was perfect and spent the morning today assembling it. Wasn't too bad. I think the prospect of assembling flat-packed furniture is a lot more daunting then the reality. (like a lot of things i suppose).



So with a bit of 'help' from Chelsea, we managed to get it together. And I think it looks fantastic!

Chelsea's clothing explosion!

Decided to work on the chaos that is Chelsea's room. I discovered a heap of clothing that i bought for her last year - that will now fit her. Along with a tonne of hand-me-down clothing from my mum. And the result was a pile of pink and purple goodness all over the floor in her small room while i tried to figure out how to store it all.

So far the solution was to buy 56 child-safe clothes hangers and hang as many of the pieces as i can. This has not been sufficient (still very little carpet can be seen in her room), so it looks like we may need to find a more standard solution - a set of drawers perhaps!?

So no bear making so far today which is a bit frustrating.