Pink and Green

I had a bit of fun with some experiemental mohair dyeing again recently, and ended up with two pieces of long pile mohair in a soft floral pink and a rather vibrant lime green. 

The pink was lovely. But the green was a little brighter then I had imagined  it would be. But I decided to see  how the two colours would work together. 

This little lady was one of the resulting bears. We've called her 'Sweet Dreams' after a variety of small pink rose. She stands in at 14" tall and is actually made in our 'Lyric' pattern, just reduced down to 85% to give us a slightly smaller bear.

She's currently available in our etsy store.

~*~

And this little lady is 'Hydrangea'. Also named after flowers - this time a little less obscure. I found an example of the flowers that inspired this bear through a google search - I love the way all the individual flowers make the ball shape.

Very much like this bear's head!

Hydrangea is also currently available in our etsy store.

Truly Scrumptious

These little darlings have just been 'born' this afternoon. I've been posting updates of their progress on our facebook page, and asked for some name suggestions which is how 'Truly' and 'Scrumptious' came about.

Truly is the big sister and Scrumptious the little one.

They're both cut from a piece of our hand-dyed rainbow sparkle mohair and one of the last pieces of our white curly kid mohair! (I still can't believe we got through a WHOLE ROLL of that fur!!!)

Truly is 13" tall and has actually already been adopted.

Scrumptious is 9" tall and also available in our esty store.

A little more hand-dyeing experimentation

Recently we purchased a small amount of this gorgeous long pile frosted choc mohair for a custom order. I ordered a little more then I actually needed so I could have a play with the left overs.

We dropped the remnant piece into a pot of 'Hermitage' coloured dye, and let it sit for a few hours.

This was the resulting, very rich colour!

This shows the two pink-dyed bears next to the original frosted custom bear. The colouring has made such a huge difference to the fur effect.

The two 10" bears we made from the dyed remnant piece are now listed in our etsy store, and I must say I'm really pleased with the look of the pink on choc. At the moment both Mirielle 1 of 2 and 2 of 2 are available. 

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! :)

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 :)