fixing a postage mix-up

In a rather foolish move, i posted the wrong creation to a customer recently. This is my attempt to fix it!

Some of you may remember my first attempts at mohair guinea pigs - Patch and Clover. They both ended up selling on the same day to two different collectors. Patch to France. Clover to the USA. The lady from France paid straight away, so i packed up her guinea pig and posted it off. The lady from the USA asked to pay a little later in the month.

You can probably guess where this is going! When the customer from the USA paid for her guinea pig Clover, i went looking for her to pack up. She was nowhere to be found. But low and behold Patch was sitting there on the shelf smiling at me. My heart sunk as i realised what i'd done! I'd posted Clover to France to the lady who had actually paid for Patch! First time in my 'bear career' that i've ever done anything like this!

So a few very apologetic emails later and the real Patch was on her way to France, and a new Clover was being created. This is the new Clover. Similar enough to have the original charm, but different enough to maintain the OOAK status.

And thankfully the collector from the USA actually likes the new Clover better than the poor little one that's somewhere between Australia and France! :P

New Bear - Amani

This is Amani. She is the result of the beetroot dying experiment in an older post. She has turned out beautifully. She's not perfect, one eye does seem to look in the wrong direction, and the colouring is not completely uniform etc etc - i don't think any of my bears ever are 'perfect'. But as a friend once said, ' We're not perfect, or completely symmetrical, or proportioned, so why expect the bears to be?'

Custom Bear - Rory

I finished a sweet little custom bear today. Her new mummy has named her Rory :)

Onion skin dying a success!

I am so surprised that this worked! I honestly didn't expect much from onion skins. In fact, if it wasn't for the book (see last post) on dying, i wouldn't have ever thought to try this!

This is the WHITE mohair in the water and the onion skins used. This was all it took!


This is the colour starting to seep out after about 2mins of boiling.


This shows the fur after about half an hour of simmering. Just before i turned it off and went to bed, letting it soak over night. I also added a touch of salt at this point. I have no idea if it made any difference. I'll have to try it again one day and see what happens without the salt.


This is the colour that greeted me in the morning.


Then amazingly - this is the colour that stayed after rinsing out the fur. I don't think i lost any depth or brightness at all! Incredible. Its such a gorgeous ginger brown tone too. I am very happy with the results!

General beary update

So not much has been happening to report. Chelsea's still crawling around (and getting pretty damn quick now too!). Bears are being worked on. Guinea pigs being sold. Facebook is visited numerous times a day 'just to check' :P

Actually, today i received a very cool book in the post about dying with natural plants/items. (Click here if you'd like to check it out too). Something i have developed a bit of an interest in (hence the post with the big pot of beetroot and fur!)

After reading the post i have discovered that it is possible to dye with onion skins! Which is great, cause i have a tonne of them floating around in the bottom of my crisper that i just haven't gotten around to throwing away. So some fur and some onion skins are bubbling away on the stove as i type. I'll have photos tomorrow (going to let it soak over night like i did with the beetroot - just to see if i can give the colour a bit more of a chance to stick!). Apparently i should get a golden brown to dark ginger tone which is kind of cool :)

Another day at Nonna's house

Chelsea and i had another day at Nonna's house today. Which was great in terms of bear making-ness, as i had a few pairs of sculpted eyelids, noses and claws that i needed to bake in an oven that wasn't broken!

The kids loved the clay and made some very cute little creatures (as you can see). There's a penguin, a parrot, a dancing lady, two fish - mum and baby) and and evil pig in a basket (made my Nonna herself!).

So stay tuned for some more special bears with sculptured eyes (and possibly clay noses too! That will be a first for me if i can get it to work/look right).

Dying mohair with beetroot

ok, so this is something i've been wanting to try for ages. But i didn't have any pieces of white mohair big enough to make it worth while. Then i got my new mohair supplies, and figured now is as good a time as any to give it a go.

Every thing i'd read seemed to suggest that the results would be disappointing. And that the colour would wash out (of clothing) after a few times in the washing machine - even if set with an alum. I figured, however, that seeing as the fabric i want to dye won't be washed, i might be able to get better results.

So i cut out my pattern. Chopped up the beetroot. Popped it all into a pot with some boiling water and salt. This is the mohair freshly placed in the pot.


I let it simmer for about an hour, then sit overnight (approx 8hrs).


This is the beautiful rich crimson red that greeted me.


The is the colour left after a quick squeeze of excess liquid. (getting a little less exciting now...)


And this is the colour after I had rinsed it under the tap.


And these are the pieces all rinsed and drying. The colour isn't too bad. Its kind of a cross between apricot and salmon pink. But it's still wet, so we'll see if it changes as it dries...