The fox stole returns

Some of you might remember my adventures with designing/creating a realistic looking, yet obviously fake fox fur stole back in August last year. This was the final design - long, funky black and red fur.

The fox was the brilliant idea of my sister, who had the occasion to actually wear it recently! And oh my goodness - doesn't it look so perfect atop her shoulders. Like it was made for her ;)

One Awesome Red Fox

Faux fur fox stole - attempt II

This ball of fluff is actually a piece of crazy red and black faux fur I picked up the last time I was brave (stupid) enough to go to my local fabric store with the kids.

It's really long, crazy scruffy, and the perfect colours to try fox fur stole no. 2.



This is a photo of him after I'd finished sewing, stuffing and trimming last night. During the 5mins of 'free' time I snatched today I managed to sculpt a little black polymer clay fox nose, and plan to attach that and his eyes shortly.

Nova

After pouring a fair bit of love into the blue fox (from the last post), then not being 100% happy with the end result, I decided I needed to make a fantastic bear again. Just to recharge my confidence I suppose.

I decided to finish a big black and red synthetic bear that I cut out just before christmas last year. Fully intending to make him as a christmas themed bear 8 months ago, but running out of energy due to incubating a baby at the time!




As I was sewing him, and had most of his little face looking back at me I knew he wasn't a christmas bear though - he was a valentines bear and he needed to be super cute. I wanted to scissor sculpt his face but am honestly not very good at it (which is why most of my bears have clean shaven muzzles!), so was a little anxious about choosing to use this technique on such a large head. This was at the stage just before the cheeks needed to be shaped and the nose embroidered.

I ended up partly shaping the cheeks. Embroidering the nose. Doing a bit more trimming. Adding the ears. Trimming the cheeks some more. Attaching the head. Stuffing the body and limbs. Yet more trimming/shaping. Closing the seams. Adding a necklace. Final trim. A bit of shading and finally happy! All of that took about 2 days.



Part way through the process I took a couple of photos of the bear with Chelsea, and sitting in her pram to show his size. His head is actually bigger than hers! I looked back at these photos just after I'd shading his nose a few nights ago and really worried that I'd done the wrong thing. He looked really cute without the shading.






Looking at him all finished now though, I am glad I did it. It just gives him that little extra touch of character, and is kind of an inadvertent Emma's Bears signature. I wasn't sure what to call him and got a heap of awesome suggestions on my facebook page. But decided on Nova (short for Casanova) before I read the suggestions. I feel like I need to make another black and red bear just so I can use some of the brilliant suggested names now!



I have just cut out the pieces for a new and improved version of the blue fox stole from my last post, which just so happens to be red and black. Maybe I can steal a name suggestion for him!? I am so excited to get this red fox done. If he comes out half as awesome as he looked spread out on my living room floor this evening, then he is going to be hard to let go!

All in all, I'm really happy with Nova though. Which has meant that I'm pumped to give the fox stole another chance. I wonder if that works the same for other bear makers? Do you find that a less than perfect creation can put a bit of a dent in your confidence?

The Blue Fox

I was asked if I could make a fox skin stole out of faux fur recently. Something I would probably never have thought of myself. And it was just the most awesome idea!



I whipped up a design on sunday using the image I found of a real fox fur stole above. This is my fox half done - no ears, eyes or nose at this stage.



Rhinestones were requested for the eyes, and after a quick trip to my local shops, and one disassembled bracelet later - I had some funky, creepy silver eyes for my fox. His nose is hand sewn black felt in a real fox shape. If I knew how to needle felt this would probably have been easier!



I was hoping he wouldn't come out too 'teddy-like', but I think it was inevitable using this fur. It's a stunning fabric, but not fox-like enough. Meaning this guy looks a bit more like a toy you can wear than a fur stole. Interesting, but not quite what I was going for. If I can find a longer, more foxish fur I will definitely try again though.