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. 

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!).

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 :)

Kosta, Skittles, Ace, Avalon, Aristos, and 'Sneeze' meet the world!

We had another big week/fortnight here at Emma's Bears. It always amazes me when I pop on over to Blogger to do another post, and look back at all the new faces I need to show off - and see just how many have emerged since I last chatted to you guys.

This week we had a lot of bears.

And a rat. And a rat pattern.

And some more bears! lol

This little cherub was 'Kosta'. He was made in our Lyric pattern (the one that includes pieces to make three very different bears) using our black and tan faux fur fabrics. Because the backings on our faux fur lines have been chosen for their lack of stretch, they're very easy to work with and allow us to do face-inserts and tricks like that with the bears without warping of the shape. I actually really like the colour combo of the black/brown here too. But I choose Kosta's bright blue eyes late one night while I was working on his face, and found them a touch too pale in the light of the morning.

Kosta has left home to meet his new family, but we do have kits available for him. And you can choose whatever coloured eye you'd prefer from our eye listings. He would look completely different with gold eyes, or green eyes or even basic solid black eyes.

The other new, exciting product we've added to our bear supplies section of our Emma's Bears/Fur Addiction store is the addition of our 'Rat Pattern'. These were my initial sketches of Mr Rat back in 2012 when I first got the bright idea to see how one would turn out. The prototypes were made in rainbow dyed LouBear mohair, and worked out beautifully (see below).

But I hadn't tried the design in a more natural colour-way, so decided to use our shortpile/antiqued line of mohair to see how it would look. The result was 'Skittles':

Skittles is so sweet - as far as rodents go - and I love the big, droopy ears. His tail/rear legs are wired for posing, and his front legs are jointed. He's a really interesting, easy pattern for a beginner-to-intermediate bear maker to try out. Something a little different to bears.

The biggest challenge with him would be turning out his tail, but my advice to anyone embarking on the 'Rat Pattern' journey is to only sew one side of the tail, then turn it out and ladder stitch it over the wire frame rather than attempting to turn out out fully sewn (which is what I did - and 30mins later and lots of choice words, I finally managed to get that little bugger turned! Why do I always end up making things harder for myself due to laziness! In this situation, a little hand stitching will save a lot of pain!).

'Skittles' is available for adoption if you're looking at adding a rat to your collection ;)

We also had the 'A' triplets - 'Avalon', 'Aristos' and 'Ace'. These guys were made from our 'Willa/Attila Bear/Bunny' pattern (using the bear pieces, not the bunny pieces).

Avalon was made in some left over mohair pieces I had from my personal stash. She has found her new home.

Ace was made from our 'Latte' tipped, distressed mohair. He has also found his new home, but you can purchase his Kit if you'd like to try making one yourself.

And Aristos was made in our 'Milk Chocolate' Kid Mohair. He too has found a new home, but is available in Kit form.

Then we switched pace a bit and ended up with this crazy big guy. My initial plans for this bear were that he was going to be a sweet little lady-bear with maybe a pink hair bow... but when I'd finished with that face I knew this was no girl-bear!

And so 'Sneeze' was born - a gorgeous, unusual bear in luxury green faux fur and floral print pads. Sneeze has now found his own home as well.

And to leave you guys with a sneak peek - this is our latest work-in-progress. He will be a big, chunky boy and is made in our 'Island Sunset' faux fur. We'll upload his finalised pics as soon as he's done!