Rhoda & Jennie

Good morning!  Well, I finished my little set of 10 bears.  It didn't quite all go to plan, but I got there eventually!  They took longer to make than the hedgehogs, although I suppose that shouldn't be surprising.  With the hedgehogs, there's only one thing to stuff, and one opening to sew up.  With the bears, there are six of each - counting the limbs and the head.  And although the hedgehog design has its own complications - like wiring and wrapping the legs - stuffing and sewing up openings always seems to be particularly time-consuming.  Then there are the embroidered noses - they took me 25 minutes for each bear.  Am I becoming time-obsessed?  Good grief, how boring.  :-)

Anyway, the result is that I've had to increase prices slightly for Rhoda and Jennie (above, left to right).  They are still fairly averagely priced when compared to mohair bears made by other people though, so I'm alright with it.  Both bears are in my Etsy shop now.

Rhoda is made from mohair remnants - a hand-dyed blue and the remainder of the lovely fluffy grey mohair that I made Leon from.  Jennie is made from a gorgeous tousled blonde mohair.  Excuse her photos (below): she came out quite pale and pasty with my Nikon, so I ended up taking phone photos.

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Did you see my Etsy Treasury this week?  You can find it here.  It is a collection of handmade and vintage Christmas decorations - the best kind, in my view!  In addition to my robins, there is a lovely set of little copper foxes (in galloping pose), some primitive snowmen tree decorations, dried orange slices, a gorgeous paper mache goose, a vintage Soviet Russia glass trumpet ornament and lots more. I'd be really grateful if you'd take a moment to look and 'favourite' it.

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Aaaand, once again, I have completely failed to get a Friday Design Challenge finished!  I am aiming to do two for next week, to make up for it.  Now that all the shows are finished, I am starting to think about new designs for next year - like, entirely new creatures, not just a new feature here and there.  I'm expecting that Design Challenges from now on will all be different parts of a whole design.  So, watch this space!

Arthur's pricing

Bleh - it hasn't been a great day so far.  I have a show coming up in Stratford on 15th June, and I'm starting to get a bit jumpy about it.  I got up yesterday morning and thought 'I need more small bear patterns'.  So I started out adapting an existing design, got distracted by the shape and decided to go a different route.  I spent all day working on the body and the head, and did they match?  No.

This morning, I looked at the two patterns and thought, 'well the body is a bit unlikely, but the head really works' - so onto trying to make a new body for him.  By 11 o'clock, I had admitted defeat.  

I guess I did two things wrong.  A and 1, if I'm going to spend ages getting the patterns right, I need to spend a bit more time in the planning stage, making sure the ideas are viable.  B and 2, maybe two weeks before a show is not the right time to start a new project.

It's these birds which are making me panic.  The crows were supposed to be my 'new thing' for this show.  I have lots of plans for them, but I'm waiting for the fabric to arrive (again).  I do have two in the cabinet at the Art & Craft Centre, but I'd love to have a little mob of them!  That would make a real impact.

In the meantime, I have finally worked out the pricing for Arthur.  He was very expensive to make unfortunately.  But he is beautiful.  Hopefully someone will have him.

Herbert

Good morning!  Well, I finally got something finished!  I'm not sure whether I like him or not - he does look traditional to me, but he doesn't look the way I wanted him too.  I guess it's strange to see something which is in the style of an old bear but with no sign of ageing.  He looks a little too generic to me.  I had hoped the feet would make him stand out - since they are a bit different - but although they are very sweet, they don't really add much impact.

His price is problematic too.  I guess I have been making bears from my (rapidly diminishing) mohair stash for quite a long time, so when I had to order new mohair for him, I was surprised at how expensive it was.

It is really lovely mohair - incredibly silky, in a beautiful gold colour - so I kind of forgave it the price, but when I come to add everything up (which I rarely do - its far too scary), I've calculated that the materials, in total, cost £31.96.  I think he took about a day to make - although I inefficiently spread that over 2 days - and about 6 days on the pattern, looking at my previous blog posts.

You can see why I don't do this calculation very often(!)

He is not going to be a one-of-a-kind bear (at least, there will be other similar bears) so I don't need to factor all the six days into his price.  

I once read an article by another bear-maker which said that she charged, for her time, the same again as the cost of the materials.  That would put Herbert just under £64.   

That does seem rather steep - particularly in the current climate - so I'm inclined to knock it down a bit.  £54 maybe?