Ziggy

Woo - second post of the day!  :-) 

A couple of weeks ago, I found a vintage velvet jacket in a second-hand shop.  It wasn't up to much as a jacket, but I thought I could take it apart and make mammoths out of it.  So this is Ziggy.  I am hoping to make another mammoth, and there will still be some fabric left after all that.  Perhaps a dress or something (for a bear, that is).

Millicent Mammoth

Another mammoth - the very, very fluffy Millicent.  She's made from alpaca, with a cashmere undercarriage (or gusset), and measures approximately 10.5 inches to the tips of her ears.  If you would like to buy Millicent, or indeed Bogart or either of the two paperweight bears, you can contact Sophie of the Tannenbaum Christmas Barn via their website.



Talk amongst yourselves for a moment, please...

As you might have guessed from the lack of posting, it has been a spectacularly unproductive couple of weeks.  Let me start with the building work.  We have a few of our new Ikea cabinets in...

They are lovely - really clean and sparkling without looking showroom-y at all.  I guess it's the dirty great chimmney, with bits of old plaster stuck to it, which prevent it looking 'showroom-y' (that will be cleaned up, we're told) but really, showroom-y is bad, in my book.  This looks practical, but still a very light and cheerful place to be - we are quite chuffed about it. 

One of these days, when it's finished, I'm going to dig out the 'before' photos and post them.  It's quite a startling change.

Anyway, this year I am hoping to contribute to the Tannenbaum Christmas Barn.  I have only just realised how late it is - and how much work I need to do to produce some stock for it.  I currently just have one mammoth, Bogart.  He's made from a remenant of mohair, and I didn't have quite enough of it, so he has a black cashmere gusset.  It makes me snigger every time I say it, but it actually looks quite spiffy.

I haven't spent the entire time since I last posted making Bogart though - thankfully.  I have been trying to design a meerkat.  It has taken so long (and it isn't complete yet) that I'm not sure what to do anymore.  I can't really afford to devote much more time to him, and yet I need to make something back on the time I've already spent.  And, I like what I've done so far.  I have completed the head and the body.  Here is part of the head, along with the photograph I'm working from.

It doesn't look like much, I realise, but it is at least the right shape.  I spent ages trying to get that shape via the ordinary method - i.e. two side pieces and a gusset - but it didn't work (and I assure you, I exhausted every single possibility).

I am going to break from the meerkat for a little while, so I can put together some stock for the christmas barn.  It has been ages though since I took anything into the Coggleshall art gallery.  If I can get this meerkat on his feet anytime soon, that is where he will be going.

Aimie

My new patchwork mammoth!  I once made a patchwork bear, which found a home at the Clare Priory Craft Fair.  I love the way these patchwork creatures turn out, but I realised yesterday that actually putting the patchwork together is one of my worst nightmares!  I know it is so important to get the pieces in the right place - to get the pattern right - but I find it very difficult to imagine what the finished article will look like when I'm preparing the flat pieces, and I get paralysed with indecision!

You might notice that, down her right-hand side, there's a row of little ribbon loops.  This was just something thrown in to add interest, but it has given me another idea, so yes, I am going to try for another patchwork mammoth.  I have also cut out the pieces for one of my extra large mammoths, but I'm not sure I can face the idea of so much patchwork!  Maybe next year!

Cassandra

I know I said I'd finished with the gallery bears, but I got everything cleared up (partially cleared up), and then sat down to relax for a bit, and I could not stop thinking about the one more mammoth I had time to make before I had to deliver the bears.

So here she is - rather tackily photographed standing on a bag for life, in the garden.  I'm afraid it rained all morning so we had to rush out between showers.

She is a new colour - a lovely caramel shade.  I'm never sure about making mammoths out of mohair, because I can't really charge enough for them to cover the costs of the fabric.  This particular fabric though - and the red/brown that I've used for previous mammoths - is a silk-mohair mix.  I remember being really excited when I first found this stuff at a teddy bear fair.  Having worked with it a few times, there is something I don't quite like about it though - not for bears, at least.  Strangely, it seems to work for mammoths.  I don't know what it is about it - I can't explain it - there's just something different about the feel of it.

Anyway, I'm glad I've found something that that fabric works with.

We delivered the bears today to the lovely people at the Thirteen Brushes Art Gallery in Coggeshall.  The gallery is in the perfect spot and Coggeshall is very pretty.  It reminds me of Dedham a little bit - except that the street layout is more extensive.  I don't think the Gallery's website is up and running yet, but the address of the prospective website will be http://www.thirteenbrushes.com/.  The gallery opens next Saturday, on 12th November. 

Thor

Have you ever heard that limmerick?

The God of Thunder rode out one day

Upon his favourite filly.

"I'm Thor!" he cried,

And the horse replied,

"You forgot your thaddle, thilly!"

That's what my goofy, Viking mammoth reminds me of, so I called him Thor.  Do you like the hat?  I think I was imagining something flatter originally - I was looking at pictures of the hats that the Asterix characters wear - but this seems to suit.  Maybe if I make this mammoth again, I will put little wings on the hat, in addition to horns!

I still haven't managed to do anything with my little red wheelchair bear.  It's annoying me, because I know the longer I leave it, the harder it will get.  I am working at the art & craft centre both days over the weekend though, so it will have to wait until Monday.  Never mind, maybe a little break from it would be benefiicial.

Erik

Meet Erik - with a 'k' - Eric, the Viking mammoth!  I have actually made a mammoth very similar to this before, but he found a home before I could get photographs of him.  The furry mammoths are really sweet (although this one actually manages to look a bit ferocious in the first pic).  The only problem is that it's difficult to sew the tusks on with such thick fur.

I did hit on an alternative idea - although it was too late to make for this one.  I was thinking of a little Viking hat - you know, with the steel side-burns, and the bit going down the nose, and the horns on each side.  That would save me from having to sewn horns onto that fur.  Next time.

Maureen the Mammoth

I was asked to make a mammoth out of a darker floral fabric, so it could sit on the floor and hold doors open, without looking grubby.  I had a terrible job trying to find floral fabric with a dark background!  Eventually, I bought a vintage dress - a sort of 1980s prom-style dress, but in cotton, with a widely flared skirt.  I have to say I like Maureen better than I did the dress - which is good news - but I'll need to find something else to use the fabric for, since there's rather a lot of it (t'was a very flared skirt).

It was rather tricky trying to figure out where the flowers should go.  It's a large print, so I was trying to place the pieces so as much of each flower as possible was visible.  I'm still not convinced that was the right decision, since she's ended up with one big flower on her left-hand side and one big flower on her right-hand side.  Perhaps a little too symmetrical?  I do like the one white ear though, and the collection of little purple flowers to her forehead.

I also tried to cut the pieces so she had a clear patch of navy blue where her eyes would go.  It looks good I think, but the black eyes against the navy needed something to make them show up.  So I gave her eye whites, which means she looks up too - appropriate if she's standing on the floor. 

Hopefully, she will be liked!

Sky blue mammoth

You know that thing where you know just a little bit of a tune, but you don't know what it is, or where you remember it from?  Well, I recently managed to put a name to another tune...

What a great piece of music!  Anyway, I really dropped in to show some picturs of my new mammoth.  I found some lovely cloudy blue fabric with little birds printed across it.

And he has wings!

I'm still not completely happy with the wings - they look a little bit like cornish pasties, laid end to end.  But this is the fourth attempt and they look far, far better than the first ones I tried!  I will make a few smaller pairs and try them on the little bears of the last post.  Somebody said to me recently that they looked a bit macabre(!)  I hadn't been thinking about them like that at all, but maybe the wings would prevent any confusion...