Mini Moose

My three-mooses-in-three-days idea isn't going to work: I've run out of thread.

Is it me, or do they look quite interesting in their unstuffed state?

Sitting moose

Good morning.  I put these pictures on Facebook yesterday and forgot to add them here.  This is the second version of my moose, the sitting version.  I have called him Sven.  He has truly gigantic antlers! So much so that when I took him into the Art & Craft Centre yesterday, I could not fit him into the glass cabinet.  I have had to sit him and Mossy on top - which is worrying me slightly because if someone knocked him onto the floor, those antlers might be damaged.

This might be the only time I've every managed to get anything done in time for Christmas!  Aren't moose Christmassy? 

In the meantime, I have been thinking of other things.  Did I mention that I had entered Sidney the meerkat into the TOBY awards?  They have a 'Friends' category.  I have only ever once entered a big teddy bear competition before - years ago - and when the nominees were announced, they were all very famous bear artists, so I was a little discouraged.  Last year I had been hoping to enter my panda design, but under the rules, the entrant had to have been designed that same year, and the panda was just outside of that (as carefully documented on this blog)!  So now, having a new meerkat design and with the deadline being 20 December, I thought why not?

I have also been thinking about applying for the big Hugglets show in London.  It is one of those shows where you have to send off pictures of your work, so they can decide whether they want you there.  Originality is one of the main criterion, so I would need something new and different.  Meerkats, moose, pandas, possibly even mammoths, and… something else?

I was working at the Art & Craft Centre yesterday with Barbara of Embar Pottery, and she was telling me about the big Essex Craft & Design Show at Cressing Temple.  It's expensive, but it sounds really lovely, and it is a possibility, being fairly local to me.  It's another one where you have to send pictures.

So I have two commissions which I need to get on with, but whilst I'm doing them, I will be mulling over the question of what the fifth new design should be.

Moose2

This is the model for "Moose2', as he is currently known.  He was supposed to be a sitting-down version of Mossy (aka 'Moose1') but somehow those tree trunk legs didn't look right on Moose2, so I attempted something more realistic.

Is his hump too big?

There are several things I'm not sure about.  He is sort of lying partly on his side (as mooses do), which makes it very difficult to do the two 'underneath' legs.  If I had made the complete leg and applied it as with those on the outside, he wouldn't have been able to sit properly.  So I simply sewed the underneath legs into the seam at the base.  If you lift him up then, there's nothing to look at underneath(!)  I am wondering if this makes him… less appealing, when you go to pick him up?  

It does make him seem more of a statue than a soft toy - which is probably a good thing, because with his steel shot and his soon-to-be glass eyes, he's definitely not a toy.

Another strange thing is that because the two outside limbs are so skinny, they are not very sturdy.  I could try a steel armature I suppose, but that would just be like adding an element of gratuitous danger - the legs don't actually need to be sturdy, after all.  It's just that it looks weird when they flap.  Perhaps better to simply stuff them with wood wool and sew them as firmly as possible.

I'm not really sure about that bent front leg either.  It looks really strange to me - but then when I see a picture of a moose or deer with it's legs bent like that, that looks really odd too.  Hmmm.

Moose2 will have antlers by the way, in the final version.

Finished moose

Well, this is him made in mohair, with proper papier mache antlers.  I was skeptical about this mohair to start off with - it isn't the shiny, glossy, dark brown material I was hoping for.  But it was the nearest thing I had, and actually it has a lovely slightly curly, slightly matted finish.  He does look a bit highland-cow-ish on occasion!

With the antlers, I did the final layer of papier mache in brown paper.  I'm not sure whether it works or not - they do look a little bit like they've just been wrapped in brown paper (all they need now is a bit of string tied round them), and they've lost a bit of the shape around the edges.  But I varnished them once the paper was dry, so they are lovely and glossy.

Anyway, next on the list is a sitting moose.

Papier mache moose horns

This is how the papier mache horns turned out.  I guess they'd need a few more layers of paper, so they might be a bit bulkier on the finished moose.  

There is a problem with stability.  I think I'll need to weight his back legs to improve his balance, but the horns themselves also keep falling forwards/backwards - they are not very well anchored.  I have tried stitching around the wire frame, but it doesn't really work.  

With this moose, the wire simply goes across the top of the head and up into the horns.  The alternative would be to take it right down into his body, so I can pack stuffing around it and hold it more firmly in place.  The disadvantage of this is that, because I'm using quite heavy duty wire, when I start bending the ends back and forward to get the horn shape right, it wiggles the bit in the middle, causing havoc with his stuffing.

I guess the answer is not to sew him up until the horn shape is right.  Feed the wire in, stuff around it, mould the wire into shape, then re-stuff if necessary and sew him up.

Moose

 I've had to redo this one so many times, I was beginning to think I'd never get it right.  But I am happy with the results.  I'm now contemplating papier mache antlers (???)