Sewing Stars

bears, bunnies, and mohair, oh my!

everyday is a workday. a monday is the same to me as a saturday...but i love what i am doing, which makes a huge difference! here are more process images as i work towards april's teddy shows. after making about 5 bears, which i kept pulling apart and putting back together, i finally hit my stride, and each one is coming out just the way i want without having to go back and re-do anything. which allows me more time for working on fancy outfits, like the kimono on the purple panda.

over the last week i have also been taking care of kristin's bunnies, which are adorable!

i love feeding oscar, he would take the lettuce right out of my hand, of course he got all camera shy when i tried to take a picture. i actually really like taking care of the buns when she is on vacation. they get excited when i show up, especially since i am the 'food lady', and oscar even lets me pet him...the little girl is bit more shy...

so, i gotta get back to the next pinned mohair creation...another bunny actually.

let me leave you with some other awesome teddy artists i admire:
nimbleknot (needle-felted, thread jointed bears, amazing!)
kimhotep's flickr stream (hand sewn, beautiful bears and critters)
missy ballance (anime style with a twist of vintage bears & critters)

B is for bunny! E is for elephant!

one of my recent orders of mohair that came had a piece that i didn't mean to buy. it was fuzzy & piled. i wasn't sure what i was going to do with it. the other night i decided to dye some more mohair fabric, so i used some of the fuzzy kind, and some of an unbleached sparse kind. i dyed the fuzzy one pink, and tried to dye the unbleached piece blue, but it turned a warm grey.

it always seems like when i have made a mistake it turns out for the best. working with the fuzzy mohair was a dream! and i love the way the bunny came out, and the grey color  inspired me to make an elephant, which i am very happy with too! of course they will both have outfits, but i wanted share them anyway!

beneath the trees where nobody sees

that is about the long & short of it around here...

claire, the blue bear

i have been really busy...this is one of about a million things i have been working on. this little bear was cut from a scrap of mohair i had. i literally cut it until there wasn't a single scrap large enough to sew, and some of the pieces are so tiny it took tweezers to turn inside out!

by the way, tomorrow i will be adding whales to the webshop. they are large, ranging 15-20" long. i will also finally add the birdie mobile kits. that will be all i can update this week, but in the next couple of weeks i plan on doing a handbag/pouch update...

meet morgan

what i love about making bears is the intense attention to detail i get to incorporate in each one. on this outfit i got to use embroidery, hand sewing, and a selection of japanese materials with vintage trims to make it her outfit look totally unique. i can see why so many would like to be fashion designers! i will stick to bears for now though...

am i drooling correctly?

today in sewing stars land...this picture is a sampling of what is going on... i was very excited to finally wake up to a real new england morning filled with snow! i am also quite happy with my order of woven labels from luckylabel.com that i just picked up at the post office. now i am off to sew the day away...it is all like a wonderful dream!

bearly here

i am sorry i have been an absentee blogger of late. i have been mired in wholesale orders, working part-time and then i found out i got into a second teddy bear in new hampshire only a week after i get back from the california show. things are needless to say, crazy! 

these little bears i have had since the fall, but i never finished them. so i have been doing some detail work on them and measuring them for outfits over the last few nights just a couple hours before bed. that is about all the time i can even spare right now...hopefully once a few things are off my plate i can not only blog a little more but share what i have been doing!

have a great thursday everyone!

ebay auction, or bust!

today the auctions for peter & wanda end! they will not be relisted...

i will be listing some non-holiday bears next week...

teddy preview

here are 2 more bears i made a while back, but never posted pictures of. the big one is named Benjamin, and the smaller one is named Nigel.

benjamin is about 9" tall. his overalls are made from a japanese linen, and of course it snaps on, so it is functional. he also has a teeny teddy bear.

nigel is only 5" tall, and he is my first patchwork bear. i made him with 3 different citrus colored mohairs. i tied a silk lime green ribbon around his neck along with a button of a orange. i still need to make him an itsy teddy bear.

i am trying to (between all the rest of the maddness known as my life) put together an etsy shop just for the bears. when i finally get it togther i will announce it here.

panda+birdies=love

meet robin. she is a burgandy/purple-ish panda, who as you can see just loves birdies. her dress was my first attempt at making a collar & sleeves. i am pretty happy with how it turned out! she of course has a little stuffed doll of a birdie, instead of a tiny bear. it seemed more fitting.

in other news, i have been creating some new patterns working out the kinks in my designs. i hope i can post some sucessful results later this week.

i want to thank everyone who stopped in the webshop last week to get some fun items. i hope i can start updating on a more frequent basis in the future.

i will leave you with a few more pics of this silly little panda: