Meet the bears... Henry

Today, I would like to introduce you to Henry.

He, like Benny and Bella, is one of a range of "fancy dress" or "costume" bears. As you can see, Henry is dressed as a ladybird. I made him a little over 2 years ago for my first craft fair.

He is made from black upholstery velvet with black ultrasuede paw pads. He is thread jointed, has a brown embroidered nose and black glass beads for eyes. He has come out only 4.4cm (1 3/4in) tall or 5.5cm (2 7/8in) including his antennae!

His ladybird top is made from red and black felt. His "antennae" head band is made from very thin wire embellished with red felt.

He has his own little ladybird on his left arm which is made from wooden beads.

I have to say that the black upholstery velvet was a complete pain to sew. It literally took me days to finish him as I had to keep leaving him and going back later. It was like sewing a black hole! The stitches just disappeared and it was almost impossible to focus on. Taking accurate photographs of him has also been a nightmare. Suffice it to say that it may be a while before I attempt another bear in black!

So I shall continue to enjoy Henry for now and give myself a little more time to recover...

Henry is currently available for sale over on Folksy.

Further adventures in felt...

As you will have noticed, I have been going through an experimental crafting stage. If you haven't seen my previous posts on the subject, I have been experimenting with felt for a while now (you can read about it here - Adventures in Felt and More Adventures in Felt).

Well, these experiments have led to, what I hope will become, a new range of felt bears. 

They are not far removed from the prototype (he came out surprisingly well, for a first attempt) although I have made a few minor alterations. I have tweaked the pattern slightly so that the later bears are a little fatter in the tummy and have a shorter neck.

So with pattern prepared, I just had to choose a felt colour. Easy. Well, you'd think so, wouldn't you? I have a huge felt "stash" in a wide range of colours but I couldn't decide which to go for first! I pulled out all the "bear colours" (browns, tans etc) but that didn't seem to be right. Then I found these, on a trip with my parents to the craft wholesaler, and they were perfect! 

Naturally, it became crucial to fit the bear to the buttons (rather than the other way around) and the only colour that really worked was... white.

So the first white bear was born - with blue spotty buttons for joints, a blue embroidered nose and a blue ribbon.

Then came a white bear with pink spotty buttons, a pink nose and a pink ribbon...

...then came yellow...

... and finally purple!

And inevitably - while sewing, stuffing, jointing, embroidering and finishing these bears - hundreds of ideas were floating around in my head...

...mostly about personalising the bears...

...which is very tricky when they are only about 4 inches tall...

...but I might have found a way...

I fear this could become an obsession...

I have listed this "red, white and blue" bear on Folksy today.

Online selling

I promised to let you know what I'd been up to once motivation returned. So here goes....

I have started selling on Folksy! Yay!

I was going to post this when I had finished the slightly tortuous job of listing all the items I've made. 

But I have made a sale! Only a small one, but a sale is a sale. 

So, since the shop is out there already, I can't really hide it from you anymore, can I?

So far there are notebooks...

...hairclips...

 ...and bracelets.

I'll let you know when I've listed the other bits and pieces. And I suppose there should really be some bears on there somewhere....

I'd really appreciate it if you could visit the shop and let me know what you think!  

Here's the link to my new Folksy shop.