This is my next Custom Order ... and it will be a challenge!
I was sent two beautiful family minks, a lovely vintage mink stole, and a more unusual and very artistic mink coat with wonderful geometric designs on the back.
I was sent two beautiful family minks, a lovely vintage mink stole, and a more unusual and very artistic mink coat with wonderful geometric designs on the back.
What will I make?
Just wait and see ... I have ideas!
Nov. 24, 2014 Update
I designed a custom teddy bear pattern just for this mink ... so this order will take a lot longer than my usual custom orders. I designed a "pajama teddy" where I will use the patterned jacket for the body (which will give the impression that it is wearing clothes) and I will use the smaller mink stole for the head, neck, paws and feet. But in order to make sure that the pattern is in correct proportions I decided to make the first teddy using this new pattern from my own minks ... the result was a wonderful Christmas Teddy that I called "Waiting for Santa". This teddy was adopted with lightening speed as soon as I made it available.
As requested, I will be making these custom teddies larger than my usual teddies. My usual teddies are around 10 inches tall. I am increasing the pattern by 25% which should make the custom teddies between 12 and 13 inches.
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| I increased my "Christmas Teddy" pattern by 25%. You can see the size difference in the head patterns. |
There is a reason that I prefer to keep my teddies in the 10 inch range ... it is to give me mink hairs that are long enough on the face to scissor-sculpt ... to give my teddies the sweet puffy cheeks that my collectors have come to love. But these are custom teddies and it has been requested that they should be bigger teddies.
Taking the mink garments apart can be very time consuming depending on how they were constructed:
This is the mink stole ...
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| This is the mink stole ... once it has been taken apart you can see how small it really is. This is one side of the stole. The hairs on the mink stole are already short, so this teddy will not have very puffy cheeks. |
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| This is the back-side of the stole. I am happy that this is a full pelt as opposed to a lot of little pieces of mink sewn together. I prefer the full pelts because they tend to be stronger. I find that if a pelt is going to shred it is usually where they have been sewn together, which is why I always line my teddies with cotton fabric ... to give then extra inner strength. |
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| I've taken apart the unusually patterned mink coat |
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| This is the back side. There dark fabric strips in between the thin leather pelts. |
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| Obvious striped pattern |
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| Besides the thin pelts strips and the fabric between them, you can see that the pelts are also small strips sewn together. |
This post is getting rather lengthy so as I add to this WIP description I will direct you to another page on my blog ...
