WIP ... companion dog

This is a continuation of Custom Order #4 for Debbie

I completed teddy #3639 and I am now making a companion dog

(Debbie requested a dog long before I decided to 

restrict my Custom Orders to Teddy Bears only)

I will be using my favorite puppy pattern in just a slightly larger size.

Debbie send me a full length coat so I have lots and lots of mink to work with.
For her teddy I just cut the pattern from the back of the coat and there were some thicker pelts
that were rather difficult to hand sew though.
But I was pleasantly surprised when I cut off the sleeves of the coat when I was looking
for thinner pelts for the dog pattern ... I found the perfect pelts in the sleeves:

Do you see the difference?
Instead of a lot of little strips of mink pelts sewn together
The sleeves are full pelts!
So much easier to hand-sew.

Mink Rabbit ... available for adoption

Happy Spring!

Happy Easter!

I am pleased to introduce my newest rabbit design 

Please CLICK HERE to see all of the details 

and lots of photos of this charming Spring Rabbit

Heather was quickly ADOPTED

Heather is traveling to her new home with her colorful felt Easter basket ...
she will arrive in time to celebrate Easter with her new family.
Happy Easter!!!

I apologize to my collectors that did not receive my Adoption Invitation

I was having a terrible time sending out my emails ... I think it is time to move to something more reliable. I will take another look at Mail Chimp.

Work In Progress ...

A new rabbit pattern!

This has been on my "to do" list for the past year

so with Easter just around the corner

I decided to take another break from my Custom Orders

to work on my rabbit ...

I've only designed the head so far ...
I am very happy my rabbit's head

To be perfectly honest I am not sure about the rest of the design because I have not created it yet.

I have always designed my creations from the "inside out" ... I draw out a pattern and then I have to sew it together to see what I've actually created. So I am always surprised at the results. 

This is turning out to be a rather large rabbit ... but isn't that a nice surprise!

UPDATE Friday March18:
Designing a new pattern takes a lot of time! But for me it is a lot of fun!!!

Here is the pile of tried and rejected pattern pieces, so far ...

At first I was thinking of designing the more human-style of legs ...

but I decided the real rabbit's legs were more charming 

especially when the rabbit is sitting.

Custom Teddy for Debbie

To see more photos of Debbie's custom teddy

CLICK HERE

Work in Progress

Custom Order #4

for Debbie

1 teddy bear using pattern #2

Debbie sent me this mink coat

These little bits of mink will soon be transformed into a teddy bear!

Even though I prefer sewing completely by hand ... to speed things along I will sometimes sew the larger pieces on my machine. This particular mink pelt has areas where the pelt is thicker and that makes it more difficult to hand sew (I was happy to use my machine or my fingers would have been very sore). Regardless of the difficulty in sewing I ALWAYS sew the head by hand because, of course, the head is the most important part of the teddy.

Almost finished !!!

Valentine Pandas

For Valentine's Day 2016 I created three

One Of A Kind Pandas:

Peace and Love Panda

CLICK HERE to see more photos and details for Peace and Love Panda

"Peace and Love" Panda has been ADOPTED

Love and Be Loved Panda

CLICK HERE to see more photos and details for Love and Be Loved Panda

"Love and Be Loved" Panda has been ADOPTED

Heart of Gold Panda

CLICK HERE to see more photos and details for Heart of Gold Panda

"Heart of Gold" Panda has been adopted

These pandas are on temporary "Reserve" while I contact collectors on my Panda

Waiting List. If for some reason not all pandas are adopted by those on my Waiting List then I will send out "Adoption Invitations" to those on my General Mailing List.

Adoption fee: $525 plus shipping ($15 US / or $35 outside US)

WIP Panda "Heart of Gold"

This series of pandas was inspired by the beads and charms

 that I used to make necklaces for each panda:

Panda #1 with the theme "Peace and Love" 

has a blue necklace with Peace symbols and glass hearts.

Panda #2 with the theme "Valentine"

has a "Love and Be Loved" charm and pink glass hearts

with love charms down the back.

Panda #3 with the theme "Heart of Gold"

has a "Heart of Gold" charm with

gold lockets on a gold chain. (see photos below).

I will be using a just slightly cream colored white mink (see photo above

of my completed Peace and Love panda holding the gold necklace

and white mink that I will be using for Panda #3)

I will be using the black fur again for #3

because I think the gold jewelry will look best on black

I will be stopping my work on pandas after #3

because I really need to get back to working on my

Custom Orders even though it is not as much fun

as working on new OOAK designs.

UPDATE:

I changed the necklace and added a large gold locket and
put the heart of gold charm hanging down the back.

This panda will definitely be another black and white panda.

I found this unique embossed black leather for the paw pads.
I hand painted a pink-gold heart in the center of each paw.