The Bunnies are Coming for Easter

Last year at this time, I made four bunnies that were so much fun to make that I doubled the bunnies this year!

I redesigned my pattern to create an 8" bunny that has button jointed arms and legs.  I had so much fun adding embroidery and beading to their coats.  I just had to give the wee bunnies, bunny slippers too!

They are all made of premium wool felt with wool felt wool coats.  They all carry their fresh carrot. Now some of them have wee purses and one even sports a jaunty yellow sun hat!

I hope you enjoy my brood:

Here is Lady Bunny in a moss green coat with what else but ladybugs embroidered on!

 Of course I wanted her to be lovely from all sides, so the back of her coat is also decorated:

 Next comes Heather the bunny, named from the soft colour of her coat:

 This little gal is made from a vintage wool blanket!  Her name is Delphi.  I love her and thought she needed a wee purse to carry her carrot.

 This bunny is called Crocus as I tried to embroider crocus on her jacket.  I love the effect and found a wee Easter basket for her to carry her carrot and cabbages!

 Now this spry bunny is called Rosie and her coat is made from wool felt and a piece of checked felted wool.

She seems to be in a hurry.  She is going to find more carrots for her supper!

 This lovely lady in pale yellow coat is named Wisteria.  I love her soft look:

 Next is shy Blossom with her velour bunny slippers.  As you can see, she is sitting.  All the bunnies can either stand or sit due to the tight button joints that I added:

 I am very found of this next bunny as I got carried away with the embroidery.  She looks like she wears a coat of a wild English garden full of Cosmos, Forget-me-Nots and Snowdrops:

 Since her coat was over the top, I gave her a sun hat with a hand-dyed silk bow at the back.  If course she wanted a stylish purse to complete her look so I obliged:

I hope you enjoyed my bunny brood.  They are all for sale (ranging in price from $45. to $52 Canadian dollars) and will be at the Coast Collective Art Centre in Victoria in time for Easter.

Bunnies, Bears and Ducks, Oh My

The weather here on the West Coast is amazing.  Spring is in the air and with that in mind, I made a bunch of mohair/faux fur animals to celebrate the season.   They are all fully jointed and are about 10" tall.  They have glass eyes and hand-embroidered noses, what fun! Enjoy:

This Wannabe bunny has a removable hood and bunny slippers!

Based on a pattern by the Canadian bear designer Jean Pacagnan

This second Wannabee bunny is based on a pattern by Canadian designer Cathy Milliard

This wannabe ducky is from a pattern by the Australian designer Ilze.

Have a great month and I hope the weather is kind to all of you.

The White Rabbit

Lately, I have been making dolls based on Alice in Wonderland and this latest is no exception.  I made a companion piece to my Red Queen, the White Rabbit as Herald.

He is from a design by Karyn Ruby  (on "Etsy") from Lethbridge, Alberta.  I love her patterns.  The directions are good and the patterns are fun to make.  He stands about 12", just a perfect size.  His eyes are glass and the stand is made using a round piece of pine and and a round spool for him to lean against.  The stand was sanded, painted bright red and given a coat of sealer and then I added a wee ribbon that has white hearts around the base.  His horn was in my stash!

The rabbit is made from an off-white rayon type fur fabric.

I added eyelids using ultra suede and his nose is waxed.

The Queen of Hearts was very pleased with his performance.

Stay tuned for the next Alice in Wonderland instalment, the Mad Hatter!

Spiral Cafe Show

I love living in Vic West.  It is such a funky, fun place to live and so close to downtown Victoria that I can walk along the waterfront and be downtown in less than 35minutes.

Our local cafe, the "Spiral Cafe" is a vibrant coffee shop that becomes a local gathering place. The shop is open from early in the morning to late in the evening with live music on weekends. The Spiral Cafe is a great place to meet friends, have a cup of a hot liquid, a bite to eat, and read a good book, or just do some people watching while taking in the colourful wall art.

The Spiral Cafe always have art work up on the wall from local artists.  I was very excited when Pam, the owner,  asked if I would like to feature my art dolls up at the Spiral Cafe.  I said yes immediately and just finished hanging my dolls this past Sunday.  My dolls will be up for the entire month.

I am pleased to say that my art dolls are being well received and I was so thrilled to see that people are actually buying my art dolls.  So far (and they have only been up 3 days), I have sold five pieces!

I am not a very good photographer but I am including some photos.  I tried to display my dolls in groupings.  I put fairy dolls together, fantasy diva dolls together, Alice in Wonderland dolls together, cats together and my wooly critters throughout.

Part of the cat grouping

My Alice in Wonderland grouping

My Diva Fantasy ladies grouping

A section of my Fairyland dolls

I would invite anyone in the greater Victoria area to check out the Spiral Cafe (they serve fresh homebred goods, coffees, teas, fresh homemade soups and great breads).  If you visit before March you will see my dolls up on the wall!

Steampunk Crows

The crow is really a magical bird as is known in many cultures as a shape shifter.  Crows are highly intelligent, fascinating creatures and this is part of the reason that I love to use them in my creative process.

Since this is the beginning of 2016, I started my year with a set of three steampunk crows.  I used the basic pattern from Frowning Frances and then adapted, added, shifted, as we all do in the creative process.

My first crow is called "The Traveller".  He has travelled the world over and settled on the beautiful shores of Vancouver Island on a path full of shells and bits of ocean debris.

He carries a wee bird nest with his buddy on board and is ready to settle down.

Next, I decided that the crow is the ideal bird for Valentine's day as he has a great sense of family and co-operation.  This second piece is entitled "I Give you My Heart" and depicts the crow holding the key to his heart.  he carries many locks and keys and sports a felt top hat complete with side feather.  I decided that for his base he needed a "heart" themed stand.  I used a plain wooden faux spool (available at Michaels) and gessoed it before giving it a coat of paint. Next I built a heart on the top of the spool using my stash of red buttons.  I then decorated the spool with velvet wired ribbon, hand-crocheted flowers, silk and velvet flowers, and paper flowers.  I glued him to his stand and added a final large key at his feet.  I just love him.

He stands proudly offering his heart and the key to his heart.

A close up of the button heart and the spool decoration that I made.

This shows his chest with the assortment of locks and keys.

Another look at the spool decoration.

Finally, I made one last crow to represent the creative process.  This crow is all about the "journey of the imagination".  He is adorned with tape measures, fabric and a thimble on his back.  A zipper on his back, time pieces, keys and sports a leather cap with fine feathers.  Of course, when one creates, one stops for a tea break as represented by the tea caddy he holds!

I hope you enjoyed my January creative journey.  The crows will be for sale at the Coast Collective Art Centre (Wale Rd) in Victoria, BC.

Last Doll of 2015

I started this doll during the Christmas holiday.  Our doll club, the Clothadollics have a new challenge called "Royalty" for Feb 2016.  I knew I had to make the Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland so I started by gathering inspirational pictures of the queen. Here are just a sampling of my inspirational pictures:

 All the queens seemed so angry and haughty that I decided that my queen would have a more gentle expression before Wonderland changed her!

Next I started gathering my fabrics and trims.  I knew that the colour palette would be red, black, white and gold.  I wanted hearts and a "Queen of Hearts" card and a crown.  Luckily, I have a huge selection of fabrics and trims that I have been gathering for over 15 years so I had all I needed in my stash:

I forgot to show you the gold dupioni silk I added to my stash as well.

Now the next step was deciding on a basic pattern template and then adapting it to create my Queen.  I choose Arley Berryhill's Candlestick Diva (from a workshop I took with Arley a few years ago, sponsored by our doll club).  I love Arley's dolls and costuming.  For the queen I enlarged the pattern and started with the face.  I also choose a candle stick from the 5 or 6 I had in my stash.

I tried out a few until I found the perfect one.  The only problem was that it was a blond wood, not what I had in mind for the queen.  No matter, I painted it a bright red and then added gold highlights. The last step was giving the candlestick a coat of gloss.

Now on to the fun stuff, the doll!

I was so excited as the face emerged that I only took photos in the end so here she is:

I was very happy with her face.  I think she has a gentle quality.  I used orange mohair locks for her hair that I needle felted in.  Her hat is made from a red jersey and has red and black embellishments that I sewed by hand.  The trim along the edge is a european pearl beaded trim that I found in Toronto a couple of years ago!  It finally came in handy.

Here you can clearly see the candlestick that I used, painted and glossed.

She stands about 28" tall.

Her flamingo is all felt and sewn by hand.  She holds a Queen of Hearts playing card in her left hand as well as a feather fan.

Side view showing her lace collar, red sequinned cape and crushed velvet heart shoulder pieces.

I made her sleeves in sections.  I first made fabric, by sewing duping silks together and then made a tube for her upper sleeves.

A close up of her hand showing the crocheted half gloves I made.

The crown I made using wire and pale silver and black pearls.

There are so many more details I added but I will let the photos do the talking.  I hope you enjoy my more gentle, kindly Red Queen.

I coloured her face using art Prismacolour pencils, Pigma markers, acrylic paint (mouth and white of the eyes) and chalk.

28" tall and full of fun, here is the proud gentle queen of hearts before she became haughty!