On One Shelf - Some of My Teddy Collection

For the Studio Shots - Tuesday this week, I am showing some of my bear collection that lives on a shelf of my computer desk.

Here is my computer desk with the teddys on the top shelf.  At the top of the shelf unit, I have five bears, an elephant, and a dog.  The two animals on the right are a bear and a dog I made as samples for classes I taught.  The others are artist bears and an artist elephant from my small bear collection.  I bought them at bear shows before my now teenage daughter was born.

Here they are from left to right:

This is a mohair elephant by Steve Van Houten.  He has hand painted details and feels wonderful to hold.

The second bear is "Artic Bear", a mohair bear by Clare and Matt Herz.  I love his pointy snout.

The smallest bear is hand-dyed llama by Grandma Lynn (Lynn Lumly).  She has clay flowers on her chest, hat, and purse.  She also has an embroidered rose on one foot.

The white polar bear is Clara, a limited edition by Linda Spiegel-Lohre of Bearly There Company.  She is wearing a ruffled felt collar.

Irma is an "old-fashioned type humpback bear" by Louise of Bear Witness.  She is made from an old coat lining and has shoe button eyes.

The last two critters are the ones I made as class samples.  The crocheted bear was made as a sample for the Creative Crochet class I taught at our homeschool co-op.  In the class, the girls learned how to do basic and fancy stitches, do shaping, and create three-dimensional shapes.  Suzy has a blue dress that is incorporated into her body.  The top of the dress is part of her actual body, and the skirt and sleeves are crocheted to come away from the body.

Riina is a sock-dog that was made as a sample for the Renegade Sewing class that I also taught at our homeschool co-op.  She was based on a design from a Japanese Craft book about sewing animals from gloves and socks.  You can read more about her here.

Studio Shots - Tuesday, As Is

The topic for this week's Studio Shots - Tuesday is As Is or No Tidying Allowed. I am getting ready for a teddy bear show in July.  I decided to do a mock-up of the table display, so I will have an idea of what it will look like at the show.

Here is one of my work tables set up with the great hatboxes I found at Home Goods.  As I finish pieces, I add them to the display so I can get a preview of the finished table display.  I have found this so useful, although it does take up a lot of work space.  It lets me know how full the table looks and gives me an idea of how many finished pieces should be on the final display.   I have grayed the photo out some so you can focus on the design and placement of the table display rather than the individual pieces (some are still in progress - can you tell which is still missing its arms?)  I see a lot of pink-peach-orange- red on the left side and beige on the right.  I'll have to play with moving around the pieces to get a better balance of colors.  Messy cutting table is in background.  I will also add a sign with my business name, business cards, a few magazines with articles that include my work, and a book for guests to sign.

I do a lot of my hand work, including hand sewing, shading, stuffing, and jointing using a tv tray table next to the couch to hold supplies.  I find I enjoy working while being curled up on the couch.  This does mean I am always finding pins, teddy bear joint disks, glass eyes, and other small supplies between the couch cushions.  Here are some tools and materials currently on the little tv tray table.

Here are jointing disks in a few sizes, washers, and cotter pins - all jointing supplies, a bag of vintage buttons for possible use on accessories, thread, faux sinew (tall gold spool) for attaching glass eyes, some shading tools, a bag of cut teddy pieces, a lone glass eye, and some vintage lace trim.

Here is a closer look at the vintage lace trim with pink elephant tail poking out from behind.

Spools of thread found in various places in the studios - gathered in one place until I have a chance to put them back in their tub containers which are organized by color and type and are on my sewing table.  In the background are vintage millinery flowers, silk ribbon, new Shiva Paint Sticks for shading, and my Holga camera.

Studio Shots - Tuesday, My Sewing Corner and W.I.P.

This is my post for the first week of the  Studio Shots - Tuesday collaborative blog project.

My sewing table sits in the northeast corner of the studio.  Right now I have a Baby Lock Ellegante, a Pfaff Creative 1473, and my serger, a Pfaff Hobbylock all sitting on it.  I'm in the process of sewing a pink elephant leg.  The other legs and body parts are waiting in their baggies.   A clear 1/4" presser foot helps to help keep an even seam allowance when doing small curves. 

Cut pieces for a turquoise teddy, lavender rabbit, and a reddish teddy are also on the table in their baggies.  (There is an ongoing quilt project for our bedroom at the back of the table. )  The baggies keep the pieces for each critter all together so they don't get lost or dirty.  As I work on the critters, I tend to add eyes, joint discs and cotter pins, sewing thread, and pearl cotton for noses to the baggies so they serve as little work kit containers.

I love my Baby Lock machine and use it for most of my sewing now.  It has a start/stop button so you can sew without using your foot.  This is helpful if you have bad knees and it's painful to push the foot pedal.  It does only give you one hand to control the fabric with, though. 

The other great feature of the Ellegante is the presser foot up button.  When it's activated, the needle goes down into the fabric every time you stop sewing and the presser foot comes up allowing you to turn the fabric freely.  This saves so much time because you don't have to raise and lower the presser foot manually every time you have to turn the fabric.  It's great for sewing curved teddy parts and for doing applique.

 Some work in Progress - two teddy heads, an elephant head, body parts in baggies, some pearl cotton for noses.  My favorite Fiskars Softouch Micro-Tip Scissors are very sharp and comfortable to use.  I use pliers for bending cotter pins for joints and pulling needles through the mohair.  The hemostats next to the pliers are for stuffing as is the little pointed wooden stuffing tool.  Here I am trying out some eyes and pearl cotton nose colors for the peach teddy.

Studio Shots

While working in the studio today, I started seeing photo compositions of various objects that struck me as funny or just interesting.  I ran and got my camera and quickly shot them so I would have a record of the images.  Makes me think I'll start taking my camera around more when I go out.

Hangry Dal doll

Teddy w.i.p. - in baggie

Assortment of mohair pieces from mohair gift rolled up to go into supply closet

Micro doll sneakers

Teddy leg w.i.p. with alligator clip toes

New Storage in Studio

I had been losing things in my studio for a few years even though I'm pretty sure they never left the room. I also didn't have space to work without clearing off the tops of my work tables at the beginning of a work session.  I started looking through some books on art and craft studios to see if I could find solutions to making my workspace more usable.

Dream Sewing Spaces: Design & Organization for Spaces Large & Small by Lynette Black and Creating Your Perfect Quilting Space: Sewing-Room Makeovers for Any Space And Any Budget by Lois L. Hallack were especially helpful for practical ideas.   Where Women Create: Inspiring Work Spaces of Extraordinary Women by Jo Packham is good for inspiration.  I also really studied what was in my studio to see if there was stuff that didn't have to be there.

The first things I noticed that could be moved were thirteen years worth of homeschooling books - both how-tos and subject resources.  A photography setup was taking up most of the surface of one work table.  Supplies and tools were stored on tables because the closet was full.  My daughter took the books she wanted to use into her room.  Others would be moved to the basement.

Then we decided we had to make the basement usable for storage.  We found a dehumidifier that could be connected to a water pipe in the basement, and our basement humidity went from 72 to 40 percent.  We painted the walls white and put up some storage shelves.  I found a simple chair and table at IKEA that worked well for the photography setup.  Then we moved books, photography stuff, and supplies that aren't used regularly into the basement.  I was left with more usable work areas and an empty wall space that could hold a big storage cabinet.

We went back to IKEA and found a large white cabinet with various door options.  I picked matching doors with glass inserts on the top.  Inside, I put sketchbooks, some finished critters, work in process, and a few pieces by other artists, patterns, small wool and mohair fabric pieces, needlefelting supplies, stuffings, and my little xyron machine.

There was room for some plastic drawer units from Home Depot and hardware stores that I could use to store beads, glass eyes, teddy joints, small tools, a set of French curves for drawing smooth curves on patterns, and some accessories.  We also found some nice cardboard and wooden storage containers at IKEA to hold mohair scraps that are big enough to use for future projects, balls and hanks of pearl cotton thread, ribbon, and vintage accessories.  These come in flat pieces and have to be assembled, but they aren't difficult projects.

Luscious, Luscious Mohair

Mohair -- I love the stuff!  It's the fleece from Angora goats, sheared like sheep's wool.  In another life, it was my favorite fiber for spinning, my favorite hair for dolls, and now I use mohair fabric for my bears and critters.  It is soft, fluffy, stiff, matted, long, short, curly, straight, dense, sparse.  Like most bear artists, I have a stash of it. (A big stash)  I have found that it's not the easiest thing to store, as the fabric is wide, takes on creases where it is folded, and has a pile that I don't want to crush.  My mohair is stored on a shelf in my studio closet, each piece rolled (nap outward) into a tube.

When I go to select a piece of mohair for a project, I usually have an image in my mind of what I want to make and have sketched a drawing for reference.  I go into my studio closet and start pulling out pieces I think might work well for the design.  Soon the floor is covered in various shades of mohair.  Then I take 3 to 4 pieces to my work table where I play with and manipulate them into semblences of  three- dimensional shapes.  I want to see how they react to being curved and bent, how the pile moves and changes, and if the base fabric is visible when the fabric is curved, do I like the effect.   I pick one, but the others may be tucked into the back of my mind as possibilities for future projects.

You can read more about mohair here and here.