Rag Pets

Storybooks and fairytales

I have a few fairytale print fabrics, and since fairytales are, along with plushies, some of my most favourite things, I thought I'd make a collection of fairytale themed Rag Pets. I have quite a few Storybook Rag Pet designs drawn up already and I'm looking for many more fairytale fabrics too.

I started off with "Princess and the Pea" by Hans Christian Andersen, using fabric from the "Far Far Away" collection by Heather Ross.
So, this is Princess the rag-elephant.

You might think that an elephant is a bit of a daft choice to be a most sensitive princess, what with elephants having such thick hides and all, but in fact elephants have a rather keen sense of touch. That is, they communicate in part seismically, "listening" to sound vibrations in the ground with their feet! I must say that I also really enjoy the dichotomy of having an elephant play the part of a delicate little princess. :)

(You can see more photos of Princess in my Flickr, here: Photos!)

Princess has a pea-green button on her collar, which is made from Marimekko's "Muija" fabric, just like her bow. Princess herself is made from soft grey wool flannel and she has a very fancy mother-of-pearl belly button that's fit any princess. She has safety eyes and pretty blushy cheeks.

You can read and learn more about the "Princess and the Pea" story over at Sur la Lune, here: Princess and the Pea.

Rudolf in the snow

I trudged through knee deep snow to take photos of my Christmas Rag Pet today, but unfortunately my camera's battery didn't much like the cold and it up and died after just a few photos. Also, a little snow -or sleet, to be more exact- storm hit about the same time the battery popped it's clogs, so I decided that it's best to trudge back home from the forest and go back for more photos when the weather is better and the battery fully charged again.

So, Rudolf the rag-reindeer is still waiting to have a proper photo shoot, but I thought I'd post the few photos I did get of him today any way, since he is my Christmas Rag Pet, and with Christmas Eve just a day away, he deserves to make his introductions in time for it.

Rudolf, or Rudy as his friends call him, is an ace at orienteering. He's got a very keen sense of direction and he's really good at reading maps.
He's made out of soft grey wool and his handsome antlers are made out of dark grey velvet. He has a lovely little tail too, but I didn't get a photo of it this time round.
Rudy is wearing a red wool waistcoat with ric-rac and button trim and a warm knitted woolen scarf. And he's very glad to make your acquaintance. :)

Snowflakes

First snow fell here last night and by coincidence, my rag-snowflakes arrived in New York the same time! The snow continued falling here through the night and only let up just now. Everything is beautiful and white and the there's an almost christmassy mood about.
Inspired by the actual real snow, here's some more photos of the rag-snowflakes I made for the Luv-able + Hug-able show.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger in my Flickr.)

Snowflake no. 1 is an unique medium snowflake. She's 35 cm tall from the top of her blobs to the tip of her toes. She's made out of cotton velvet and linen and she has an appliqued stripy cotton nose. Snowflake number 1's eyes are little buttons and she has a pretty frilly silk skirt with a velvet ribbon waistband and a decorative pearly heart-shaped button.

Snowflake no. 2 is an unique smallish snowflake and he's 30 cm tall from his blobs to his toes. He's made out of cotton flannel and has dapper stripy cotton trousers with elastic band suspenders and mother-of-pearl buttons. His nose is appliqued linen and his eyes are little buttons.

Snowflake no. 3 is an unique small snowflake and she's 25 cm tall from top to toes. She's made from velvet and linen and she has a cute cotton eyelet-lace skirt. Her nose is appliqued plaid cotton and her eyes are little buttons.

Snowflake no. 4 is an unique little snowflake. He's 20 cm tall and he's made out of cotton flannel. His nose is appliqued plaid cotton and his eyes are little buttons. Snowflake number 4's smart plaid pants have two decorative buttons on them.

Snowflake no. 5 is an unique tiny snowflake and she's 15 cm short from her toes to the top of her blob. She's made out of velvet and she has an appliqued linen nose and little bead eyes. She's wearing cozy flannel pyjamas with two buttons on the back.

All of the snowflakes are stuffed with rags (torn up old sheets) and wool and love. They will be for sale at the show at Gallery Hanahou, should any of you want a snowflake of your own to hug.

Let it snow!

This little flurry of rag-snowflakes is currently flying over to New York for the Luv-able + Hug-able show.

The theme of this year's exhibition is "Medium & mini" and the show opens in December, so I thought that a group cuddly snowflakes of various sizes would be fitting. I wanted to do something a little different, and after drawing lots of design sketches, drafting some patterns and making a few mockups, I ended up drawing each flake completely freehand. This makes each so utterly unique that not even an individual flake's bits match! Each flake is filled with rags and as the weather in winter tends to be cold, instead of cotton batting I used lovely warm wool.

Since we don't have any snow here yet, I made a snowdrift out of our duvet for the photo. I'm not too keen on the weather we have right now, the beautiful colours of autumn have all faded as the trees have shed their leaves, and everything looks very drab and grey. I'm eager for snow to fall, it brightens these dreary days and makes the whole world look so new and clean and sparkly.
I'm hoping my snowflakes will brighten peoples' mood just like real snow does to the landscape.

This entry boutgh to you with the help of my cat BooBoo. :)

Walpurgis Day & a rag-cat

Today was Vappu, or Walpurgis day. Here it's a big carnival-like celebration with people taking to the streets to party with balloons and streamers a plenty. Vappu is a celebration of spring coming, although I think most people seem to have forgotten that and tend to just use it as an excuse to go out and party. Since we're not much for partying and huge, wild crowds, we celebrated today by staying home, drinking Sima (sweet mead) and watching movies instead.

The Rag Pets celebrated the holiday too, with Polly taking care of the decorations.

Polly likes celebrations and parties of all sorts, and she's a champion at making balloon animals. She's also a really good party planner.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger.)

Polly is made out of grey wool fabric and she's stuffed full of rags and batting and fun. Her nose is embroidered and her eyes are tiny little buttons. She has a grey plastic button as a belly button and sweet blushy cheeks.

Polly wears a fun lime-green bubble hemmed jumper skirt with big white buttons and stripy mismatched socks. The dress closes in the back with a hook and eye.

Happy Vappu to you all! :)

Happy Easter!

I made a special rag-rabbit to celebrate Easter.

This is Esther, and she's an Easter bunny.
Esther likes to paint eggs and to eat chocolate. Every spring she rises fluffy little chicks and grows beautiful daffodils and she's very good at both.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger.)

Esther is made out of soft white wool fabric and she's filled with rags and a bit of cotton batting. Her eyes are tiny, dark red buttons, and her belly button is a lovely pearly button. Esther's nose is embroidered and she has cute blushy cheeks.

Esther is wearing a sweet green dress made out of Marimekko-print cotton fabric with a white collar. It closes in the back with a snap. She also has a fetching hare-bow made out of an old sheet and frilly apron made out of that same sheet and some Finlayson-print cotton fabric.

A very happy Easter to everyone! :)

Foxy lady!

This is Kit.
Kit likes vintage things and she's very keen on mid-century design. She likes to spend her weekends browsing flea markets and antique shops hoping to find lovely little items to add to her collection. Kit has a really good eye for design.

(Click on the pictures to see them bigger in my Flickr.)

Kit is made out of orange wool and she's filled with rags and a little bit of batting. Her eyes are tiny black buttons and her belly button is a fabulous orange plastic button. She has lovely blushy cheeks and her nose is embroidered. The tip of Kit's tail is white velvet.

Kit wears a grey long sleeved T-shirt with multicoloured flocked dots on it, and a turquoise corduroy jumper skirt with metal buttons. The T-shirt closes in the back with velcro and the dress has a hook & eye closure in the back.


I took these photos at my grandparents', who I visited earlier this week. It's always nice to have a different backdrop than our white walls and the few photogenic nooks and crannies we have here at home. :)
Unfortunately a lot of the photos I snapped didn't come out too well. I had a rather meager selection to work with at that, since the upstairs of my grandparents' house isn't heated (it's used mainly for storage) and it was absolutely freezing up there, so I didn't feel like having a long photo-session. I'm glad that I did get just enough good photos though; it would have been a shame to have to re-shoot these here at home, without the cool old radio -which doesn't work, but gosh it looks neat!- and wallpaper. :)

Noëlle

Meet Noëlle and her teddy bear, Bear.
Noëlle loves Christmas decorations, gingerbread cookies and pretty twinkly lights. She's really good at wrapping presents and can wrap even the most unwieldy things with ease. Noëlle doesn't go anywhere without her dear Bear, who she got as a Christmas present years ago.

(Please click on the pictures to see them bigger.)

Noëlle is made out of soft toffee coloured wool & she's filled with rags and a bit of organic cotton batting. Her eyes are tiny little buttons and her nose is embroidered. Noëlle has sweet blushy cheeks and a shiny plastic button for a belly button.
Bear is made out of felt and filled with organic cotton batting. He has little button eyes and an embroidered nose just like Noëlle, and a little brown button for a belly button.

Noëlle is wearing a white cotton dress that has embroidery and decorative buttons on the pockets (that are big enough to accommodate Bear) and red ric-rac on the collar, cuffs and hem. The dress fastens in the back with a snap. Under the dress she has a red and white polka dotted long sleeved T-shirt that fastens in the back with velcro.
Bear isn't wearing anything, but apparently he's partial to bow ties. :)