Rag Pets

Luv-able + Hug-able

The Luv-able + Hug-able show opened a week ago at Gallery Hanahou in New York and apparently the opening party was a bast! Lots of people turned up to see the exhibition, and it looks like the place was packed to the rafters with people and plushies.

(Photos by Gallery Hanahou.)

I'm greatly amused that my rag-snowflakes are hanging out at the gallery next to guts and poop -very cute internal organ brooches by I Heart Guts and super adorable Pocket Poops by Anna Chambers- and some more snow, in the form of happy Snow Angels by Leeanna Butcher.

Snowflake no. 4 sold on opening night, and I'm really chuffed that he's going home to Mochimochi Land, since I'm a fan of Anna Hrachovec's knitted critters and it's really neat that she bought one of my snowflakes.

Pieces from the show are available to buy online now, through Junie Moon/Gallery LeLe. There's still loads of great plushes waiting for new homes, so go nab yours now, they're going quick!

Bye bye November!

Hello December!

With December only a day away and Christmas just around the corner, this is shaping up to be one to the busiest times of the year for me. There's a lot happening; in just two days it's Giveaway Day. It's a super way to discover lots of great new crafters, blogs and shops and to try your luck getting your hands on a whole lot of handmade items, crafty goodies and even yummy homemade food! I'm taking part again this year, so keep your eyes peeled for a chance of nabbing something cute on the 2nd. :)

Right after Giveaway Day has commenced, the Luv-able + Hug-able show opens on the 3rd. If you're able to make it to Gallery Hanahou, do go see the show, it'll be awesome!

Luv-able and Hug-able
New 2009 theme: medium and mini!

December 3 - January 9
Opening party: Dec 3, 6-9 pm RSVP info@galleryhanahou.com

gallery hanahou / 611 Broadway, Suite 730, NYC / galleryhanahou.com
extended holiday hours Mon-Sat: 12 - 6 pm

The popular NY holiday plush show is returning to gallery hanahou with oodles of handmade plushes for you and yours! Spread warm holiday cheer with adorable, strange, and funny unique plush toys made by more than 50 top plush artists from around the world.

The plushes will be even cuter and more affordable at this year's 3rd annual "Luv-able and Hug-able," with the special theme of "Medium and Mini!": toys that are either just the right size for hugging or small enough to fit in your pocket, swing from a keychain, or be worn on a pin.

Many favorite artists from the past two years are returning with cuter-than-ever plushes, and gallery hanahou is thrilled to present plushes from a bunch of hug-able new artists too! As in previous years, the gallery will also exhibit plushes by Japanese artists whose original works are rarely available in the US - this year, that also includes designer toy giants Devil Robots and noriya takeyama!

Plushes will be available for immediate take-home, so come early to the December 3rd opening to nab your favorites! Items in the show will also be available online via galleryhanahou.com starting the week following the opening.

So, so many amazing plush-artists have their work on show (and for sale too!) there, including such great plushie-makers as Christina Gordon (Jam Fancy), Sandra Monat (herzensart), Hine Mizushima and Tania of Super Ninon and many, many others! I'm incredibly honoured to have my rag-snowflakes rub shoulders with such famous artists!

After all this, I have parties to attend almost every week the whole month, friends and family to visit too and to top it all off, Christmas things to prepare as well! I don't mind being busy though, I like the holiday season and I really enjoy Christmas and all that goes with it so having Christmassy things to putter about with is a joy.

And with that, I bid farewell to November and look forward to a December filled to the brim with wonder, excitement and fun! :)

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. :)

Lights, camera, photos!

Despite yesterday being yet another bleak, cloudy day, I managed to squeeze taking photos of my Luv-able + Hug-able quintet in between gaps in the clouds. BooBoo, my photographic assistant, helped me with setting up the photo shoot and she kept me company as I bemoaned the lack of light. PhotoShop helped heaps too, since I had to use a mix of natural light and indoor light, the lighting was a little off and the pictures required a bit of tweaking to get the whites white again.
I did my best to make do with what meager daylight we got and I lit all the lamps I could, but I could have still done with more light. So, I was wondering if any of you have any tips on how to cope with darkening days and lack of light when taking photos?

Speaking of light, we finally got ceiling lights for our living room yesterday! It was about time too; we've been living here for three years and only now got around to getting lamps and having them hung. I know that lamps are a small, rather silly thing to be happy about, but I'm still super happy to have them. :)

The autumn "blahs"

I've got the "blahs", which are like the blues, but less sad and more just a simple lack of enthusiasm and energy. The blahs cause a lot of moping about wearing your PJs all day long, wanting to snuggle under a blanket and cravings for chocolate. I know it's all down the dwindling light and the seemingly constant drizzle that makes everything drab and wet. This season just doesn't agree with me, even if I do love the beauty of "ruska" (there isn't an english word for this, it means the the colourful time when the leaves turn) which has been especially splendid this year, getting to wear a lot of layers and drinking lots of hot coco.

I've finished my pieces for Luv-able & Hug-able, but I'm having a hard time taking photos of them, since there's precious little light now with the days getting shorter and shorter, and the dreary weather doesn't help one bit either. I don't think I've seen the sun make even a brief appearance these past few days.
I had a rather unsuccessful photo shoot today, which admittedly didn't do much to improve my already blah mood. I hope to have better luck getting pictures of my snowy quintet tomorrow. I really enjoyed making these five plushies; I decided to do something a little different and I'm happy with how it all turned out and I'm eager to get to show them off now!

Things to come

For some reason I thought I'd already mentioned this in my previous entry, but it would seem that the flu (which is still bothering me) addled my brain and I didn't. So, I'm happy to now tell you that I'll be exhibiting in the Luv-able & Hug-able show at Gallery Hanahou in New York this winter! The theme this year is "Medium and Mini", with works ranging in size from plushies perfect for hugging to teeny tiny little plushies. The show will open on the 3rd of December and it will run until January 9th, so if you happen to be in New York during that time, please go visit the gallery!

Here's a little sneak peek at what I'll be making for the show:

I'm super excited to be a part of this, knowing that my plushies will be on show in one of my most favourite cities and in awesome company too! Among the artists exhibting this year is one of my most favourite plush-artists, Christina Gordon of Jamfancy. I've been a great big fan of her work for ages, so it's very cool to have my plushies rubbing shoulders with hers, as it were. :)