Rag Pets

Good deeds

Edgar Edwards, a.k.a. Super Elephant, is pretty much ready to go off to do good deeds and all sorts of superhero-y stuff. I might still fiddle around with his emblem on his cape a bit and make his tail tidier, but in the meantime, he's getting a feel for flying and some relief from the hot summer weather too.
I still need to write my article to send off with Edgar in the hopes that it and Edgar will be published in Stuffed Magazine. Writing isn't one of my stronger skills (I much prefer to read instead), so I'm afraid getting the article written might take a fair while...

While I'm on the subject of doing good deeds, I'd like to encourage everyone to have a look at The Kiva Organisation. Kiva (it's a Swahili word which means "unity" or "agreement") is making it possible for ordinary people to do good deeds and help alleviate poverty by lending money to poor entrepreneurs in the developing world so that their businesses can grow and that they can improve their and their families lives. You choose who to lend to, and all the loans are paid back in full, so you can lend the money onward to another business or pop it back into your bank account. The money goes to fund things like sewing machines, livestock or a myriad of other needful things for running a myriad of different businesses and even a little will change lives for the better.

Progress

The Forest Friends, my trio for PlushYou!, are coming along nicely. It feels so good to be making things again, after such a long uncreative spell. While my mojo certainly isn't all back yet, it's still very good to create!

Along with getting back into the crafting groove, the bright sunshine and beautiful blue skies of summer are lifting my mood too. Our balcony strawberries, tomatoes and chili peppers are growing, as is my general contentment with life. Summer always fills me with an extra bit of joy and energy, it's so wonderful to have long, long days filled with light and warmth that you can't help but feel cheerful! :)

Foresty fabric everywhere!

Thank you so much to everyone who took the time to vote on which theme I should go with for my PlushYou! pieces! With all the votes tallied, "Forest" came out on top (with "Circus" a close second) and even though I change my mind as often as I change my pants, I'll be sticking with this theme now. :)

I've made sketches and made my mind up as to names and now all I need to do is pick what fabrics to use...

I'd never say that I have too much fabric, quite the contrary, I think I never have just the fabric I need, but at times it is a little hard to pick only a few fabrics from the piles of plenty. I have already managed to prune my assortment a bit though, and I'm sure it will all come together in the end, especially since I have a pretty clear image in my mind of what I'm wanting to do.
And I always have BooBoo at hand to help me with things too.

(BooBoo isn't actually very much of a help, laking thumbs and getting hair on everything and all, but she's super cute, so it all balances out.)

Oh hello there!

It's been a while since I last popped by here, but I'm trying not to feel bad about not blogging all that often. Tartx has a really great post about blogging without obligation: http://www.tartx.com/blog/?page_id=233 and it's a philosophy I fully support. I don't want this blog that's so very dear to me to become something of a burden, and I don't want to have to churn out posts if I don't have a reason to post.

This post does have a reason, and that reason is a super one: I'm going to be exhibiting at PlushYou! in Seattle this fall! I'm really chuffed to be a part of the show again, and to get to share my work with the world. :)

I'm famously bad at making decisions; I will take forever to pick what to eat at a restaurant, and then change my mind once more while I'm ordering and choosing what to wear can take ages and many a wardrobe change before I make it out the door, wishing I would have worn something else instead. So I'm hoping you lot would be able to help me to make up my mind as to what theme I should go with for my pieces. To that end, here's a little poll:

a) circus
b) forest
c) space

Leave a comment with your vote as to which theme would be best, I'll tally up the results, and hope not to change my mind too many times over! :)

The making of a super hero

Edgar is coming along, slowly but surely.
I'm having great fun working on him, although Edgar-work is occasionally punctuated by other projects and things that need doing, so he's not progressing super quickly. Still, I get to be the comics geek I am and I'm trying out some new things while I'm at it!

Edgar is the first Rag Pet to get safety eyes. I'd been looking for little safety eyes for ages and was lucky enough to finally find some, measuring a tiny 4,5 mm, through 6060 on Etsy (who I thoroughly recommend to everyone needing safety eyes of any size). I like the, umh... well, professional look safety eyes give and how easy, if a bit of a pain in the fingers, they are to pop in.
I also got some new polyfill at my local fabric store, expecting it to be that kind of crunchy, rough sort since it was really cheap, but it turned out to be lovely and soft with a great loft instead! Edgar now has some of this new polyfill padding his rag innards a bit.

Mr Edwards, aka. Super Elephant, like all great super heroes from Spiderman to Batman, is of course making his own costume. :)

Stay tuned for more Edgar Edwards, mild mannered office worker by day, Super Elephant by night — same Rag-time, same Rag-channel!

perhaps, maybe, possibly

I firmly believe that there is nothing that's impossible if you just try, and that there are no sorrier words than "could have been". So, with that, I've decided to try my luck and I'm going to submit an article to Stuffed Magazine in the hopes that it might get published.

I'm going to make a very special rag-elephant for my submission, as you can see bellow.

(Click on the image to see it better.)

I still need to get a few bits and bobs yet, but here's some of the fabrics I'm planning on using for Edgar:

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I sometimes find it hard to come by the motivation to work, but I'm really excited about getting Edgar put together! It's nice to have a real purpose for the Rag Pets I make, instead of them just ending up sitting in the living room bookcase waiting for the day I get my shop done. I've also had the idea of a superhero Rag Pet -being a bit of a comics & superheroes geek myself- rolling around my head for a long while now, so it's super to have a special something to make it for. And of course it would be absolutely awesome to have my work published in Stuffed!
Onward and upward! :)

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. :)

Yarn Saturday

Now, I know it's not technically Saturday anymore, but for me, the day doesn't change until I've slept and it's morning again. And I'm sure it's still Saturday somewhere in the world.

Easter Saturday is called "Lanka Lauantai" in Finnish, which translates into "Yarn Saturday". Traditionally, the yarn produced during the winter was washed during Holy Saturday, hence the fun alliterative name for this particular day.
I had no yarn to wash, but I did sew all day today, which is also why I'm a bit late in posting this. I just got into that blissful sewing groove where there's nothing else but you and the sewing machine and the needle & thread doing their magic. I've been sewing pretty much all my life, and I am still amazed how a few pieces of fabric and some thread can turn into anything and everything you can imagine.

In this case, what those pieces of fabric and streams of thread have turned into is an Easter bunny, who will be properly introduced to you tomorrow when I've had time to take her photos. :)

Something different

I'm working on something new and it's all rather exhilarating! It's fun to get to stretch your creative muscles and to do something different every now and then. And what better time for new things than spring!

Spring always gets my energy up and sparkling. It's how everything is new again, and how there's so, so much more light than during the dark, drab winter. There's still snow on the ground here, but that doesn't matter since we had no snow last winter and this year winter actually feels like winter with snow and bitterly cold days and all. The snow makes the air sparkle during brilliant, cold days and it's a bit like living inside a giant crystal.
Still, I'm eager for spring to come. I've missed the sun during the winter (it would hardly rise at all before it already begun to set), and as I'm prone to come down with SAD in the dark months, it's like I'm now beginning to wake after a long sleep. I've come to the conclusion that I must be solar powered! :)

Any ways, I'm working on a new kind of Rag Pet, something a little different that I've taken to calling "Print Pets". I designed and drew and PhotoShopped all of yesterday and now I'm waiting for my test swatch to come from Spoonflower (if you're not familiar with them, it's a brilliant service that lets you design & print your own fabrics), eager to see how everything will turn out. It's nice to have a new project in the works! :)