Teddy Talk: Creating, Collecting, Connecting

I don't think that the lady did anything bad. She only used the name and the swirl which both are "public domain". It would be a "crime" if she used similar design to that movie Mimzy. Anyway, I think that the "first" soft creation with swirls was a bear which I gave to my former boyfriend and thanks to whom I started making bears (but he was not made by me, not even handmade). I enclose some pictures of him 

This is him

Our bear in Seattle

With Jimi Hendrix

Hi, sewing a 5 inch bear in hand is quite quick, so don't worry about that. I use regular backstitch on all parts of the bear (my smallest so far is 1,5 inches tall), I only use variable length depending on the size of bear/part. I use double thread for closing the holes for stuffing and single thread for other pieces. I do not mark either side of the fabric, it's quite easy to see where you are inserting the needle.

I like In Love Again by Yves Saint Laurent the best.

Hi, you can PM it to me, I'm Czech and it's a very similar language to Czech so I understand Polish quite well.

Iva

Thanks to both, I will try. It doesn't have to be realistic one, but it should be obvious that it is a wolf

I think you can use it quite well.

Somethink about natural dyes - http://www.pburch.net/dyeing/naturaldyes.shtml

Hi,

did anyone of you try making a wolf? One of my friends aked me to make one for her and I wonder if there exists some pattern or if I have to make one myself. Any tips?

Thanks

Iva

Eh, that's a question! I bought the egg dye in a drug store and it has no manufacturer name on it. One packet costs about 15p and is enough to dye several fat quarters of mohair. They are available in several colours and you can mix them. I can send it to you if you want... And the environmental point - it's a food colouring actually, so it should be OK.

The packets:

They have blue, orange, violet, red, yellow and green.

Dík:)

But is quite simple in fact. The trick is, that the surface of an egg is from proteins and the dye dyes proteins. The mohair, as fibre grown on animal, is also protein and therefore the dye works. BUT cotton is cellulosis, which is a type of polysacharide (we can say more complex sugar) and that means, that the egg colouring would not penetrate (or how to say it) into it. Is that OK?

Thanks to all. The mohair is dyed with easter-egg colours (in powder) and I rolled it and tied in several times to make the lighter spots. But the egg colouring colours only protein based fibre, so the cotton backing stayed white. Did enyone of you try dyeing the backing with cotton dye? If I am right, it should not affect the mohair and you should be able to colour the backing and the mohair separately...

Samantha, they are absolutely beautiful!

Iva

Hi Maggie:) I would have the cheapes shipping I think I would use them well )

Iva

You can never ensure that everyone will see exactly the same colours, because every display/monitor is set differently (brightness/contrast influences how dark/light the colours are and gamma-correction can even change the tone of the colour)... On my flat display the colours are OK so I believe it should be the same at most of other standardly set displays.

Hi Veronica, Tansly sounds very nice, I have to ask him whether he likes it

The fabric for this bear was my first attempt at hand-dyeing mohair. He is 28 cm.

This is my latest mini, he is made from 20mm pile mohair and therefore looks quite fuzzy Uff, and the beady eyes... He stands 12cm.

Any suggestions for his/her name?

Iva

Marlys - yes, the site is primarily in Czech Sorry for that, I should put the English flag somewhere else... And the puppies say thank you (but they have their own squeaky language)

Hi Amelia,

the fairies are wonderful!

But there is one problem with the website. I don't judge the design because it's quite individual, but the site quite serious fault. I will try to explain it, if you don't understand just ask here or PM or e-mail me.

The headings are pictures only, without alt atributes (text describong what is in the image).
- Why is this not good? Try to write "The dark faerie" in Google, or the artist's name. It founds only sites which are not connected to your friends site. So if someone knows only her name and what se does he is not able to find her website. Because Google cannot read what we see in the pictures, it reads only text. And puts an emphasis on headings inside tags <h1>My Heading</h1> ... <h5>My Heading</h5> (headings of several categories of importance).
- Solution: replace the images, which work as a heading by a heading in the special heading tags. There is also a solution (a sort of workaround) that keeps the image-headings and adds the text heading, but that's more complicated (but I can tell you if you want).

I wrote this post because I study computer science and I am quite an experienced webdesigner. (I read TT because I started making bears a few months ago). I just thought it would be a pitty if the possible visitors couldn't find Terry's wonderful fairies.

Iva