Dreaming

I keep having dreams with Ralph in them. This morning he was running and playing with another large dog, a New Foundland, they were so well matched and were having such fun! In reality if Ralph had come across a dog as large as himself he would have come to me and hidden his head between my knees! He did this at the vet's once. We were waiting and the surgery door opened to reveal a rather large Rhodesian Ridgeback, Ralph took one look and "hid" himself! Poor boy, he was such a softy! In all these dreams Ralph is young and vigorous again, I like to think that it's true...........I don't think I'll ever be able to get over his loss, but I do feel happy when I'm dreaming him.

My hands are a total disaster, no prizes for these manicurist's nightmares! I've been doing alot of leather applique, which always leaves my hands in a mess. I use really tiny glover's needles, and they have an extremely sharp three sided point to them which shreds my fingers, but slides through the leather with ease. I have a friend who is a potter, who develped a severe dermatitis from contact with clay (real handy, that). Anyway he treats it with the ointment dairy farmers use on their cows' teats when they get cracked, it works a treat. I have a small jar of the ointment somewhere, I'll have to hunt it out and use it I think. The same stuff is used by many hand embroiderers, too. I imagine it can be bought very cheaply from a rural supplies store, I was given my jar years ago and only use it when my finger tips get severly cracked from multiple needle jabs. A little dab on the offending digit with a "bandaid" over it, and overnight the crack will be all but completely healed! It really is that good! I just thought I'd hand this on to all you fellow sufferers out there.

I have to finish my bears for the next online show "When You Dare To Dream", in September. The photo submission deadline is looming, but I've found it very hard to really get motivated since we lost Ralph. Still, I'm almost done and I'll be getting the photos done in a couple of days. Then I can concentrate on bears for Adelaide and London.

We've been having some fabulous Winter weather lately, with big blue skies and lots of sunshine. I can really relate to being a cat on days like this. I can turn my chair around to bask in the sun streaming in through the bay window, I could almost start purring! Now that we're well past the shortest day, I swear I can hear the birds gearing up for Spring. Soon they will be gathering up tufts of Ralph's undercoat that I've left out after brushing him, and lining their nests with it. It's so soft I'm sure it makes a beautiful lining to nestle into, the little babies will be tucked up nice and warm.

Ralph

Early on Saturday morning our big, gentle, beautiful Ralph passed away. He had been in hospital since Tuesday after losing the ability to raise himself, we thought it was his arthritis advancing and possibly getting into his spine. An xray revealed absolutely no arthritis in him, so we had to look at other causes for his loss of mobility. It turned out that he had an enormous brain tumor which was reavealed by MRI. We were looking at possibly flying him to Queensland for radiation therapy, but the discovery of the tumor came too late and he died peacefully in his sleep. Looking back, we can now see that the little changes in Ralph's behaviour which we attributed to his getting old and perhaps a little dotty, were actually signs of this growing menace in his brain. These changes happened so slowly and over such a long time, that we got used to them and thought little of them until it was too late. Given the size of the tumor, the vet was surprised that he hadn't been having seizures. I wish that he had, as that would have told us that something was seriously amiss with our wonderful companion, and something could have been done to save him. As it is, the family is still in disbelief, it was heartbreaking to tell our daughter overseas and all I wanted was to have her here so that I could put my arms around her, she sounded so devastated over the phone.

Ralph was one of those perfect beings, he was gentle and a true gentleman. There was absolutely no malice in him, all he ever wanted to do was to please us. As a puppy he learned very quickly, in fact there was very little training needed with him as he seemed to instinctively know what was required. He has been a wonderfully inspirational companion to have around and no doubt he will continue to inspire many bears to come. I am heartbroken and devastated at his loss, there is such a huge hole in my life now. I feel a little better now that he's home with us, we buried him under the walnut trees on Monday, rest in peace Ralphie boy.

OK, we've had enough now!

I'ts been raining non-stop for two days now, I think we've had enough for the time being. There is water flowing where it hasn't flowed for years, so the ground water has been topped up to what used to be normal for Winter. I think I can say with confidence that our dam will be full and flowing over, in the next day or two, something which hasn't occurred for four years! I can only hope this is the end of this drought and we will see a return to normal weather patterns for a while at least.
I've been working on my pieces for the next online show in September. This is an exhibition of master works by some of Australia's best bear artists hosted by http://www.teddybearsandcritters.com/whenyoudaretodream.htm (When You Dare To Dream). It will be interesting to see what everyone will have to show. I'm very pleased with how my first two have turned out, just one more to do then I'm done. After which I can get on with getting stock ready for Adelaide and London, the months have slipped by too quickly!
Oh well, at least the weather is good for bear making. Snuggled up inside with the fire burning, a warm woolen jumper on and ugg boots on my feet, listening to the rain on the roof. (We have had enough for now, though!)

Penguins

Ten Toes to Tickle

I managed to get Bronson's feet in here at last! Now you can see what I mean about the leather

from these jackets that I buy. Aren't these feet just gorgeous? I sometimes think that I have the most fun with the feet of my bears, they are the last thing I do and I always feel that until they are done the bear isn't a bear! To me they are every bit as important as the face and I can often spend as much time on them!

I wonder what the ladies in the op shops would feel about me cutting up the jackets to get the leather? I'm sure that they would feel that I'm wasting them, but when I look at this photo of Bronson's feet, I know that it's never a waste :) When I cut up these jackets I sort the leather for different purposes as the thickness and quality will vary over different parts of the garment. There will be softer, thinner pieces that I save for my miniatures and the rest I keep for my larger bears. A long time ago I used to buy faux fur coats aswell, that was in the time before mohair and alpaca fur fabrics were so freely available, and they were my best source of good quality furs for my bears. I think I still have some of that fur stashed away somewhere, though I will probably never use it now, it may be time for a clean out!

Where has the Sun gone?

I'm beginning to wonder if we will ever see the Sun again! It seems we have had an endless succession of foggy and overcast days, but very little rain. Today we finally got rain with the cloud, at last, but we are still in drought. We have had no-where near our usual rainfall, I just hope that the next few months will see a return to normal (whatever that is these days).
I've been struggling with a new polar bear pattern today, but I'm having a hard time getting it to work the way I want. This might be the first head to hit the bin in years! (OH DEAR) Having done this one today, though, I think I know how to tweak this new pattern so that I get what I'm after, so after I've finished this I'll have another go. I'll probably not throw this poor head in the bin either, I may be able to use it to try out some new ideas I have brewing, could be interesting......
Yesterday I popped into an op shop and found a couple of great leather jackets to cut up for paws and noses. For those of you overseas, op shops are thrift stores (US) or charity shops (UK) the name is short for opportunity shop. Us Aussies are great ones for shortening the names of things, but I guess it can become quite confusing for people overseas :) I find these stores a great source of leather, particularly the lovely mottled leather from those "stone washed" leather jackets that were all the rage some years ago. No-one wants to wear them these days so they are all turning up in the op shops, happily for me :) I've added this photo of Bronson's feet so that you know the type of leather I'm talking about, and to show you what I can do with it. Well so much for the photo, it's not uploading, I'll give it another go in the morning......ho hum.

Kiko, my workshop bear for the UK

I have just sent Kiko off to Susan Davies (http://www.bearbasics.co.uk/) he's the sample for the workshops I will be teaching in September. At the request of last year's workshoppers I designed a Polar Bear. Kiko has lots of features which will keep the workshop participants very busy for the whole two days. There is my trademark leather nose in addition to an open mouth with tongue and eye teeth and I have also included sculpted paw pads with claws! So there will be lots to learn in the two days. One workshop is being held in Lockerbie and the other at Bear Basics in Somerset, both are being organised by Susan.

I can't believe how fast time has flown these past few months, it doesn't seem long enough ago that I was discussing going over to the UK again this year, I felt I had all the time in the world. All of a sudden I feel as though there isn't enough time to get done all that needs to be be done, with another online show to prepare for, the South Australian Doll and Bear Fair and then Hugglets in London!

I don't think I will be doing much blogging over the next few weeks, I just won't have the time! It will be head down and tail up for this little duck!

Yi Min

This is the panda I've been working on, I finished her on Monday but had to wait for some decent weather for her photo shoot. Today started out with a hard frost and the day developed into a cool but cloudless winter's day, so I was able to set things up outside and got I some good shots without the aid of lights.

I managed to squeeze Yi Min's dark parts out of the alpaca left over from making Bronson, so there is absolutely none of that fur left. This panda is a one off, there will never be another one made in this colour. You can see more photos and read all about her on my website.

I've just felt the temperature plunge as the has sun dipped behind a rather large blackwood tree, I'll be lighting the heater early today. Having the sun streaming in through the windows all day, I'd forgotten just how cold the day really has been. The days are so short now, only a couple of weeks and we'll be past the solstice, then our days will begin to lengthen again. It's a bit like taking a big breath when we get over that hump and we start heading for Spring and Summer........still there are many cold days to come.

An Amazing Week!

Wow! What a week I've had! The Black and White Ball concluded last night after a week of wonderful bears, critters and fun. I was surprised yesterday, and honoured to learn that I was the joint winner with Laraine White from New Zealand, of the public's choice vote, with my little panda Meixin. Later in the day the winners of the Australasian Creative Design Awards were announced, Katrina Ndrejica won the biggy and the runners up were Kim Russell and ME! So all in all a pretty amazing week with great sales to top it all off.

I can now reveal the bears and critters that I created for the show. I decided to stick with the black and white scheme and made a family of Emperor Penguins, a couple of Pandas, a couple of Polar Bears and a Tassie Devil! All but one found new homes over the week and I'm fairly confident that the last one will too. I'm so very happy with the outcome of my first online show, I'll certainly be participating in many more to come:) A huge thank you to Sandi Smith of http://www.bearlysaneteddies.com for all her tireless efforts in making this event such a wonderful success and experience for all involved!

Meanwhile I've been working on a new panda design, which will be finished today. I'm really pleased with this one, and hopefully I will be able to get some photos later and get his cute little face up in here.

Here's a Giggle!

Just for fun, I thought I would show you where my bear making began. This little fellow is well over 25 years old and still lives with me having survived my children's growing years. He's a little flat these days, but still cute. He is made in a very cheap synthetic fur which was all that was available to me in the days before the internet and specialised teddy suppliers. I sold quite a few of these bears, I wonder if the others have survived the ravages of time equally well? I couldn't even get eyes back then, and I fashioned them myself using circles of felt with a little embroidered highlight. At least you could say he was child-safe, and that was my market back then. I think they appealed to parents because they were all a little individual and not clones churned out in a factory. I hope he brings a little smile to you today, I think you will have to agree that my bear making has come a long way over the years!

Well tomorrow is the big day! The Black and White Ball begins at 8am, I hope you will find the time to drop by and meet the bears and critters that will be on offer, and remember that there will be new additions each day of the show.