Merry Christmas!

To my 'bloggy' friends everywhere - I hope you all have a fun-filled, family time this Christmas

and an extra picture of my Christmas lights decked Singer sewing machine!! LOL - I needed to cut back a bit this year, so didn't bother to buy a tree, but instead decorated my Singer with lights and the Christmas fairy - seems quite appropriate for a sewer really don't you think :0)

Christmas bear

This is Casper (as in one of the Three Kings), my Christmas bear. Well, what else could he be made from such lovely red mohair fabric? He’s made from the same pattern as my last bear below (Sammy): a pattern I can’t even give credit for, as it was a free pattern found on Pinterest – thanks anyway to whoever is the designer!!

Casper looks as though he’s going carol singing doesn’t? He’s carrying his rusty primitive style lantern trimmed with greenery and pip berries; and has his Christmas carol singing sheet at the ready – I’ve tried to photograph the inside of the carol sheet to show the detail, but it's rather blurred - sorry!! I made it from vintage carol sheet images I found: I shrunk them down, printed them, glued them together and added an antique style eyelet

He has glass eyes; slightly smaller than Sammy’s, firm fibre filling and steel shot in his tummy and feet, faux repair stitching and distressing here and there to give an aged appearance.

For his nose, I’ve tried the felting technique just to see how that works – it’s ok I guess! And finally, Casper is trimmed with white chiffon ribbon, a holly sprig and two random buttons for a bit more colour.

I do hope you like Casper

It's beginning to feel a lot like

Christmas" ...........       cue for a song??!!

As my next bear isn't quite ready, I thought I'd show you a couple of photographs of the Fig & Pear Chutney I made this morning. I've made it a couple of times before and I have to say, it's blooming lovely!! After I made it last year, the empty jars were returned by a couple of people saying "more please", so there you go. It's relatively easy to make; it just takes a while peeling, and chopping all the pears .............. it's worth while though. Very nice with cheese!!

Next bear tomorrow hopefully ................ or maybe Monday!! LOL

Sammy

Rather later than planned, I can now introduce Sammy to you! He is made from a lovely lilac colour mohair fabric, with matching amethyst transparent glass eyes and cotton velvet (hand-dyed by me) for his paw pads. He is filled with firm fibre filling and steel shot in his tummy and feet – with a bit of distressing around the edges, including some faux mending stitches to age him slightly. Sammy has a purple woolly heart stitched on his tum and is 10 inches from top to toe (or paw!!)

A lovely thick woolly scarf, with bells on, is helping to keep him warm in this rather chilly weather .......

but look at who he has met on his walk ……. a lovely robin red breast and a very friendly one too by the looks of it! although maybe Mr Robin is hoping Sammy has some birdie treats in that satchel of his!

The robin is needle-felted by me AND I only stabbed myself about 25 times during the process of making him …….. ouch!! The smaller the needle-felting, the more likely you are to pierce your skin and Mr Robin is quite small as you can imagine. 

Sammy’s little satchel is also handmade by me from ultra suede – and it opens!! and I can tell you that machine stitching such small pieces is really tricky. I decided on machine sewing, because I didn’t think I’d manage hand sewing through a double thickness of suede – my fingers were already sore from the needle-felting!! LOL

So, there’s my latest creation and as always, I would love to know what you think!