Contrast colours

I seem to have embarked on a series of patterned bears recently. Having made a Panda, I then went on to make a bi-colour bear from brown and cream Alpaca, not a Panda but with a distinct colour division in his body and contrasting patches on his paws.

The latest is a black and cream bear, again made from dense short Alpaca.  I wanted to keep more black overall so the contrast on his body is quite a small area and his limbs are all one colour. I tried to reflect the proportion and general shape of the contrast from his head in a special shaped patch on his chest.

The patch on his snout is tapered into his forehead and the fur scissor sculpted to add shape around his mouth.

 As usual with this pattern he is designed to stand quite comfortably and the short fur helps show the shapes and make quite crisp divisions between the colours.

This one is called Gregory at the request of his new owner

Computers and things

My new PC is now up and running, I have rescued a lot of things from the old one including the layout and software which I use for my website so my for sale bears will be located back on the website.  I prefer to keep the business side of bears on the main website and the blog for more rambling thoughts about bear matters and more personal things.

Just a reminder my website is www.hugoshouse.com

I am also now investigating ways of handling my mailing list including a service called Mail Chimp.  I try to make sure my updates reach everybody but I know that some people have very tight filtering either on their computers or at their web servers.  Almost very time I send out an update i get at least one complaint a few days later from someone who has visited the website and realised they didn't get an update message; It is very difficult to cover every eventuality, Mail Chimp is widely used and accepted but it is still possible that over jealous mail filters will reject my messages.

My normal business mail address is gregory@hugoshouse.com but I also use a g.mail account, so if you see mail from grufflybear@g.mail that is also a genuine message.  I am testing the Mail Chimp system and it will produce a message addressed individually and show me as the sender.

Ten Months and Nine Days

I don't really know how to begin this post,   I don't  have the eloquence to express the loss and sadness that has overwhelmed me at the very premature death of my beautiful young Newfie, Buster.

He died on June 12th from dreadful complications following surgery.  He was only ten months and 9 days old, not even fully grown and just turning from a puppy into a young dog with the sweetest disposition I have ever known.

I am trying very hard to keep reminding myself that Nature never promised that life would be fair, it's road sets many obstacles and trials, and the rewards are all the richer for accepting and understanding that.

Try as I might to understand just at the moment all I can feel is that it is so very wrong that this most beautiful creature should not even live long enough to reach maturity, Mother Nature dealt him a cruel hand.

From the moment I first held him at a few days old I just knew he was meant to be my dog, and I counted the days impatiently waiting for him to come home, my biggest concern was how the others would take to him.  It was a joy to watch them all learn to live together so well, Angus even allowed him to share his special sleeping place. Needless to say we became a very happy family, I never imagined having three Newfies at the same time but I loved it, it was glorious.

Buster was brave, and stoic and never showed anything but a gentle loving nature even after he must have been in great pain in the last days after the surgery had failed.  Dogs are amazing creatures and Buster certainly proved that far beyond the call of duty.

Today his ashes came home and I thought it was time that I revealed this saddest news, he was a truly stunningly beautiful dog, his markings were my dream of what a Newfie should be, best of all was his sweet gentle nature.  I have proudly enjoyed sharing his pictures and some of my adventures with him and I am devastated to be sharing the news of his early death.

Angus and Posh are here to comfort me and I will be brave to honour Buster.

That's enough words.... I expect some of you have seen these pictures before but they are so pretty that there is no harm in sharing them again...

Thank you my boy for every moment we shared.... Love you always Mr Busto Boost....

Bank Holiday Walk

I just wanted to share some photos of a visit to Polesden Lacey, a favourite National Trust Estate, not too far from home and one which allows dogs in much of its parkland and countryside.

The Newfies prefer to stay cool so on a sunny day the only thing to do is get up very early and we were there long before the house opens but access to the grounds is allowed and it was a bright, fresh morning with plenty of shaded places to rest under the trees.

When I say "walk" the reality is more of a gentle stroll and lots of sitting admiring the scenery.  This was Buster's first visit to Polesden, I am sure he has already picked out his favourite bench from which to enjoy the view and country air, I can't think of anything more delightful to do than share it with him....

Waistcoats

I am not sure that I will ever get around to clothing my bears.  My mum's supply of sweaters is running low so I thought I should re-visit the clothing department.

So, recently I have been making waistcoats for some of the bears.

Not satisfied with basics I was determined that they would be lined, including the tricky "hump" area and that they would have working buttonholes.

The sewing machine needs a certain amount of gentle persuasion to get everything just right to make neat buttoholes but many, many experiments later I think I won.

I was lucky enough to be given a large number of nice old buttons in suitably small sizes.  I find it satisfying but very time consuming to make the little waistcoats but it seems to be the sort of clothing that a bear might like to wear.  Nicholas didn't mind taking his off to demonstrate the nice stripey lining going right into the hump, and the fully functioning buttonholes.

For ultimate perfection the buttonholes should be hand sewn but for the moment that is work in progress and I am not sure I would want to make 5 of them and try to get them all the same.

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Vann House & Garden

My Bank holiday expedition was a visit to the garden of Vann near Godalming in Surrey.

The house was built in the 16th Century and in almost every century since has been extended and altered, the latest additions made in the early 20th Century by W D Caroe the Architect who owned the house.  It is still owned and now occupied full time by his family.  The garden is open to the public occasionally but unfortunately the house can only be admired from the outside. Rather charmingly Mrs Caroe and family friends are on hand to help out during open days which seems to complete the picture that this is a much loved and happily lived in home.

The garden is quite modest in size and the present layout has elements inspired by Gertrude Jekyll.

However I have to confess that it is the house which fascinates me most.  It seems almost the ideal Surrey Country House,  not too large to manage but large enough to wander about in without being quite sure what you might find.

The additions of different periods are obvious when you look at the house but they blend beautifully into a building which seems to be a quite natural addition to the surroundings, resting contentedly in slightly untidy but natural and enjoyable gardens.

I could quite happily spend summer afternoons in the shade of the loggia with the dogs for company, I am sure they would enjoy all the carefully laid out water, I don't think Gertrude Jekyll could object too much to a Newfie refreshing istself in the ornamental pond.  I am not sure how Mrs Caroe would react to a request to visit for the afternoon with dogs.

Tea and cakes were served indoors which did provide the opportunity for a sneaky peek into the interior,  and it looked absolutely perfect, and there are lots of lovely shaded spots to sit outside and make bears.

Vann is opened under the National Gardens Scheme

the website is http://www.ngs.org.uk/

and it provides links to, and dates of opening, for gardens open to the public under the scheme.

Peregrine the Panda

This bear has been a long time coming.  Over the years I have made a few Panda like Teds, I enjoyed using different colours but I thought it was time to visit the Panda again.

I wanted to slightly modify the face shape without losing touch with my own look and I wanted to just give my own little twist to the design and get away from the usual approach to the black chest band.

I was insistant that all the colour contrast was done just with different fabric, so his eye patches are sewn into the pattern ( other bear artists always ask ! ) 

He is made from two shades of dense short Alpaca, and my first departure from "real" was the decision to make his contrast colour the rather nice custard yellow. His proportions are not strictly realistic Panda, that was not my intention, but I have moved his face shape a little more in the Panda direction and altered the design of the nose embroidery a little.  His eyes are inset on small discs of black felt to bring them out against the black of his eye patches.

I very much enjoyed making him, but he took far longer than I expected, and as ever the work on the black fur proved very difficult, I had to do most of the hand finishing under a magnifying lamp to see what was gong on.

Pandas' shoulder colour is rarely regular and the idea of making it assymmetrical appealed but in the end I settled on breaking it at the back which involved sewing more circles into the pattern, tricky but very satisfying once finished.  He has a double neck joint and I didn't want the colour change to be in the same place as a neck joint which again created extra pieces to fit in.

For his feet I have kept to my preferred wool felt, the pattern has some of the shape built in which is then enhanced by sculpting, or pulling the toes.

His eyes are my preferred vintage boot buttons and his nose is embroidered over a base to give a more three dimensional shape then set and wax polished, the remaining facial feature scissor scuplted over the snout and around the mouth.

So all in all he is not a wild departure from my usual work but he has a few very small quirks which are there just to please me, I made him as a very personal special and I suspect he will be the only one for some time, I can't spend a whole week on one bear for a long while yet.

And finally there is his name, Peregrine, I didn't want to give him one of those pseudo chinese double barrel names and Peregrine Panda has a nice ring to it so that's his name.

Customers on my mailing list had a priority look at Peregrine so he already has a good home.