Please Save Bert!

Hope you've had a fab Christmas, everyone! I've just had a trip to Liverpool for the first time and spent a couple of days exploring the city,shopping and visiting the Beatles exhibits. Sadly, only a week before I'm back at work and have less time to spend sewing! I do, however, have two sloths in the works!

Poor Bert here was made a little while ago, and has been hanging around in my cupboards at home because I didn't want to relist him...

I made him to try and push my sloth design on a little as the pattern for my sloths is actually pretty simple (most of the detail comes in the face and claws and any back detailing that's added in) whereas Bert here has a tail, ultra suede paw pads and down-turned paws like a real sloth. His tail even rotates so he looks natural hanging or sitting, and his arms are designed so there's no seam at all on the facing sides, so his fur falls more naturally.

Moving from his design, Bert has a sweet hand needlefelted face with expressive golden eyes which were also hand tinted and lidded with suede. His face began as a blank creamy canvas and was shaded to emphasise his expression.

I would love to find him a home before he is doomed to that uncertain fate of the Lugly Makeover Studio... No sloth should have to experience the pain!

He was originally for sale at around £260 ($420) but as a Christmassy treat (and to help him avoid a horrible fate!) I would love to find him a home as he is at £180 ($290). There's loads of photos of him on Flickr here and at my website. If you think Bert may be the sloth for you, please contact me at je-suis-lugly@hotmail.com, or via Facebook.

Here's to a great New Year!

Chloe and the Lugly's xxxx

A Christmas Update

 Hello everyone!

Well, I'm finally on holiday, hurrah! It's been a long and busy term: I am exhausted but enjoying teaching a lot so it's worth it :) The only upset is that I've had no time to sew at all, even though I've had lots of commission inquiries... I'm going to try and make up for that this holiday.  I've also decided to join the textiles club at my school so I can work on my beasties for at least one hour a week: better than nothing!

I hope you like the photo of Leo with my first Christmas tree: I have four big sized Lugly's scattered around my flat, but it's only just occured to me to take a photo of one?

I thought I'd publish a picture of Seymour and his lovely Bear Artistry award: easily the best one I've recieved, despite the fact that it says 'Seymoura' on the crystal: oops! I definitely have to work on a few faces this year as I really enjoy entering a local competition that doesn't cost a fortune and that actually gives feedback too, unlike some of the big international ones (sometimes entering them feels a bit like chucking money on a fire: you've no idea what's not good enough about your entry!).

Anyhoo, have a fab Christmas, sorry for the lack of updates but hopefully I can make up for it and have a couple of sloths available in the New Year :)

Chleo and the Lugly's xxx

Seymour Needs Your Votes!

Such exciting news: Seymour's one of three Judge's Choices in the first ever Bear Artistry Awards!

The competition is slightly different to most: the first round is judged from photographs by professionals in the industry agains a series of checklists. The three with the most points overall in each catagory are given Judges' Choice awards, so Seymour's already won a lovely trophy, but I'd love to win a public choice award too... fancy voting?

All you have to do is go to http://www.bearartistry.com/entries and mark which bears you think deserve to win in each category.

Thanks so much!

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

Seymour the Bombastic Sailor

Seymour the Bombastic Sailor Bare Head, a photo by Je Suis Lugly! on Flickr.

Seymour the Sailor is finally finished! Phew! Just in time for competition entries :P

I hope you like him and will click on his photo to see pictures of him in his sailor gear... he's looking snazzy if I do say so myself!

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

I really want a dog....

Argh, I really want a dog! I really, really want a pug called Captain Pugwash or Frank and I don't care who knows it! I know this is a bit random, but here's the reasons why.

This is Einstein (posing fetchingly on the first ever quilt I finished, hurrah! Only took a year too :P). He's a Mini Schnauzer and a lovely old gent: we baby sit him when his dad's away on business.

On top of that my mum recently adopted a Staffie, a breed of dog that has a bad rep here in the UK but there's only bad owners of course, so Reuben is just a massive puppy: he does steal my teddies and carry them off however!

Sadly, everyone says it would be cruel to get a dog in my first year of teaching when I'll be pretty busy, even though I'll only be living ten minutes away from school....

I'd be happy if I could take the infamous Mr. Poo with me, but mum thinks he's too old... I would get a cat but I would feel like I was cheating on him: is that a bit sad?

Someone needs to convince me either way as I'm wasting way too much time looking a pics of pugs online :P I should be looking at furniture for the new flat but pics of dogs are so much less depressing... someone should buy me one so I can concentrate on getting my bear finished for the new Bear competition here in the UK this week: you can see the new guy (work in progress!) at the bottom of this post, because I just have pets on my mind right now!

More bear news next week! (once the obsession has passed!)

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

Bear Winner

Bear Winner, a photo by Je Suis Lugly! on Flickr.

Milkyrobot, you just won yourself a bear!

As you can see, the random number was 58 as selected by random.org. Here I'm on page three (51-75) and so the person highlighted is 58 :) They are a new subscriber so that's exciting!

I will be emailing the lucky winner tomorrow, unless they get to me first :)

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

Giveaway to Celebrate Five years of Luglys!

Hi everyone!

It's time to celebrate five years of Je Suis Lugly!

A lot has changed in those five years, but I hope you'll agree that the majority of changes have been in the right direction. I really want to mark the occassion by hosting a big giveaway. The rules are pretty simple and you could win sweet Earl shown on the left here: he's one of my little bears from the Teddies Worldwide Tea Party, and he needs a new home.

All you have to do to have a chance at winning is be a member of my mailing list. Simple, right? I only use my mailing list to let people know about new pieces or really exciting news and you can unsubscribe any time after the competition closes, I won't be offended... people who're already members are already entered.

To sign up just put your email address in the box below or on my blog.

Email Address

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Competition closes in two weeks (May 6th) and I will pick a winner using an online random number generator: good luck!

Chloe and the Luglys xxx

Cassie: a Commission

Cassie, a photo by Je Suis Lugly! on Flickr.

I really like accepting commission work when I can as it means I'm definitely fulfilling a dream when everything works out. Cassie is a bear recently commissioned by a friend and collector names Felicity, who already has a sad little sloth of mine in her collection. We first met at my very first Hugglets and have been in touch pretty much since then.

For Cassie I was asked to make a purple bear similar to my recent collection for the Teddies Worldwide show. The colour was quite specific and hard to achieve on alpaca as alpaca is slightly shiny so it doesn't look as dark as it is (does that make sense?) It took two or three goes in the dye bath with a mix of blue and purple dyes, but I think (hope!) we got there in the end.

Cassie also has sweet black glass eyes, a hand stitched and waxed nose, purple felt paw pads and hand stitched claw marks. Wish her luck for her journey to her new home!

Chloe and the Lugly's xx

PS I haven't forgotten about the giveaway: more news on Sunday I think!

The Dust Clears... GIVEAWAY NEWS!

Hi All,

Guess what?

Today is my last day in school before the Easter Holidays, hurrah! As it happens the last week was possibly the busiest week of my life (if you ignore the week when I left my volunteering post in South Africa, flew to the UK via Dubai, unpacked, slept, repacked and flew out to America to study all in four days :P). I had my bears to finish, my show page to design, my paypal buttons to code, AND I had normal lessons to plan AND my final teaching observation all in one week! It was dreadful, but I got a good review of my lesson even though two boys started scrapping halfway through it *rolls eyes*.

Anyway, the point of this post is to say thanks to all the people who came and looked at my page and maybe took a bear home... a few didn't find homes and I am considering running a giveaway to celebrate my fifth anniversary. I am planning to offer Earl the Table Top bear (in yellow) as a prize. All you have to do to win Earl is sign up to my Mailing List: the link is on my Blog to the right and on my website under 'Links' to the left.

Not sure when I will end the competition, but here's an advanced warning for those of you who might be interested! I'll add another post during the holidays after I have regrown a brain :P

Cheers,

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

PS someone called Debbie has been emailing me, but my replies don't seem to get through: if you see this please comment on my blog so I can get in touch with you!

The Tea Party Has Begun!

I hope you like my little preview photo :) Please visit my page at www.teddiesworldwide.com. Good luck to all people taking part and everyone hunting for that perfect bear!

Chloe and the Luglys xxx

Happy Lugly Anniversary!

Who'd have thought it?

Today is Je Suis Lugly's Fifth Anniversary!

Five years ago I decided to make my mum a Mothers Day teddy bear and bought my first kit from Bear Basics. Tedward was that first bear (the blond one on the left): I'm sure you'll agree that my style has changed a lot since he was made! Bitten by the bug it wasn't long before I was making bears as a hobby in my spare time, and only three months before I was working on my first and figurehead sloth 'Poke' . I thought I would take the opportunity to show you some of my bears through time, starting with Tedward at the top and working my way down through the years to Wedgwood, my Teddies Worldwide Show preview bear.

What I would like to do is to run a little competition with a nice freebie for a lucky mailing list person: unfortunately that will have to wait a few weeks until the show is over! I gave up on my all-nighter last night at about 1am as I thought any bear I made at that time would probably be a bit scary! Anyone on my mailing list will be eligible to win whether they're new to join or one of my established people.

In addition I have recovered some of my old unfinished projects from home this week and plan to have a revival: there's a really cute giraffe that I got fed up with because his limbs were hard to turn but I know that my left over locline will make him super poseable! I think I'm in a 'Zoo' animal mood right now, but I definitely want to work on a few sloths too, epsecially as I'm not sure my mad hatter sloth will be finished in time for the show...

I'm sorry I still can't reveal my SUPER EXCITING NEWS: I was hoping I'd be able to confirm it with you all by today but I've forgotten to sort it out XD Big announcement coming soon though, probably!

Anyway, thanks for the love over the years, can't believe it's been so long! Don't forget that the Teddies Worldwide Tea Party opens in less than a week: I hope you'll go see my creatures there!

Back to the sewing board...

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx









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Tea Party Preview

I'm a bit late updating, sorry! Apologies if you're following me on Facebook or my mailing list as you're probably already heard what happened.

Ok, so my elephant's not allowed to be my preview as it turns out: I mis-interpreted the rule 'your preview bear photo must be x pixels wide' as 'your preview (animal) photo MUST BE X PIXELS WIDE' rather than 'your preview BEAR photo must be x pixels wide'... there was also a rabbit preview last time so I'd thought I was ok: sorry to disappoint you all but you have to wait a few more weeks to meet Darjeeling the elephant! In the meantime, Wedgwood the bear has stepped up to become my emergency preview item: sadly this means he will be less elaborately costumed than I had intended but at least I have a bear up there :)

Anyhoo, please vote for him! You can vote by clicking the banner on the right: there's loads of lovely teddies to look at there too! I am now hard at work trying to finishe the other bears and animals who will be in the show before the deadline and hope to have more news for you soon... The show opens on the 23rd and I really hope you'll drop by to see my collection :)

Thanks in advance for your votes!

Chloe and the Lugly's xx

Hello everyone!

Well the sun is shining here in the UK and it's a perfect day for the park but I can only tell you that because of the light coming in through my bedroom window because today I am a Slave to the Machine... the sewing machine that is! I am however pretty much finished with troublesome Mr. Elephant! He's been a bugger but finally I am at a stage where I can say I'm glad I decided to make him because I think he's turned out well. I'm not supposed to show photos before the show preview is revealed on the 9th of March but I wanted to add a few snippets just because I'm so pleased with the details on this little guy :) I hope you like his toes and tail! More will be revealed on the show page on March 9th.

So far I have three little bears and one big 'un, and an elephant finished. I want to add another bear to the list and hopefully a sloth and a hare too: that seems like a lot though, when you consider how little time there is before the show starts! If I was a normal student still I think it would be easily manageable but I obviously can't afford to let my sewing affect my work in school. Fingers crossed I can get my hare sewn up this weekend so I can draft his jacket pattern and get him ready for the party.

Anyhoo, it's a short and sweet update today but I hope to have more photos for your soon! As soon as the show preview opens I'll link you here and also upload extra pics on Flickr as I'm only allowed two vertical shots for this show.

See you then!

Chloe and the Luglys xxx

Progress and Insanity

Well it's less than two weeks until the first previews for the Teddies Worldwide Show are up and my elephant is continuing to challenge me: not always a good thing! I've spent today wrestling him into submission though, and will be working on his costume tonight: I hope you'll love him when he's all finished. I've been playing around with my new photo tent which I've bought for the upcoming show and I love the results already: hope you like this shot of The Bomb! Work on my show pieces is going pretty well and I have almost made all the bears I need for my minimum quota: I want to add a hare and a sloth to my five bears and an elephant so time is precious to me right now...

Careful also found a home this week and has already arrived with his new mum, but I did get one last light tent photo sesh in before he got packaged up... I can't remember if I said before but last week Careful found fame on the popular website Deviantart: he was a featured piece of artwork for a day! It's like teenage me's dream come true :D

As for the insanity, yesterday I went (under non-violent duress from the boyf) to see 'The Woman In Black' as a relaxing, recreational after-work thing. Normally I hate horror films but I figured hey, it's a 12A: what's the worst that could happen?? Full of chinese buffet we rolled in during the adverts and settled down to be mildly thrilled.

Well as it happens the worst that could happen is me coming home, physically scared of anything with glass eyes and wanting to die to avoid being scared: less worried for the souls of the children I teach, more for myself and my sanity. Anyway, the logical thing to do in this situation is hide the dolls and bears and so on away, right? Well as I was planning to do this I thought 'oh no, then they'll think I hate them and will wreak horrible vengeance on me. Clearly any punishment is more likely to come from those I've neglected in the last week or so'. As a result in order to placate a fictional character who actually has nothing to do with toys at all I have taken lots more photos today alongside my sewing.

I hate horror films.

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

How I Design Things :)

Well, seeing as it's now half term I have a LOT of sewing to do this week to catch up with my minimum number for the Teddies Worldwide Tea Party show, I thought I could waste some time writing a post about how I design new creatures :P I'm hoping to design, trial and finish an Indian Elephant for the show which is something I've never made before: I'd need to have it finished in time for the March 7th preview deadline too so it might not be feasible, but I'm always ready to take on a daft challenge :P

I started this beastie by doodling in my lectures last week: normally I do all my drawings from reference pics so these aren't that accurate, but it did let me think about adding something new to my work: a loc-line skeleton. I've read a lot about using this stuff on Joanne Livingston's awesome blog and I'm hoping it will allow me to give this ellie a bendable trunk and spine... if not I've just made a pointless, jointless all-in-one body and head pattern for no reason :P

When I got home I looked for better references on the internet. It's probably no great surprise that a lot of my references come from Disney as I am a massive Disney nut. I love the elephants and hippos in Fantasia and so I started there and found loads of character references to build on. I also went to Chester Zoo this weekend with my boyfriend and got snapping! Best bit? Watching a big male peeing on a baby elephants head, and then seeing the baby drinking the wee from the floor of the enclosure. Wow, elephants are classy :P

Anyway, weeing ellies aside, today I've started the long, loooooong process of working out a pattern. I think a lot of bear makers have the skill to just see a bear in their heads and form their 2D patterns mentally, but I don't have the skill to do that: I have to sculpt and drape. What I do is get a load of tin foil (a-loooo-min-um foil for my American friends :D) and scrunch it up into a vague animal shape. I then layer plasticene over the top: using tin foil means less plasticene to struggle with! Usually I sculpt head and body seperately (sometimes on different scales too!) but this guy is all in one as you can see from the photo. Now it doesn't have to be perfect as the detail is added later with needle sculpting: all I get at this point is hollows that need darts and the general pattern shape. To do this I lay plastic from A4 plastic ringbinder wallets over the sculpt in straight lines and then pin it into place, marking seam lines and darts as I go. I started at the top and worked my way down with this guy because that piece was the easiest part!

Anyhoo, now I have paper versions of those initial pieces ready to go. Ideally what I should do now is use canvas to make a practise version because they rarely go well the first time but ARGH the mohair is calling me... what I may do instead is make a paper version by using sellotape to hold the pieces together so I can check the fit.... shouldn't, but probably will.

I hope that makes sense? It really works for me and I'm hoping for some budding bear artists out there, this might be a trigger for your designs too :)

Chleo and the Lugly's xxx

P.S. Mmmm.... tasty wee.....

"Careful" the Sloth of Love

Careful Close Up, a photo by Je Suis Lugly! on Flickr.

Every year I try to make a Sloth of Love with a sweet heart theme, usually around St. Valentines day. I wasn't sure I'd get the chance to make one this year becuase of my hectic teaching schedule but last week half my classes were cancelled because of school trips and so I had a lot less planning to do, hurrah! (sadly I'm back to busy from next week!).

Careful is one of my little Sloths, sitting at about 11". I've hand needlefelted his sweet face and chosen deep brown eyes with suede lids for him. As with all my sloths he has a double jointed neck so he's a really expressive boy: you can pose him with lots of different expressions. He can even hang from his claws like a real sloth (although don't leave him hanging too long!). You can see a lot more photos of him on my Flickr account.

His heart shaped nose makes me think of the Care Bears, hence his name!

I'd love to find him a new home. His adoption fee is £150 or $235 and I will ship him free first class if he finds a home before St. Valentines day cuz i'm feeling a little loved up myself right now :)

**** Careful is adopted! Thank you for your interest everyone :) ****

Have a good one!

Chloe and the Lugly's xxx

PS. If you haven't already, please sign up to my mailing list (top right of this page) and/or Facebook as I'm feeling a giveaway coming on and will use those to announce it :)

A few of my favourite things...

Guess who just got a big delivery of new furs?!

Aahh, it makes me so happy! I had a great day today at school (I was told I have 'it' when it comes to teaching, yey!) and then I came home to find two big boxes waiting for me. I'm now the proud owner of:

1 yd. white + 1/4 yd. blonde and ginger kid mohair like Bombardier's fur (this stuff is AMAZING: a really soft kid mohair).

1 yd. white scruffy mohair (I think I will save it for hares maybe?)

1/2 yd. short white alpaca like Gem's fur.

A lot of white, right? That's because I'm planning on borrowing a series of big pans and dying the heck out of this order :D I am thinking pink, duck egg blue, beige and lavender for the little bears, and maybe blue for a big Bombardier bear? The blonde and ginger kid mohairs will become little Bombs I think... sooo excited! I have a half term break in a few weeks and will be sewing like a maniac then.

I also managed to get my copy of Teddy Bear Times this week: it features the British Bear Artist Award winners and so has two of my creations in it. It also has some really nice shop features and some good artist profiles too so I'm glad to have it to relax to this week as school is hectic right now.

Still no idea what I'm doing for the tea party theme for my main bear: I know what I can do for the little ones but ideally I want the preview bear to be like Bombardier? I'm finding it hard to think of manly tea party ideas, other than Alice in Wonderland which I expect will be done to death... any ideas?

Anyhoo, back to lesson planning! (Not one of my favourite things...)

Chloe and the Luglys xxx

Gem: a New Bear

My first bear of 2012 :) Gem was pretty much finished in December, but I've been adding the final touches now I'm back at University. He stands at a COLOSSAL 10" (lol!) and has the same facial pattern as Bombardier, although I've adapted it for a horizontal neck joint rather than Bomb's vertical one. I hope you like him! His body pattern is based off of Roux: my first bear that I ever sold: you can see them both on my Flickr account. I loved his pudgy body and have tweaked it ever so slightly to fit this non needle felted face a little better.

I'm very pleased with this design and and already plotting my next order of mohair for these little guys...

Hope you all had a good New Year? I had a great time and went to two new cities that I've never been to before. One of them was Bath, which is basically Jane Austin land. Despite this it's a really lovely city: very Olde Worlde but not as unkempt feeling as York, which is my other favourite old city in England. The picture shows the old Roman Baths in Bath, the only natural hot springs in the UK. We went to the fancy, modern baths too which was really cool: rooftop heated pool, steam rooms and a lazy river? Sold!

Happy New Year,

Chloe and the Lugly's xx